“I don’t need a child from a plain little mouse,” he threw at her, shoving money into her hand. Fate had a cruel lesson in store for him.
The evening air was cool and damp, but inside the luxury car it smelled of overheated leather and Alexander’s expensive cologne. Elena sat in the passenger seat, clutching her purse, an inexplicable sense of dread growing inside her. Alexander had been silent almost the entire drive, and when they stopped by the deserted embankment, he turned to her with a cold, predatory smirk.
“Well, Lena, that’s it. Our little… hangouts are over,” his voice was unnervingly calm, stripped of any emotion.
Elena blinked in confusion. She didn’t understand. This had to be some stupid, nasty joke. Just yesterday they were discussing their weekend plans — he had promised to introduce her to his friends from the yacht club.
“Sasha, what are you talking about? I don’t understand… Are you joking?” her voice trembled.
The smirk on his face widened, but his eyes remained icy.
“Joking? Do I look like an idiot?” he leaned closer, and his gaze became truly terrifying. “Or did you think I wouldn’t figure out why you pulled this stunt? You thought that if you got pregnant, I’d run with you to the registry office? How naive.”
Elena’s world didn’t just shatter — it exploded into thousands of sharp fragments, piercing straight into her heart. She couldn’t breathe. The accusation was so monstrous, so unfair, that she couldn’t force out a word.
“No… no, that’s not true…” she finally whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks, blurring the lights of the night city. “It was an accident… It… God sent us a baby, Sasha! How can you think that?”
“Leave God out of this,” he cut her off harshly. “You deal with your gods yourself. I’m telling you clearly: I don’t want this.”
He leaned back in his seat, giving her a contemptuous once-over from head to toe.
“You seriously thought that I, Alexander Vorontsov, would marry you? A dull little thing dragged from some village swamp? I don’t need a child from… someone like you. Got it?”
Those words were worse than a slap. They killed, burning away everything alive inside. And as if finishing her execution, he casually took a white envelope from the glove compartment and tossed it onto her lap.
“Here’s money. For the abortion and a ticket back to your village. I don’t ever want to see you again. And don’t you dare call me.”
The car door slammed. The tires screeched. A moment later, only the fading roar of the engine remained on the embankment — and Elena. Alone, crushed, humiliated, clutching in her hands the price of betrayal.
Time stopped. Elena sat on a cold bench by the riverbank, feeling neither the biting wind nor the chills wracking her body. She didn’t cry — the tears had dried up back in the car. Inside there was only a hollow, ringing void. Her hands, as if belonging to someone else, opened the envelope. Inside was a neat stack of crisp dollar bills. He had planned it all in advance. That realization cut her anew. He hadn’t doubted, hadn’t hesitated. He had simply erased her from his life like an annoying mistake — and even assigned her a price, in foreign currency.
“Miss, are you alright?”
She flinched and looked up. A middle-aged man stood nearby, dressed in a formal coat and holding a briefcase. His neatly trimmed beard and thin-rimmed glasses seemed vaguely familiar. He was looking at her with sincere concern.
“Forgive me — you’re Elena, aren’t you? From the philology department? I’m Nikolai Ivanovich, remember? I taught you foreign literature last semester.”
She didn’t recognize him at first. A professor’s face, so familiar behind the lectern, now looked different in the dim light of the riverside. But his calm, gentle voice slowly began to pull her out of her stupor.
“Nikolai Ivanovich…” she whispered, and her lips trembled again.
He gently sat down beside her, keeping a respectful distance.
“I was coming back from a late meeting and saw one of my students sitting here all alone. It’s late — the metro will close soon. You live on the other side of the city, if I’m not mistaken? Come with me. I live just next door. You’ll have some hot tea, warm up, and in the morning decide what to do. It’s not right to stay outside in this state.”
Elena had no strength to argue — no will even to think. She was broken, and this unexpected kindness from someone practically a stranger felt like a lifeline thrown to a drowning person. She nodded silently, unable to speak. He understood her wordless consent, gently took her by the elbow and helped her stand. Leaning on his arm like the only solid support in her collapsed world, Elena followed him into the darkness of the alley, away from the place of her humiliation.
