Roulette

by Megan Mulry

  “Cold?” he asks, then continues kissing and licking me until I can’t think and I start quaking. “Do you want me to stop so we can go inside and warm up?” He breathes a warm stream of air against my sensitive, swollen flesh.

  “Don’t you dare stop,” I order, pushing myself up onto my elbows so I can look him in the eye. He dips his head again, and my neck arches back in shameless pleasure, until his relentless mouth hurls me into a release that has me crying out into the night sky.

  I start to doze against his shoulder a while later. He’s pulled the blanket over our naked bodies, and I’m half-asleep when he whispers, “Will you stay the night?”

  It seems dumb to drive back to Margot’s when we’re so comfortable here, so I mumble my agreement. I vaguely remember being carried up the wide stone stairs and being placed into soft linen sheets. I’m still in that half-waking, half-dreaming space when I stretch my arms above my head and reach for him. He comes into my arms and we make love again, slowly and gently, in the darkness.

  We fall asleep almost immediately afterward. His chest against my back—and his strong arms enveloping me in that safe heat—lulls me into contentment.

  When the wine—or my dreamy denial—wears off, I blink my eyes open into the darkness. I reach for my phone on the bedside table and remember I’m at Rome’s and then see a small clock that reads 3:17. I turn back to the middle of the bed, thinking I’ll get a few more hours of thoughtless intimacy against Rome’s hot muscles, and see that he’s sitting up at the edge of the bed, the silhouette of his body outlined by the bright screen of his tablet.

  “Fuck,” he mutters.

  I come up behind him on my knees, thinking I’ll console him, whatever it is. I wrap my arms around his neck and press my chest against his strong back and practically purr like a kitten. Then I peer over his shoulder to see what he’s looking at.

  “No . . .” I whisper. I’m such an idiot. I want to scratch my own skin off, or the memory of him on my skin. I pull away from him like he’s my kryptonite. Because he is.

  The French equivalent of TMZ has posted a picture of him kissing me in his car in the hotel parking lot last night. The headline taunts: ROMAN HOLIDAY: EVEN ENGAGED, A NEW WOMAN OF THE WEEK!

  “Take me home,” I say, my voice dry and brittle, not even sounding like me. Then I realize I don’t really have a home, and I hate myself even more.

  “Miki, come on. It’s just PR.”

  “Take me back to Margot’s now!” I scream. I look around the darkened room and see I don’t have any clothes to put on, and I’m certainly not going to put on one of his Rome-scented shirts, even for the short walk downstairs. I nearly trip on the carpet as I race out of the room and take the stone stairs two at a time to get back to the study and back into Lulu’s dress. As I’m tying the knot at my neck, then closing the zipper at my waist, I want to cry so hard for how I’ve let myself sink this low into a pretend existence, in another woman’s dress, with another woman’s pretend fiancé. Rome says he wants real, but it’s all still pretend. And I hate him for it.

  He turns the corner into the room, now wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. He’s panting slightly, probably having taken the steps at a clip, as I did. “Miki, we have to talk. It’s not that big a deal.”

  I blow past him out of the room and turn into the kitchen to get my small purse. I pull out my phone and begin to scroll past my text and email alerts. I open a gossip site and skim through the whole article while he stands in the doorway of the kitchen with his arms folded across his chest.

  “Not a big deal?” I ask, my voice filled with disgust. “They’ve got a picture of me dancing in Paris with my mother—the two of us looking like we’re a pair of raving lunatics! And then that damnable mouseburger picture from the USC website. They’ve fashioned a whole fun sidebar about how I’m also the acting head of Voyanovski Industries, with a few business-and-pleasure double entendres thrown in for good measure. Not a big deal, Rome?”

  “Look, I deal with this sort of thing all the time—”

  “Exactly!” I cry. I don’t care about appearing sensible or keeping my voice down. If I want to shriek like a banshee, then I’m damn well going to. I shake my phone at him. “This is exactly what I told you I don’t want! What I can’t handle! This is what I despise about my mother! And you! These fucking antics!”

