Page 27 of The Pakhan's Secret Babies
“And what about the other complications?”
I look at him. “There are no other complications.”
Something moves across his face. “You were in my bed, Elena.”
“I know where I was.”
“And you didn’t think that was worth mentioning. For three weeks.”
“You didn’t recognize me for three weeks.” I say it quietly, and I say it clearly, and I watch it land. “I am not the only person in this room who was in that bedroom. You were there too. You made choices too. So yes, I should have told you who I was, and I am sorry that I didn’t, but I’m not going to sit here and be spoken to like I did something to you when you were a full and willing participant in everything that happened that night.”
The silence that follows is the longest one yet.
Roman looks at me from across the desk. I keep my eyes on him without looking away. Everything I’ve said is true. We both know this, and the only question is what he does with it.
His phone rings.
He looks at the screen and answers.
“Yes.” A pause. He stands. Turns slightly toward the window. “How many?” Another pause, longer. He says something in Russian, low and clipped, and whatever the answer is, it moves through his shoulders. “I’ll be there. Tonight.”
He hangs up.
He turns back to me.
“I have to leave. We finish this when I get back,” he says.
“What… leave? For how long?”
“Three weeks. Maybe less.” He picks up his jacket from the back of his chair, moves toward the door, and then stops. His back is to me. His hand is on the doorframe. “You’re not going anywhere, Elena. We are clear on that. You’d better be here when I return. Reschedule my meetings.”
He walks out.
I hear him cross the floor, hear the low exchange with Kostya that starts immediately. The elevator arrives. The doors close.
And then there is nothing.
I sit in his empty office in the chair across from his desk, and I look at the space where he was standing. I don’t move for a long time.
The afternoon light comes through the windows at a low angle and falls across the desk.
Outside the glass wall, the floor goes on the way it always goes on. A phone rings and is answered. Someone laughs at something near the printer. The city moves beyond the windows, indifferent and enormous, not particularly interested in what just happened in this room.
I press my hands flat on my thighs and look at the desk.
Three weeks.
I stood up to him and said what I needed to say, and I don’t regret a word of it, and I’m also fairly certain my face is doingsomething I would not choose for it to be doing in a glass-walled office where anyone could look in.
I stand up.
I walk back to my desk. My cursor blinks back at me.
Until now, I have never in two years wished that I could simply disappear into this chair and never have to walk back through that door again.
11
ELENA
