Page 62 of Charmingly Obsessed
I try to bury myself in work, to lose myself in the complex, chaotic tangle of Frez’s art collection. Categorizing his eclectic mix of single purchases – everything from Old Masters to emerging contemporary artists – is an absolute challenge. But it’s also an intriguing, stimulating experiment.
God, everyone at the office, everyone who knowshim, everyone who knowsme, must be in utter shock that he married me.
I’m not even going to look at Instagram. Those impossibly perfect, surgically enhanced influencers have probably already broken down that damned wedding photo pixel by pixel, analyzing my flaws, my frumpy dress, my terrified smile.
Someone, a well-meaning but gossipy intern, once showed me the kinds of DMs Frez used to get. Before he hired adedicated social media manager just to filter out the deluge of unsolicited advances. Tons of nude photos. Gigabytes of them. Flooding his inbox every single week. Impossibly beautiful women with flawless bodies and professionally sculpted faces, all vying for his attention, his approval, his… patronage.
And he chose…me. For this.
A deep, booming laugh echoes through Serafima Pylypivna’s sprawling apartment, startling me from my miserable reverie.
I shake off the lingering unease and follow the sound.
Serafima’s breathless cackles fill the room, tears of laughter streaming down her cheeks. Her curmudgeonly old dachshund Aza joins in, bouncing and barking around her armchair in wheezing delight.
“Serafima Pylypivna?” I venture, hovering uncertainly in the doorway of her cluttered, book-lined study.
“Ah, Diana! My little rose!” She wipes a tear from the corner of her eye with a lace-trimmed handkerchief, her laughter subsiding into contented chuckles. “Come in, my dear, come in! Why are you standing there like Botticelli’s Venus, perpetually emerging from the sea foam of your own anxieties?”
“What… What’s so funny?”
She’s sitting at her computer – an ancient, clunky desktop relic from the time before human civilization regressed into a shorthand of emojis and GIFs.
“Oh… just a recipe, my darling!” she says, her eyes twinkling with a mischief that instantly puts me on high alert. “Or rather, a particularly… piquant recommendation from a fellow connoisseur of life’s finer pleasures! Don’t you mind an old woman’s foolishness.” She lets out another delighted chuckle. Aza barks again, her tail a blurry wag. “Now, tell me, who are we inviting for our New Year’s extravaganza this month? We absolutely must have Nadya from Apartment 15 over. She’s on another one of her ridiculous crash diets, you know. Suchnonsense needs to be nipped in the bud with extreme prejudice. And a very large slice of honey cake.”
But I can’t get a single word out.
Because on her computer screen, displayed in all its high-resolution glory, is an online article.
About Mykola Frez’s sudden, shocking marriage. To me. And that damn photo, the one from the City Hall annex, is right there. Square in the middle of the page. Mocking me. I cannot look at it again. I won’t.
She laughed at the news.
“I’ll… I’ll tell you later,” I manage, my voice tight.
I turn on my heel and march back to the sanctuary of my borrowed room, my movements stiff, jerky, like I’m walking on stilts. Stilts of pure frustration and simmering resentment. I’m a goddamn circus act.
I force myself to focus. On logic. On reason.
Sure, it’s probably hilarious to everyone else now. And it’ll be even funnier, a veritable banquet of schadenfreude, in three months when they realize Frez finally came to his senses and got a quick, quiet, ruthlessly efficient divorce.
But no matter what happens then… I’ll still have last night. And maybe… maybe the nights to come. The memory of his hands, his mouth, his body… those are mine. Untouchable. Unforgettable.
Frez helped me when I desperately needed it. He stepped in, a terrifying, avenging angel in a bespoke suit, and saved me from… well, from something truly awful. And now, I’ll help him. It’s a deal. A transaction. Nothing more.
It’s not his fault that this is… the way it is. That I’m a tangled mess of insecurities and inappropriate, unrequited feelings.
But still. I would have appreciated a warning from him. A courtesy call. Maybe a fucking heads-up text message beforehe decided to broadcast our sham marriage across the entire goddamn globe?
I need time to emotionally and mentally prepare for unexpected, life-altering plot twists. Especially whenI’mthe unexpected, life-altering plot twist.
I spend the rest of the afternoon cooking. A decent, edible meal for once. Serafima Pylypivna, surprisingly, not only approves of mynalysnyky– delicate crepes filled with sweet cheese and raisins – but also she devours them with gusto.
When Serafima Pylypivna approves of something you’ve cooked, you feel like you’ve just won a James Beard award. Or maybe even a Nobel Prize for Culinary Excellence.
“You, Diana Bilova,” she declares melodiously, delicately wiping her lips after consuming her fourthnalysnykwith alarming speed, “are a miracle. A veritable mother-in-law’s dream, my dear.” Her eyes twinkle. “Though, given your current… entanglement… perhaps ‘billionaire’s dream’ is more accurate.”
And then…
