Page 35 of The Oligarch's Daughter

“Which you use so nobody will know you’re Arkady Galkin’s daughter.” He’d heard the name ‘Arkady Galkin’ before, he thought. He was one of those Russian oligarchs who lived in the U.S. and owned a famously big yacht and lots of real estate.

“Obviously.”

“Especially your artist friends.”

“Yes! I admit it. I didn’t want to be known as his daughter. I wanted to have my own life. Is that so hard to understand?”

“Does your dad not give you money?”

“Of course he does! I have trust funds and real estate and offshore entities and all that.”

“Yet you live in a—”

“I love my apartment! Where am I supposed to live, in some duplex in a skyscraper like all the other Russian kids?”

“But—”

“Don’t you get it, Pasha? I need to establish a separate identity. I’m trying to make it as an artist, as a photographer, and I want to have a separate profile in the world.”

“Are you estranged from your parents?”

“Me? No, not at all. My family is my”—she put a hand atop her breasts—“My hearth. My safe harbor. You asked me once if I was a daddy’s girl, and I said yes. Mypápachkais the smartest man I know. And deep down, the kindest.”

“What about me?”

“You know what I mean. I didn’t want you seeing how my parents live. I mean, all that glitz—that’s not who I am. You know that by now.”

Paul was silent, processing everything Tatyana was telling him, everything that was now upside down. “And I’m surrounded by twelve-thousand-dollar suits and I’m wearing khakis from, like, J.Crew.”

Paul thought:To your father, I’m a flea. A poor, insignificant flea. “You come from that kind of money . . .” he said. “. . . I mean, given what you’re used to, being with me is a huge comedown for you.”

“Huh? No, Pasha—it’s nothing, I don’t care at all. It doesn’tmatterto me.”

“I’m not in that league, you know that.”

“Nobody is.”

A long pause. That was an understatement. “How did he get so rich? Do you mind my asking?”

“He’s in finance. The finance world. I don’t really know what. It’s not my world. I’m kind of clueless.”

He would be googling “Arkady Galkin” in a matter of minutes.

“He liked you,” she said.

“Well, he sure did his research on me.” He laughed, then smiled. “But—yeah. He gave me, I don’t know, a warm vibe or something.”

“You’re both up-by-your-bootstraps guys.”

*

At Tatyana’s apartment, while they undressed, Paul asked, “Who’s the red-haired guy with the earpiece who was always talking to your father?”

“Oh, that’s Andrei Berzin. He’s my papa’s chief of security. His right-hand man. Sometimes I don’t know who’s really in charge,” she joked, “Berzin or Papa.”

Bernie Kovan didn’t have a chief of security, but then, he wasn’t a Russian oligarch. “He has enemies, huh?” Paul said.

She shrugged. “He thinks so.”

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