The Mistress

by Danielle Steel

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  Her conversations with the auction houses in the next few days were educational. She called the two most important ones she remembered, and they asked her if it was an estate, and she said it wasn’t. They wanted to know how old the clothes were, and she said they were all fairly recent, and some from this year’s collections and not yet worn. They told her the items would be sold for approximately half of what the seller had paid for them, or less, with a reserve if she liked, and she would have to pay the auction house a twenty percent commission of the hammer price of everything that sold. So she would receive eighty percent of half of whatever Vladimir had paid for any of it, which seemed acceptable. Unless, of course, people went crazy and bid the prices high, in which case, she’d get more, but some of it might not sell at all. And both houses had auctions in September, when the Hôtel Drouot opened for the fall, where they rented auction rooms. One of the houses had a big Hermès auction coming up, and they were anxious to see her Birkins and photograph them for the catalog if she agreed to sell through them. She made an appointment with their expert to come and see them the following week. Natasha explained that there were too many for her to take to their office. And she sat down with a pad and paper that night, to figure out the original cost of her things, and what she might derive from a sale. It was an impressive sum and would keep her going for quite some time. She felt relieved when she saw the numbers, and at ten o’clock, she decided to walk up to L’Avenue, where she had had lunch with Theo, and get something to take home. Ludmilla was off for the weekend, and there was nothing in the house. She didn’t want much, but she needed to keep her energy up.

  She ordered a salad to go, and some smoked salmon and mixed berries, and sat at a table on the terrace waiting for them to give it to her. It was a busy Saturday night, and she heard someone call her name as she sat staring into space, thinking about her conversations with the auction houses. It was the undoing of a life, and exhausting to organize, but thank God she had something to sell. Without that, she’d be penniless and destitute, and might be on the street. Those things happened to people, and she never forgot that, just as Vladimir didn’t, although he had nothing to worry about, and was dependent on no one but himself, unlike her, who had been entirely dependent on him. She heard her name called again and looked around, and then she saw a tall, good-looking older man in black jeans and a white shirt, with gold chains around his neck and a heavy gold and diamond Rolex on his wrist. He was twenty years older than Vladimir, but still attractive. He and Vladimir knew each other from Moscow. They’d had him on the boat several times for dinner, always with very young Russian girls who appeared to be interchangeable and giggled a lot. He liked them very young. His name was Yuri, and his face lit up the moment he saw her.

  “I’m so happy to see you!” he said, looking genuinely pleased. “Will you join me for dinner?” There was nothing she wanted to do less. He talked a lot, and was very jovial, and she wasn’t in the mood. She wasn’t ready to see anyone yet, and he wouldn’t have been high on her list, or on it at all, as someone to have dinner with.

  “No, thank you.” She smiled at him, trying not to look as exhausted as she felt. It had been an endless week of stress, fear for the future, mental adjustment, and hard work lugging boxes and suitcases around and emptying closets, and making decisions and trying not to think of Vladimir. He hadn’t called her at all. “I just ordered dinner to take back to the apartment.”

  “You must eat with me,” he insisted, as he sat down across from her at the small table, without invitation. “Champagne?” he offered, and she shook her head, but he ordered it anyway, and had the waitress pour her a glass when it came, and she didn’t have the energy to resist, so she accepted. “I saw Vladimir two days ago, in Monte Carlo, at the casino, with…friends…” He hesitated just a beat, and from the way he looked at her, she understood instantly that Vladimir had already been with another woman and was trying to impress her at the casino, and that Yuri knew that Natasha was no longer part of the picture. Vladimir hadn’t lost any time. She knew he wasn’t a gambler, but only went to the casino in Monte Carlo when he wanted to show off to guests. Otherwise he wasn’t interested, although he played high-stakes roulette and blackjack when he was there.

  “What are you doing for the rest of the summer?” Yuri asked her, with a wide smile. She was sure he was a nice person, but he got on her nerves. He was a little crass, definitely a rough diamond, and was always in competition with Vladimir. He had always had a weak spot for her, and said he wished he could meet a woman like her. Vladimir liked to tease him at her expense and told him to look on the streets of Moscow in the dead of winter and find a poor one with pneumonia. They both liked the joke, although it embarrassed her.

  She almost laughed before she answered him about her summer. She was moving to a tiny apartment, going to buy cheap furniture, selling her clothes, and eventually looking for a job in the fall. And cleaning her apartment herself. If she had told him the truth, he would have been horrified and felt sorry for her. She was definitely not going to the casino in Monte Carlo, or doing anything that would interest Yuri.

  “I haven’t figured it out yet. I’m busy in Paris this month. Maybe I’ll go somewhere in August,” she said vaguely, wishing her dinner would come quickly, but the restaurant was crowded, and the service slower than usual.

  “Why don’t you come on the boat?” he said as his face lit up again. He had a two-hundred-foot yacht that was dwarfed by Vladimir’s, but a truly lovely boat. “I’m going to Ibiza. We’d have fun.” She wasn’t sure if he was inviting her as a guest or a date, but either way, she had no desire to go anywhere with him, and certainly not on vacation. She thanked him but said she thought she’d be staying with friends in Normandy, which wasn’t true, but she wanted to decline the invitation. It would have been wonderful to be back on a boat for the rest of the summer, just not his.