Nikolai Ivanovich’s apartment was the complete opposite of Alexander’s cold, minimalist loft. Here reigned peace and harmony. Tall bookshelves soared to the ceiling, an antique writing desk stood beneath a green-shaded lamp, a soft floor lamp cast warm light over a cozy armchair and a stack of magazines on the coffee table. It smelled of wood, old books, and freshly brewed tea.
“Please come in, don’t be shy,” said Nikolai Ivanovich, helping her take off her coat. “I live like a bachelor, but I try to keep things in order. When a house is cozy, loneliness isn’t felt quite as sharply.”
That last phrase sounded so simple and yet so true that it struck a chord deep within Elena — a chord that hadn’t yet turned to stone. Tears she thought had dried forever welled up again. He pretended not to notice and quietly went to the kitchen, returning with two steaming cups of lemon balm tea.
Over that tea, in an atmosphere of quiet, intelligent sympathy, Elena didn’t even notice how she told him everything. About her love — naive and blind — about her pregnancy, about Alexander’s cruel words and the envelope of money still lying in her purse, burning her fingers. Nikolai Ivanovich listened silently, without interruption, and in his eyes there was neither judgment nor pity — only deep human understanding.
When her disjointed story came to an end, he gently said:
“You need to rest. And not only you,” he nodded tactfully toward her belly, for the first time openly acknowledging what he had already realized. “Go to my bedroom, the linens are fresh. I’ll settle here on the couch in the living room. Don’t argue — you need peace right now.”
In the morning, she found him in the kitchen, greeted by the smell of freshly brewed coffee and an omelet. Elena felt slightly rested, but utterly lost. She had no idea what to do next. And then Nikolai Ivanovich, stirring sugar into his cup, made her the most unexpected proposal of her life.
“Elena, I thought a lot last night,” he began calmly and seriously. “I have a proposal for you. It might seem strange. The thing is, I’ve been offered to head the Department of Slavic Studies at a European university. It’s the job of my dreams. But there’s one condition — unofficial, but important — they prefer married staff. It creates an image of stability and reliability. And I, as you see, am alone.”
He paused, giving her time to take it in.
“I’m proposing a marriage of convenience. I will give your child my surname and patronymic. I will provide everything you need. You will be able to finish your studies in peace, give birth, and raise your baby without worrying about money or daily problems. And in a few years, when everything is settled, we can quietly divorce — if that’s what you want. Think about it. I’m not rushing you.”
They spent the following week together. He didn’t pressure her, didn’t hurry her — he simply stayed by her side, surrounding her with unobtrusive care. They took long walks, talked about books, about life. Elena saw before her a man who was intelligent, kind, and incredibly decent. And she agreed.
Their modest wedding passed almost unnoticed. And then life began. A marriage of convenience quietly grew into something more. Respect turned into affection, affection into deep, steady love. Five years later, they had a daughter together, whom they named Zhenya. And the elder son, Kirill Nikolaevich, grew up in an atmosphere of such love and care that Elena could never have dreamed of — and he considered Nikolai Ivanovich his only, and best possible, father.
Twenty-five years passed. In a luxurious office on the top floor of the Vorontsov Tower skyscraper sat its owner — Alexander Igorevich Vorontsov. He had long ceased to be that pretty-boy Sasha, preferring the solid “Alexander Igorevich.” He was fabulously wealthy, powerful, and utterly alone. A sharp, cutting pain twisted in his abdomen, doubling him over so suddenly that he almost fell from his crocodile-leather chair.
Life had turned out just as he had planned: money, power, status. There had even been a marriage — to the daughter of the right business partner. A marriage that ended in a scandalous divorce, leaving behind nothing but deeper cynicism and a deaf mistrust of women. There had been no children in that union — there was simply no time for them. His parents, whom he once respected and slightly feared, had died tragically in a car crash a few years earlier — which only strengthened his innate dislike of doctors, who, in his opinion, “couldn’t do anything.”
