“What are you working on?” I ask.
She glances down at the sketch, then back up at me. “Just a few ideas,” she says.
“Ideas for what?” I prompt.
She shrugs lightly. “My future business.” She smiles down at the page. “I’m just imagining the space, deciding if it should be a house or a mansion or something in between.”
I lean over and catch a glimpse of the page. Her lines are confident and purposeful. She’s sketched out arches, bay windows, and a wraparound porch. She’s annotated the margins with notes in tidy handwriting. It looks like she’s written out color scheme ideas and potential landscaping.
She’s clearly been working hard on this. It’s a productive use of her brain power while she’s locked up like some fairytale princess. I’m actually impressed with how calm and collected she’s managing to be despite her circumstances. I decide then that I have to give her Kostya’s letter.
“I have something for you,” I tell her cautiously.
Her pencil pauses mid-stroke. “That sounds ominous,” she replies seriously.
I reach into the inside pocket of my jacket and pull out the folded letter. I don’t offer any explanation yet. I just extend my hand and let her take it.
Her eyes flick from my face to the piece of paper and back again, suspicion blooming immediately.
“What is it?” she asks.
“A letter. From your former fiancé,” I answer.
Her mouth tightens, but she reaches for it anyway, taking the letter with a shaky hand. She notices immediately that it’s creased and wrinkled, the edges softened by force.
She squints at it suspiciously.
“Why is it all wadded up?” she asks.
I shrug. “I shoved it in my pocket.”
She huffs softly through her nose, something like a laugh. She doesn’t comment further. She just unfolds the letter and skims the first few lines, eyes moving quickly and efficiently over his words.
I watch her face carefully. I expect anger or sadness. At least a flicker of something. Instead, her expression remains flat and unimpressed. She snorts quietly, folds the letter back up without finishing it, and sets it on the table beside her like it’s a receipt she doesn’t need.
“You could’ve saved yourself the trouble,” she says lightly.
I blink.
“That’s it?” I ask before I can stop myself.
She looks up at me then, eyebrow raised. “What were you expecting?”
I gesture vaguely toward the letter. “Some kind of reaction,” I chuckle.
“Oh,” she says, eyeing it thoughtfully. “I reacted. Internally. Very briefly.”
“I thought you might be upset,” I say carefully.
She glances up, confused. “About what?”
“About what he said in the letter,” I clarify. “What he promised.”
She doesn’t look at me right away.
“I already know what kind of man he is,” she says finally. “I don’t need a letter to remind me.”
There is no bitterness in her voice. No lingering attachment. Just certainty. All my life, I’ve understood leverage. Objects. Money. Promises. Fear. Love. They’re all tools, if you know how to use them.