  It had shocked her to hear him imply he had met Vladimir out with “friends,” obviously a woman, but he would need to show everyone that he hadn’t “lost” her, he had replaced her, to protect his ego. He wouldn’t want anyone to think she had left him, which she hadn’t. And he’d make sure they knew. He had probably already told Yuri, which was humiliating, but there was nothing she could do about it. If he had thought she was still with Vladimir, he would never have invited her on his boat. He knew it was open season. Otherwise he wouldn’t have wanted to make Vladimir angry by flirting with her. Clearly, he knew now that Vladimir wouldn’t care. It hardly supported her theory that they had loved each other. Apparently he didn’t, since it was over in an instant, as soon as he even remotely suspected she might have betrayed him. He didn’t wait to be sure. As always, he trusted his instincts, and he was right.

  “Normandy is boring. Come to Ibiza,” Yuri said, as he gently placed a hand on hers on the table, and she discreetly withdrew hers. “I’ve been thinking about you since I saw Vladimir. I wanted to call you. He said you were here. I’m so glad I ran into you.” She wasn’t, but she smiled and nodded, she had gotten trapped at the small table with him, waiting for her food.

  With that, the waitress made a mistake and brought her dinner plated and not to go, and said she thought Natasha might like to have dinner with her friend, and she brought his at the same time. There was no way Natasha could leave now, without seeming openly rude, so she smiled and nodded at his conversation, as they began eating. Yuri was delighted by the girl’s mistake and smiled at her. Like all the waitresses at the restaurant, she was scantily dressed in a tiny miniskirt and a halter top, and was young and very pretty. “I want to talk to you,” Yuri said, as Natasha ate her dinner as quickly as she decently could. All she wanted was to go home. It depressed her to be sitting there with him. “Vladimir told me what happened,” he said, lowering his voice, as she looked at him curiously.

  “And what did he say happened?” She was interested to hear what story he was telling, surely not that he suspected her of informing th
e police he was an art thief and had stolen a hundred million dollars’ worth of paintings.

  “He said you’d been hounding him for the last year to have children, at least in the next few years. And he doesn’t want them, so he thought it only fair that you part company and he leave you free to find a man who will give you babies. It’s very decent of him, actually. He said it was very painful for him to make the decision, but he wants you to be happy. He said he gave you the apartment here.”

  “Really?” Her eyebrows shot up at that. “Actually, he didn’t.” Not that it mattered. It was all lies anyway, to soothe his ego, and make him look like a hero, instead of a bastard.

  Yuri looked suddenly serious, squeezing her hand in his until it hurt. He was holding it too tightly for her to pull away, as she stared at his perfectly capped teeth, gold necklace, and hair transplants that had been impeccably done, but he still looked his age. He was handsome, but in a showy, artificial way. “Natasha, I want to speak frankly. I’ve always liked you. I have two children who are older than you are, and I would love to have a baby with you. We could marry if that’s important to you, I don’t really care. I’m willing to settle a large amount of money on you to begin the arrangement. Deposited into a Swiss account in your name. Perhaps twenty million to start, or thirty if you feel that’s necessary, and the same amount again when the child is born. All your bills paid, houses wherever you want. I think we’d have a very good time together,” he said, with a glint in his eye, and looking as though he was sure he’d convinced her, and for some girls he might have. It was a remarkable offer, and actually more than Vladimir had ever given her. Twenty or thirty million dollars in a Swiss account was serious security, and the same again when she delivered his child. It was the kind of offer that every girl like her prayed for, and she and Vladimir had only been apart for a week. She was stunned. “I could buy the apartment here from Vladimir if you want, if he’s not giving it to you. That way you wouldn’t have to move. I stay at the George V.” She knew he had a flat in London too. He didn’t have the flotilla of huge yachts that Vladimir did, or the houses. He didn’t own entire industries in Russia, and the president wasn’t in his pocket. But he was a very, very rich man, worth several billion dollars, according to Vladimir, who knew about such things. And he had no trouble surrounding himself with beautiful women. But not her.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she said, realizing what he was offering her, security for life, a child if she wanted, and marriage, so she would be allegedly respectable, although not in her own eyes, and the apartment she loved so she wouldn’t have to move. She could keep her clothes and jewels, and she knew he was a generous man. She had seen what he gave the girls he went out with.

  He was offering her the kind of security she was used to, even more than Vladimir ever had. Yuri had waited years to make her the offer, hoping that at some point she and Vladimir would part ways. “It’s extremely generous of you, Yuri. But I don’t want to settle down with anyone. It’s too soon.” She tried to look demure, and what could she say? That he disgusted her and made her skin crawl? That she wanted to live in a tiny apartment smaller than one of her current closets? And get a job that she could barely survive on? That she was selling everything she owned and when she ran out of money, she had no idea what she’d do? What she wanted now was her freedom, not to trade her life and body to a rich man for security. Maybe the women who did so were smarter than she was, she told herself. But she didn’t want to sell herself into slavery again, at any price. She wasn’t for sale, but Yuri would never understand it if she said it to him any more than Vladimir would have. In their minds, she was a commodity they could buy. The only question was for how much. He was offering her a business deal and a good one, and she wondered if others would too. The competition between men like him and Vladimir was fierce, and they all thought that acquiring what he had, even his cast-off women, would somehow make them more like him. But there was only one Vladimir, and she had had him. She didn’t want another one, neither a worse nor a better one. She would rather try to make it on her own now, even if she drowned. She hadn’t realized it, but she had wanted this for years, and Vladimir had handed her her independence on a silver platter. She wasn’t willing to give it up again. “I’m not ready,” she said kindly, and he looked disappointed, but said he understood.

