"You could have just stayed."
The words come out before I can stop them. Vulnerable. Pathetic. The hurt of a girl who cried herself to sleep for monthsafter he left, who threw herself into her studies because it was the only way to survive the emptiness.
Misha is silent for a long moment.
"No," he says finally. "I couldn't."
The partition hums between us. I turn away, pressing my forehead against the cold window, watching the highway lights streak past like falling stars.
I don't ask any more questions.
***
The drive takes hours.
I doze fitfully, jerking awake every time the car slows or turns. At some point, Misha removes his jacket and drapes it over me without a word. I want to throw it off, want to reject even this small gesture of care, but I'm shivering and exhausted and the fabric smells like him—cedar and something darker, something I don't have a name for.
I hate that it still feels like coming home.
When I wake fully, the sky is beginning to lighten at the edges, and we're pulling through a set of massive iron gates. I sit up, Misha's jacket sliding from my shoulders, and stare through the windshield at the house ahead.
Not a house. An estate.
Stone walls. Ivy climbing toward a slate roof. Windows that gleam like watchful eyes in the early morning light. The driveway curves through manicured grounds—hedges and fountains and trees that look like they've been here for centuries. Armed men patrol the perimeter, their presence almost casual, like guard dogs accustomed to their territory.
A fortress. He's brought me to a fortress.
"This is your home?" My voice comes out hoarse from sleep.
"For the past fifteen years."
The car stops at the front entrance. The driver—a hulking man with a shaved head and no discernible expression—opens Misha's door first, then circles to mine. I step out on unsteady legs, my heels sinking into the gravel.
The air is different here. Cleaner. Colder. I can smell salt—we must be near the ocean—and something green and growing. Jasmine, maybe. The scent makes my throat tighten.
Misha appears at my elbow. "Come inside."
I follow him up the stone steps, through a pair of massive wooden doors, and into a foyer that makes me stop breathing.
Marble floors. A chandelier that probably costs more than my entire education. A sweeping staircase that curves toward the upper levels like something from a movie. Art on the walls—real art, the kind I've only seen in museums. Everything is beautiful and elegant and utterly without warmth.
A woman emerges from a side hallway. She's in her sixties, gray-haired, dressed in simple black. Her face is stern but her eyes are sharp, taking me in with a single assessing glance.
"Mr. Kashkin," she says. "Welcome home."
Kashkin. The name echoes in my mind. Misha Kashkin. I never knew his last name. He never told me, and I never thought to ask, too caught up in the romance of a mysterious investor who danced like a dream and looked at me like I mattered.
"Mrs. Novak." Misha nods to her. "This is Bianca. She'll be staying with us indefinitely. She needs the blue guest room, a full wardrobe in her size, and something to eat."
The woman—Mrs. Novak—nods as if this is perfectly normal. As if strange women arriving at dawn in wrinkled black dresses is a regular occurrence.
Maybe it is.
"I'll see to it immediately." Her eyes flick to me with something that might be curiosity, might be pity. "Is there anything specific the young lady requires?"
Misha glances at me. I stare back, mute with exhaustion and overwhelm.
"Coffee," he decides for me. "And something light. Toast, fruit. She hasn't eaten since yesterday."
