Page 74 of Charmingly Obsessed
The real problem is, he’s also studiously avoiding any discussion about my actual career. About the contract for my supposed role as his art collection manager.
Because I’m a complete sentimental fool, I decide against my better judgment to put off the awkward conversation for another two weeks, telling myself I’ll handle it after Paris, or after Royce, or maybe never.
I have only one day left to review the initial inventory of his chaotic, sprawling collection. Tomorrow. Before our early morning flight to Paris. We agree that Mykola will pick me up from Serafima’s in the afternoon, and we’ll go to the secure, climate-controlled storage unit located, rather conveniently, in the apartment directly adjacent to his own penthouse.
For now, Waldai – Frez’s ever-present, stoic, ex-Spetsnaz personal driver, who seems to spend more time handling complex logistical errands and discreetly neutralizing potential threats than actually driving – takes me back to Serafima Pylypivna’s.
A polite, almost imperceptible smile flickers across Waldai’s usually expressionless face as Frez helps me into the back seat of the armored car, after two hard passionate kisses that leave me breathless and blushing.
Waldai, a man of few words but apparently impeccable manners, even congratulates me gravely on my recent nuptials. I thank him just as briefly, just as evenly, my cheeks still flaming.
As I get ready for Serafima’s monthly New Year’s Eve celebration – which apparently involves copious amounts of champagne, Olivie salad, and a rousing, off-key singalong of Soviet-era folk songs – I exchange a flurry of increasingly ridiculous texts with Mykola. About all sorts of nonsense. His terrible taste in music. My questionable choice of pink outerwear. The philosophical implications of pineapple on pizza.
It’s unfair, I decide, for one person to be this devastatingly handsome, this obscenely wealthy, and this hilariously, wickedly sarcastic. I can’t even arrange canapés on a platter without chuckling. He sent me a rambling, five-minute voice message about the intricacies of fluctuating interest rates in some obscure emerging financial market, and even though I don’t understand a single goddamn word of it, it’s somehow, inexplicably, the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.
I skim through the latest online news alerts about us.
I swore to myself I wouldn’t keep checking. I lied. I can’t help myself. It’s like picking at a scab.
Thank God, the initial furor seems to have died down slightly. People have, for the most part, moved on to the next celebrity scandal, the next public meltdown. But that damn press release from Frez, the one with the “madly obsessed” quote, has gained another couple of million views. The comment count has surpassed a thousand.
Some enterprising internet sleuths have even found images of my old, student-era paintings online. The ones Frez so brutally, so publicly, eviscerated. The irony is not lost on me.
My eyes catch on a heavily downvoted, poorly translated comment at the bottom of a particularly sleazy gossip blog post.
Apparently, a girl, a young woman, took her own life years ago. Because of Frez.Katerina Voznesenska. The name sounds vaguely familiar. There’s a link to an older, archived article. I click on it, my blood suddenly running cold.
It’s a trashy, speculative piece from a notorious tabloid site. But the more I read, the more I dig, cross-referencing names and dates, the clearer it becomes.
The central fact, the suicide itself, wasn’t fabricated.
Katerina Voznesenska. Beautiful, regal-looking, impossibly wealthy. The only daughter of a notorious Ukrainian oil tycoon. Ended her own life.
And the rumors, the whispers, the insinuations, all swirled that she had been seeing Mykola Frez – secretly – shortly before her tragic death.
I study the grainy, paparazzi photos of her accompanying the article. She was breathtaking. Ethereal. Like a tragic princess from a dark fairy tale. They would have made an unbelievably stunning, glamorous couple. Him, the brilliant, ruthless financial predator. Her, the fragile, beautiful, doomed heiress.
I almost drop my phone, my hand suddenly slick with sweat, when a sharpthwacksounds beside me. It’s Serafima Pylypivna’s ancient, formidable flyswatter, which has landed right next to the elaborate winter salad I just finished. She wields that thing with terrifying accuracy, despite the lack of flies in her impeccably clean apartment.
Meaning, it has landedright next to me.
“It is time, my little rose,” she declares, her voice holding a command even Achilles would have envied. “To do your hair. And perhaps… a touch of lipstick? Hippolyt is arriving a little earlier than expected. Such an eager young man.”
Ah, damn it.Hippolyt.I only found out an hour ago, via a casually dropped remark from Serafima, that we were expecting a… male guest tonight.
Not that I have any particular psychic intuition, but something about the way she said his name, the gleam in her eye, feels… off. Ominous.
Over the last half hour, I’ve been subjected to a relentless, glowing catalog of Hippolyt’s many virtues. His brilliance. His charm. His prospects. His… alleged availability.
Frankly, I’d rather Serafima Pylypivna explain why she requires a heavy-duty flyswatter in late October in a centrally heated Kyiv apartment.
I force myself to sit up straight, trying not to shrink under her penetrating gaze. “I was just about to tell you again about the wedding,” I deflect. “With Kolya. It was… quite something.”
I’m ready to repeat the entire, ludicrous story again. For the fourth time this afternoon. If it means avoiding Hippolyt.
“What Kolya?” Serafima Pylypivna asks innocently, her attention ostensibly focused on inspecting the crystal wine glasses drying on the antique wooden rack. “Such a common name, Kolya. Like Boris. Or Ivan.”
“Frez,” I clarify, my voice tight. “Mykola Frez. My husband. We got married yesterday. We even had a ceremony. Of sorts. At the registry office. You read about it yourself online. You were laughing about it.”