  I shove the phone back into my bag and snap it shut. I’m breathing heavily from my outburst. I shut my eyes and shake my hair out and then stare at him with all the venom that is coursing through my veins. “Just let me go.”

  His body reacts as if I’ve punched him in the chest. “You can’t mean that, Miki,” he says from across the room. He starts to walk toward me. “After tonight . . . the two of us . . . think about what you’re saying.”

  “Don’t come near me. I mean it. Please, just . . . I can’t be around you right now. Give me the keys to your car if you don’t want to drive me.” I hold out my hand.

  “I’ll take you.” He stops walking toward me. I can tell he wants to touch me and make it better and hold me and make everything go away, but he is the fucking cause of everything that I want to go away.

  We get in the car and ride in stony silence while I start scrolling through my emails. At four o’clock, a text pops up from Alexei.

  Have you seen this yet?

  It’s a link to a piece in the Financial Times, and as I read it, my blood begins boiling in my veins.

  “You fucking bastard,” I say under my breath.

  “What now?” He doesn’t even bother looking at me. He just shakes his head and then rests it against the window to his left, after tapping his skull rather viciously against the glass several times for good measure.

  I read aloud, “ ‘Paper Doll: Is new interim CEO of Voyanovski Industries, Dr. Mikhaila Voyanovski Durand, serious about taking over the family business or just playing house?’ ”

  “Aw, shit.” Rome takes a tight turn and grips the gearshift.

  “Sexist bastards. Doll? I’m going to sue their fucking asses. God damn it.” I’m fuming. “God damn you!” I yell at him. “I am never selling Voyanovski Industries to you, you bastard. You think you can devalue the company by making me look like a fool.”

  “Miki, you know I would never do that.”

  “Liar! I’ve seen you do it. I’ve watched you take over companies for the past ten years. I know how you work. God, I was so fucking naive.”

  “Miki, stop.”

  “No, you stop. Just stop.”

  We don’t speak the rest of the way to Margot’s house, and I get out of the car without looking at him. It takes all my willpower not to slam the car door shut when I get out. At least he doesn’t rev the engine on purpose when he leaves, but it’s still loud in my ears when I open the front door and find Alexei sitting on the living room couch, looking at his computer. The sweet man is in a huge, blue-and-white-polka-dot silk bathrobe, and I smile when I look at him.

  “I’m so sorry, Alexei. I’m so sorry—”

  He’s up and across the room and holding me in a warm hug by the time the tears come. “I thought I could do it. I thought I could run the company and be the person my father wanted me to be, and be wild and free at the same time, and I just can’t. I’m so sorry if my foolishness is going to devalue the company.” I’m kind of half gasping, half talking at this point.

  “Shh-shh-shh,” Alexei soothes. “None of that is going to happen. You are perfect, Miki. You are brilliant, and we will show them what you are. My paper doll.” He smiles on that last bit and forces me to smile through my tears. “It is a wonderful name for you. We will use it to our advantage, eh?”

  He’s holding my chin, and I feel so young in that moment. But I also feel the fire that is still burning inside me, the fire to prevail over all of these external circumstances, to establish my life. I’m not going to let anyone—
no matter how beautiful he looks in the moonlight—take that away from me.

  “We need to go back to Saint Petersburg,” I say quietly.

  “Yes. That would be best,” Alexei agrees.

  “How quickly can we get there?”

  “You go get cleaned up and pack. I’ll make the arrangements,” he offers.

  “Okay.”

  I walk back to the small room and start to put all of my things into my bag. I feel like the embodiment of that George Carlin skit about “all my stuff”; and I think of my house in Venice, with most of my stuff; and then about my mother’s apartment in Paris, with some of my stuff; and now these pieces of luggage, with the really important stuff. I’m done crying about all this. For some reason, I just want to get to Saint Petersburg and move into my father’s apartment and go to work every day and keep that amazing company going.

