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As they walked through the two majestic wrought-iron gates into the restaurant, Ella was distracted from her brooding husband for a moment by the incredible French-English classical style of the establishment. Louis XIV furniture greeted them as they passed large regency mirrors and the gold and grey colours of the room soothed nerves Ella didn’t realise she had. It was only as they reached the main seating area that she realised they were the only people in the whole restaurant.
She looked up, confused, at Roman.
‘We have the place to ourselves.’
She laid a hand on his arm as if to convey some sense of the awe that she was feeling in that moment, the sheer magnitude of his power and wealth on full display. If she thought it odd that he was the one who directed her to a table nestled within a sea of others, each covered in crisp white tablecloths and ready to serve no other customer, she didn’t think on it too much. At that moment, she was staring up at her husband with moon-eyed love and couldn’t help but laugh at the situation.
‘I can’t work out whether this is incredibly romantic or incredibly unnecessary,’ she said, her stomach turning slightly under the still firm set of Roman’s features.
‘I have a few things I want to discuss,’ he said, pulling two thick envelopes from the inside of his jacket and placing them before her on the table. He pushed one closer towards her with his forefinger. ‘I need your signature on some documentation.’
Ella, trying to shake off the feeling that something was terribly wrong, retrieved the envelope and slipped out the paperwork.
‘It is a trust fund for your child.’
As she scanned the documents, the sheer amount that Roman had secured in trust for their child shocked her enough not to realise the oddly chosen words from her husband.
‘It secures that amount in place until their twenty-fifth birthday—or their marriage, whichever comes first. Until then, you will be the sole trustee.’
She came to the last page, where a yellow plastic tab pointed to a line next to the one Roman had already signed. The tab was oddly horrible and practical against the smooth beauty of the table and their surroundings. She couldn’t quite tell why she was oddly resentful of its presence, but she was.
Roman produced a pen and passed it to her, the thick silver barrel weighty in her small hand, but still warm from where it had sat nestled next to Roman’s body inside his jacket.
As she signed the papers her hand shook just a little and Ella was unsure as to why.
Still, when she had finished, she placed the pen on the tablecloth. ‘Done,’ she said, struggling for a smile, struggling with a strange sense of something she couldn’t quite grasp.
‘And these,’ he said, pushing the other envelope towards her in a similar fashion as before, as if the contents were somehow disdainful to him, ‘are divorce papers.’
She had started to pull the papers from the envelope, started to scan the tight neat rows of printed words, with legal headings topping the pages, found the page with another horrible yellow tab pointing to where another signature from Roman had been scrawled, had almost put pen to paper, when his words finally registered and the thick sheaf dropped onto the table.
‘What?’ she demanded, shaking her head as if she could deny his words, deny the dawning realisation spreading through her body as if to protect her heart for as long as possible.
Roman leaned back in his chair, as if already wanting to remove himself as much from her presence as possible.
‘Four hours ago the shareholders of Kolikov Holdings agreed to begin the liquidation process.’
‘But—’
‘You’re not a shareholder any more.’
A sharp inhale was about all Ella could manage.
‘Roman, is this some kind of joke? Because it’s not funny.’
‘It’s no joke. And you’re right, it’s not funny.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I could see that the moment you asked me not to destroy Vladimir’s company. And then later again, when you wanted to sell me your shares, even though I asked you to reconsider.’
* * *
Roman knew then that he was surely going to hell. Everything in him fought, raged, snarled against the words coming from his mouth, words that would eternally sever his connection to this incredible woman and his child. His child. But he had to. If not for Ella’s sake, then for the sake of that very same child.
Many months ago, Ella had voiced her desire, her need for freedom. And Roman had realised that it might just be the only thing he could give her. And in order to do that, in order to really ensure that she was in no doubt about the need to have that freedom, that distance, he would have to make her hate him more than she had ever done before.
‘You saw it when...when I asked you not to destroy the company? But that was... That was months ago, Roman. Have you planned this the whole time?’ she asked, her voice thick with the tears he could see about to fall from her cornflower-blue eyes.
