Your first glimpse of his estate knocked the breath from you—not because it was beautiful, but because it was so much.
It wasn’t quite a mansion, not like the estates you’d seen in glossy magazines, but compared to your modest family home it was immense. Three stories of pale stone, wide front steps, arched windows blazing with warm light. The gardens were geometrically perfect, trimmed and floodlit to impress rather than to invite. Even from the driveway, you could tell—this house was less about comfort than about display. The high ceilings, the gold trim, the polished floors you glimpsed through the glass—everything screamed new money, loud in its determination to be noticed.
Victor cut the engine and climbed out with the easy grace of a man certain of his power. When he came around to your door, hand extended, you hesitated, then took it. His grip was steady, possessive, guiding you up the steps into the cavernous front hall.
Inside, your suspicion proved correct. Chandeliers spilled light down on marble floors veined in black, the walls hung with oversized oil portraits and gilt mirrors. It felt like standing inside a showroom—everything large, ostentatious, expensively designed to announce Victor Abramov’s success to anyone who entered.
He walked you through the hall into a sitting room where the fire burned. For a long moment, he stood over you, watching your every twitch, every awkward shuffle in your too-tall heels. Then his moustache twitched in a faint smile.
“You stay here now, Yulia,” he said at last, his Russian accent thick but precise. “Until wedding, you have guest room. After…” He gestured vaguely, as though the future were already written. “We share bed. But I am patient man. I give you privacy. You learn Yulia’s life. You learn Russian better. And—” his voice dropped lower, strangely gentle—“you enjoy new home. Okay?”
The certainty in his tone made your stomach twist. Still, you nodded faintly, unwilling to provoke him further.
Later, when you gathered the nerve to ask about clothing—reminding him you had only the leopard-print mini dress clinging to you—he chuckled deep in his chest and led you toward the master suite.
That suite alone felt the size of a small apartment. An enormous bed dominated the center, the headboard upholstered in rich dark leather. Off to the side stretched a closet that stopped you cold: row after row of dresses, shoes lined in tidy pairs, a wall of handbags, drawers glittering with jewelry. A gleaming vanity sat beneath tall mirrors, its surface cluttered with powders, brushes, lipsticks.
You turned to him in disbelief, a question forming on your painted lips.
He grinned, moustache twitching again. “I give you many nice things, yes? Yulia deserves the best. Now you have them.”
The heat of the day, the shock of transformation, the weight of Andrea’s **** choices—all of it pressed in on you at once. You managed only a faint nod before excusing yourself, muttering that you needed rest.
Back in the guest room, you paused before shutting the closet door. Something black and silky caught your eye. Your fingers brushed over it and you drew it out—a lacy nightgown, scandalously sheer but exquisitely made, whispering expensive against your skin. For reasons you couldn’t explain, you didn’t stop there; you took down the matching robe, heavy with embroidered detail, and even a pair of delicate mules that glittered faintly in the light.
You didn’t question the choice. Not yet.
Instead, with trembling hands, you carried them back into the guest room, shut the door firmly, and pressed your back against it, clutching lace and silk to your chest.
The bangles on your arms jingled softly in the silence, reminding you of Andrea’s hands fastening them there only hours ago.
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