  And if we have to sell the Segezha plant to Durchenko, so be it. There are over five thousand employees who have come to depend on Voyanovski Industries for their livelihood, and I am done being some gadfly manager who thinks she can swan around the world while the company runs itself.

  By the time I come out of the bedroom and I’ve changed into proper clothes, Alexei is likewise ready. “There’s a helipad nearby that can take us to Nice. From there I have a private plane that will take us to Saint Petersburg. Trevor said he’ll take us to the hotel where the helicopter takes off from.”

  I sigh. “Yeah. I know it.”

  Alexei manages a half smile. “Well, maybe now they’ll take a picture of you leaving with your uncle and write a new story, eh?”

  “Yes, maybe.”

  Trevor comes downstairs a few minutes later. “All set.”

  “Yes. Please tell Margot I’m sorry I had to leave like a thief in the night.”

  “She’ll understand—” Trevor begins to say.

  “No, I won’t,” Margot says as she comes downstairs, tying the knot on her bathrobe. “What’s going on?”

  “Too much to explain,” I say as I pull her into a hug. “Everything’s gone to hell with Rome and the merger and . . . just everything. I’ve loved seeing you, honey, but I have to get to work. Seriously.” I look her in the eye, and she sees everything, I’m sure.

  “I told you to be careful,” she whispers.

  “I know you did. I did what I wanted to do. Now I need to work. Hard.”

  “Okay,” she says. “But call me and let me know you’re all right. And don’t let this sour your feelings about coming to stay with me again in Provence. I’ll put an invisible fence around the place, and we’ll put a chip in Rome’s skin, like a pet.”

  I smile at the idea, then lean in and hug her again. “Thanks so much for everything, Margot. I’ll be in touch about all the work you did for me on the merger, but that deal is definitely off the table.”

  “Oh, stop with that. Whatever you decide, just know that we’re here for you. I love you. Now go.” She squeezes me one last time, and then I turn to leave the house.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I never should have listened to my mother. What was I thinking, going to Paris and doing all that stupid shopping-spree bullshit? That just led to the Provence bullshit. Which led to the Rome bullshit.

  I’m where I need to be now: sitting at my father’s desk—my desk—where I’ve been ensconced for the past two months. From early in the morning until late at night. Every day of the week.

  The first few days of fallout were surreal. Everything that happened in the press felt like it had happened to someone else. Everything at work feels real. Finally. The phone on my desk rings, and I pick it up with a malicious smile when I see who’s calling.

  “They’re striking again,” he barks.

  “Really?” I click on my computer and quickly look at the latest news from Segezha. Sure enough, the workers have gone on strike. Again. “And that’s my problem why?”

  Durchenko growls into the phone, and I laugh at him—my new favorite pastime. “Be careful what you wish for, Pavel. Wasn’t that what you told me? You were going to get your hands on that factory no matter what, if memory serves. You got your wish.”

  “Damn you, Miki. Those workers are so loyal to your family, I can’t get them to do anything.”

  “Maybe if you started paying them a living wage—”

  “I’m already paying them more than my other factory workers elsewhere.”

  “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. You know that factory is nearly twice as productive as any of your other factories. That’s why you wanted Kriegsbeil to acquire it in the first place, so you could get in there and figure out the management structure and productivity incentives. And now that you see why, you’re angry?”

  “I’m not running a kindergarten or an old folks’ home! Workers need to work and leave. When did I become responsible for their children and their sick grandparents?”

  I laugh at him. “When you wanted a factory that produced twice as much as your other factories.”

  He hangs up on me—his new favorite pastime.

  I know he’ll be calling again before the end of the day. During the negotiations at the end of May, Pavel Durchenko and I stared at each other across the conference table, and it was as if we had some sort of Vulcan mind meld. I never looked away, just held his vicious gaze. While in Paris, I’d done a ton of research about his childhood and rise to prominence in the Saint Petersburg crime syndicate, then his transition into legitimate enterprises.