  “Well, when you are, I’ll be waiting. And know that the deal stands. I won’t take it off the table. If you feel you need more, we can talk about it.” He was used to women who negotiated hard. Natasha never had. She had asked Vladimir for nothing, and received much, but she had left it up to him.

  She finished her dinner sitting with Yuri, and tried to pay for her own, but he wouldn’t let her. He kissed her lightly on the lips when she left him at the restaurant, and he asked to stay in touch, which she knew she wouldn’t do. She ran back to the apartment and wanted to shower when she got there. She had passed up a major business deal, and the idea of it made her feel sick. It made her realize what she had done for the past eight years. She had sold her body and soul to one of the richest men in the world. And no matter what happened now, she knew she would never do it again. No one would ever control her, and she wasn’t selling her body, her life, or her freedom at any price. Not to Vladimir or Yuri, and to no one else. She was free at last, and no longer for sale.

  Chapter 14

  Natasha’s clothes arrived from the boat the week after she had left, and she sorted through them too. She kept very few of them except the white jeans and bathing suits and a white Birkin she could wear in the summer. She couldn’t imagine having a boat life again, and she shuddered every time she thought of Yuri’s proposal. He meant well perhaps, but she felt dizzy when she thought of selling herself again. Another woman, and many she had met with the men Vladimir knew, or even most, wouldn’t have cared how old Yuri was, what he looked like, or whether they were attracted to him or not. It was all about what he had and what they could get. In a way, she thought they were high-priced prostitutes, and she wondered if she had been too. She had dignified her relationship with Vladimir by believing that she loved him and that he needed her, but as it turned out he didn’t love or need her. She had been a possession, and maybe what she had felt for him wasn’t love, but gratitude and respect. And now she didn’t even respect him. And the only feeling she had for Yuri was revulsion, although he had certainly made her a good offer, and he would never have understood why she turned him down.

  Her final meetings with the auction houses were efficient and depressing. It occurred to her that they had been right to ask her if it was an estate. The person she had been when she wore those clothes no longer existed and had died. She was selling a dead person’s clothes, from a dead life. She would get decent money out of what she sold, to live on, not to show off. But she would only get big money if she sold her body again, and took an offer like Yuri’s. But she didn’t need big money now or want the life offered, or the one she’d had.

  She stood to make the most money on the Birkins with the diamond clasps, which usually sold at auction for more than what they went for at Hermès, which was good for her. And she still had the jewels to sell. She took them to a jeweler and sold them for a fraction of what Vladimir had paid for them and put the money in the bank.

  She signed the papers with the larger of two auction houses she’d spoken to, to include her clothes in an haute couture sale in September at the beginning of the auction season. And she consigned her bags to an Hermès auction later that month. They were picking everything up the day before she moved. And she felt strangely free and unencumbered after signing the papers. The symbols of her slavery were slowly disappearing, like chains that were falling away. She wanted to be rid of the trappings of her old life and everything she didn’t need. She didn’t want the reminders of a past she was ashamed of.

  She had signed the lease for her apartment by then, and rented a van and went to IKEA after measuring the spaces in the apartment so she knew what woul
d fit. She bought all the basics she needed, including plates and cooking pots, and went to a slightly nicer place for linens and towels. They were nothing like what she was used to buying, but she was willing to give that up too. There would be no fancy lace-trimmed Porthault sheets in her new life.

  She called the Russian handyman, and he promised to assemble all the furniture for her, the day she moved in. She could hardly wait, and she was ready to leave the apartment on Avenue Montaigne. It had felt like their home for a few months, but she realized now that it never was. It had just been another showplace, and none of it had been hers. Her tiny new apartment was far more real, and that was all she wanted now: a real life of her own.

  When she was going through her papers, she found Theo’s number on the scrap of paper in her wallet and remembered what he had said when they had lunch, about calling him if she ever needed him, wanted help, or was in danger. But she wasn’t, and she was managing surprisingly well. She was just glad he had his paintings back. She was happy knowing it, and whatever small part she’d played, even if all it had done was cause Vladimir to sense danger and return the paintings himself. She didn’t need to talk to Theo again. She didn’t want his pity, or to have to explain what had happened, or what knowing the truth about his paintings had cost her. He owed her nothing. She loved the portrait he had painted of her, and was taking it with her. It was the only piece of art that belonged to her. But she and Theo were strangers. He had his life as an artist, and she had to make her own way now, with no one’s help. She had to do this herself, and she was. She doubted she would ever see Theo Luca again.