A Million Different Ways (Horn Duet 1)

Chapter Thirty-Six

“Five hundred francs a week. You pay now––cash,” she said, her Russian accent thick and heavy. Mrs. Orloff held out her fat little hand, palm up. The other was resting on her well-padded hip. I looked down at her with a vexed, disbelieving expression. I looked down because she was no taller than a gnome.

“Explain to me how the rent could have gone up a hundred francs a week in a little over two months? Did you paint? Did you replace the broken refrigerator? Because the chipped ceiling doesn’t classify as shabby chic.”

She frowned, I think. Her droopy jowls made her look like a perpetually sad hound dog. Then her wily, black eyes took in my Chanel bag and the expensive clothes.

“We have waiting list. You don’t want apartment? I have Brazilian girl will take it.”

I was in no position to quibble. I needed a place to regroup before deciding what to do next. I took the cash out of my purse and begrudgingly slapped it in her hand. “I told you––” she cackled. Ignoring her, I threw the plastic bag holding my meager belongings over my shoulder and turned up the stairs. “You make good money becoming…as Americans say…sugar baby. In Russia, we call them whore. I don’t know what you did to lose sugar papa, but now that you not skinny, we find new one.”

I cranked my head around and pinned her with a searing scowl. “I was not…I was working as a housekeeper!”

Her crooked smile revealed a mouthful of gold fillings. “Let me know when you are ready for new papa.” I was too exhausted to try to reason with her. Robbed of my will to fight, I watched her waddle into her apartment without another word of protest from me.

Once inside my room, I dropped my belongings on the floor and sat on the small twin bed…sulking. Not much had changed. It was still dingy. It was still depressing. Except it didn’t smell as clean as it did when I left it. I made a mental note to bleach the sheets and every surface in the place. I got up and checked the refrigerator. The loud buzz emanating from it was strangely comforting––at least it was working.

The bottomless sadness that had been steadily growing since I had boarded the bus felt like dead weight strapped to my ankles. I didn’t even have the energy to cry about it. But as tired as I was, I needed to go to the grocery store. It wasn’t just my own health I was responsible for now.

I undressed, and hung the expensive clothes back in the closet. I needed to start blending in with the locals again. A pathetic memory crossed my mind. The argument I had with Sebastian about him not buying me anything––because I wanted to salvage my pride and leave the relationship having given and taken in equal measure. Pleasure for pleasure. I looked down at my flat stomach, where a child was safely tucked away, and smiled to myself. I had definitely gotten more than I bargained for.

I took three pairs of jeans, a sweater, a couple of shirts, and sneakers out of the bag. All I had left.

My medical books, the computer, my underwear––gone. The hundred thousand euros was still sitting in my checking account. I needed that money for the baby. I wasn’t about to let my pride get in the way of caring for him or her.

I put on my old jeans, a t-shirt, and sneakers. Strangely, the old clothes didn’t feel right anymore. The worst of it was that it didn’t feel like I was returning to my old reality. It felt more like I was suspended between two different ones. I belonged nowhere––except with Sebastian.

When I reached into the Chanel purse to pull out my wallet, I felt a cold, hard object. Unknowingly, I had taken the iPhone with me. I stared at it a long time before sitting back down on the bed and turning it on. As soon as it powered up, a long list of texts and messages started to signal.

Twenty-five voicemails and thirty text messages, to be exact.

They began as terse questions, progressively growing more frantic with worry. As I read each one, my anxiety paralleled the rising agony in his written words, the guilt unbearable. Tears stung my eyes and tunneled down my cheeks. And for the first time in my life, I wasn’t certain if my faith was strong enough to sustain me.

‘Come back to me. Please. I don’t know what will become of me if you don’t.’

That was the final text. I couldn’t listen to the messages; I wasn’t strong enough. I told myself that letting him go was an act of love, an act of compassion, except I was having a hard time believing it. And the alternative was unthinkable. I would hurt him more if I stayed. Paisley wouldn’t hesitate to carry out her threat. She had that Attila the Hun, scorched-earth look about her. And I would be directly responsible for destroying his livelihood and his reputation, his family name. He would come to resent me eventually. I couldn’t live with myself if that ever happened.