  Like so many of his peers who made their way out of the sewers of Moscow, he is brilliant in many ways. He is quick-witted, able to make massive decisions in the blink of an eye, but he had a brutal childhood—and an adulthood spent compensating for it—that I can actually relate to on some very deep level.

  Now that he’s quite firmly entrenched in the world of international business, he can no longer get away with as much of his sledgehammer negotiating as he could in, say, Odessa—or Little Odessa, for that matter. So, three days after I came to Saint Petersburg from Provence, we all met in a conference room at the Hermitage Hotel. Alexei, Jules, and I were on one side of the table; Durchenko and his silent attorney sat on the other side, with two massive bodyguards flanking them.

  Pavel just stared and stared, baiting me. I kept thinking of my father and barely felt ruffled. The silence extended until Durchenko was satisfied somehow, and then he blurted, “Everyone out. Except you.” He lifted his chin toward me on that last bit.

  “Now, wait one minute,” Alexei blustered.

  “Go, Alexei,” I said gently.

  Jules slid the stack of legal papers in front of me and patted my shoulder as he left. Alexei looked into my eyes to see if I’d lost my mind, but I smiled and he saw I knew what I was doing. It was one of the best moments of my life.

  Pavel Durchenko and I sat alone in that room for nearly three hours. His bodyguard brought us lunch at one point as we talked through every line of the contract. He tried to get us to stay on to manage the plant, and I told him that would have to be an entirely separate negotiation, and one that was very unlikely to end favorably. The arrangement he had with my father was a straight sale, and, after having worked on it with Jules and the others for the previous few weeks, I saw why. Dealing with Durchenko in a sale was one thing, but my father never would have entered into a long-term business arrangement with someone so volatile and domineering.

  But over the ensuing weeks, Pavel and I have become—quite bizarrely—friends. He is fourteen years older than I am, but he’s one of those generation-bridging types. He knows more about new techno music and Tinder and where Beyoncé is spending summer holidays than I ever will. But he’s also a voracious reader and art collector; he talks about Schopenhauer and Schiele as easily as he talks about Shakira.

  Usually we just argue and rib each other about business, but lately he’s been a bit more socia
ble, most recently having invited me to a house party at his country dacha this weekend. He judiciously avoids any mention of Rome de Villiers. Clairebeau was summarily cut out of the Segezha deal when the preexisting contract came to light. I haven’t spoken to Rome since I stepped out of his car in Provence.

  Very cut and dried. As if Rome and I never even met. Cauterized. That’s what it feels like—as if all my swirling emotions of loss and love and tenderness and frustration have been seared into oblivion. Or frozen solid.

  I’ve got more than enough on my plate without thinking about him, and I’m thankful to be relieved of the obsession. Most of the time. Like, if he happened to be at Durchenko’s house party, that would not be . . . feasible.

  I finally call Pavel on Friday afternoon and confess my weakness. “Look, I hate that I even have to ask—”

  “I love it when you are at a disadvantage,” he gloats.

  “Yes, I know that. Not that it’s really a big deal, but is Rome de Villiers going to be at your place this weekend?”

  “Since it’s not really a big deal, maybe I shouldn’t tell you?”

  What a prick.

  “Never mind.” I’m ready to slam down the phone.

  “Ah, struck a nerve?”

  “Forget I called—”

  “Not so fast, doll.”

  He and nearly everyone else have taken to calling me that absurd nickname. The publicist assures me that if I keep a sense of humor about it, it will either go away or take on a sort of endearing patina. I’m not so sure, but I’m trying to be patient.

  “I’m hanging up now—”

  “Fuck no!” he interrupts quickly. “Of course he’s not coming to my house this weekend. Or ever. Shit, Miki. You think I’d let that slimy bastard anywhere near Azi ever again?”