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“This rag is full of bullshit. I didn’t marry anyone. And certainly not May Sim.”

“But… the photo?”

“It’s doctored, I guess. I admit they’ve done a good job; it looks real. But it’s a fake, Alma.”

“Did you do this to get back at me? To hurt me?” I venture in a trembling voice.

“If you think that of me, then you don’t know me. May is no doubt behind all this. She probably wanted to get people talking about her. My lawyers are looking into it right now. The truth will come out soon.”

His tone is cold, painfully distant. Not an ounce of emotion or tenderness in his perfectly measured words. As if he were making a public statement, surrounded by journalists and speaking to a camera.

“So, it was a setup? I’m sorry, Vadim. I wasn’t thinking straight. I should have trusted you.”

“Trust—it always comes back to that with you,” he hisses cruelly.

“No more secrets, no more lies. I promise you! I should have told you everything about Raphaël and the baby, but I wanted to forget them. It won’t happen again. I don’t want to hide anything from you. Give me another chance. One last chance…”

I step toward him with the unpleasant feeling that I’m begging. I reach for his face, but he catches my hands. I long to press myself against his chest, curl up in his arms, feel his scent envelop me, but the man I love pushes me away. Gently, without hostility.

“Alma, I need some time to figure things out. To think about us.”

“No, we just need to be together! We can’t live without each other. I tried. It’s impossible!” I sob.

“Try again. You’ll see, eventually we’ll come to terms with it… Or at least, we’ll learn to live with it.”

His gorgeous face finally betrays his emotions. When he becomes this bitter, this full of resentment, I know he’s thinking about our breakup twelve years ago, when I left him overnight, without warning or explanation.

“To live with it” actually means living without it.

“I don’t want to try, Vadim. It’s too hard without you… I can’t!” I stammer.

“Alma, give me some time.”

“How much? A day? A week? A month?”

I feel more and more pathetic. But that doesn’t stop me.

Vadim lets out a long sigh. “I don’t know. But right now, I really need you to leave.”

I think I hear something like a sob in his voice. Like a muffled sort of anguish. My heart breaks a little more with each passing second, and I realize he’s right. Leaving is the only solution. I wipe my tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand, give him one last look, and leave the suite without saying a word. Everything has already been said.

38

Alma

A week goes by without us really speaking. We exchange a few words in meetings, usually related to figures, reports, or schedules… nothing more. I see him every day, smell his familiar scent, hear his warm voice, and see anger, sadness, and regret flicker through his eyes whenever he addresses me in public—but I still miss him terribly. His playful smile, his intense gaze, his skilled hands, his soft lips…

Why am I torturing myself like this? Why dwell on all this?

Because nothing else matters.

I feel more alone than ever. But I need to stop this inner dialogue, quit asking myself questions and answering them. It’s almost 9 p.m. when Maximilian drops by my office and abruptly interrupts my train of thought, drawing my attention away from the thread running through my life—the one that begins with V and ends with M.

“Alma, are you working overtime? Can I bother you for a few minutes?”

“Yes, come in. What are you still doing here?”

“I got stood up… So, I figured I’d console myself with this.”