He had known about his ulcer for a long time. His personal doctor — an expensive Swiss specialist — had been insisting on surgery for six months now, but Alexander only brushed it off. Surgery was for the weak. Undergoing it would mean admitting that his body had failed, shown weakness. He, Alexander Vorontsov, could not allow that. He numbed the pain with costly medications and continued his frantic work pace, closing million-dollar deals…
But now the pain was different. Not the kind one could ignore. This was agony. He groped for the intercom button to summon his secretary, but his fingers wouldn’t obey. Everything blurred before his eyes. Through the murky haze, he saw his personal physician burst into the office — apparently called in by his alarmed assistant.
“Alexander Igorevich! I warned you!” the doctor’s voice sounded as if from far away. “Perforation! Urgently to the hospital! The ambulance is already on its way. I’ve arranged everything — they’ll admit you to the best clinic in the city. Just hold on!”
The last thing Alexander remembered was the terrified faces of the paramedics and the overwhelming, primal fear of the inevitable.
The hospital corridors merged into one continuous white streak. Overhead lights flashed past like a strobe. Half-conscious, Alexander was rushed on a gurney to the operating room. Fear, cold and viscous, paralyzed what remained of his consciousness. He, who had never believed in God nor the devil, desperately tried to recall scraps of a prayer he’d once heard from his grandmother in childhood. “Lord, save and protect…” kept pounding in his temples.
In the pre-op room, everything buzzed with practiced urgency. Masks, gowns, the metallic gleam of instruments. They transferred him onto the cold operating table. Someone placed a mask over his face. Through the oncoming dizziness, he saw another figure approach — in blue surgical scrubs and mask. A woman. She adjusted the lamp above him, and the light struck his eyes. For a moment, their gazes met. He couldn’t see her face — only her eyes. Gray, calm… painfully familiar. And in that instant, just before the anesthesia dragged him into darkness, one searing thought pierced his mind: “Elena? No… that’s impossible.”
The surgery was complex. The assistant — a young surgeon — watched Elena Arkadyevna’s work with awe and reverence. She operated like a flawless mechanism, like an android from a sci-fi film. Not a single unnecessary movement, not a second of hesitation. Her hands, wrapped in sterile gloves, hovered over the surgical field with incredible precision.
“Clamp,” her voice was steady and composed despite the critical situation. “Sponge. Suction. Another clamp — here. Pressure’s dropping, anesthesiologist!”
She worked swiftly, decisively, flawlessly. After three tense hours, she set the final instrument aside and said:
“Suture.”
In the staff room, after removing her mask and cap, she looked utterly exhausted. Damp strands of hair clung to her forehead.
“Elena Arkadyevna, that was brilliant!” the assistant couldn’t help exclaiming. “You practically pulled him back from the other side. Such a difficult case.”
Elena silently walked over to the window and looked out at the night city. Then she turned to her colleague.
“Andrey, do you have a cigarette?”
He raised his eyebrows in surprise. Everyone knew that Professor Romanova, head of the surgical department, didn’t smoke and couldn’t stand smokers. Wordlessly, he handed her the pack and a lighter. She awkwardly pulled out a cigarette, brought it to her lips — but didn’t light it. She just held it between trembling fingers.
“Elena Arkadyevna… is something wrong?”
She gave a bitter, crooked smile, staring at the white stick in her hand.
“I’ve hated that man for almost my entire conscious life,” she whispered. “And by every rule, by every standard of medical ethics… I had no right to operate on him today.”
When Alexander regained consciousness after surgery, the first thing he felt was not pain — but the return of his sense of superiority. He had survived. Which meant he was in control again. His first command, croaked out to the duty nurse, was to immediately summon his attending physician. He needed to be sure that the eyes — that look before the anesthesia — had not been his imagination.
Elena entered his private luxury ward. A crisp white coat, hair in a tight bun, a tablet with his medical chart in hand. Her face displayed no hint of emotion — only professional courtesy.
“Good afternoon, Alexander Igorevich. How are you feeling?”
He ignored the question. He stared at her, a faint, self-satisfied smile touching his lips.
“Lena. So I wasn’t mistaken. Hello. I’m glad to see you,” he said, deliberately switching to ty, the informal “you,” trying to shrink the distance, to pull her back into a past he had conveniently rewritten for himself.
“My name is Elena Arkadyevna. I am your attending physician,” she corrected him coldly, without breaking eye contact. “I ask that you observe proper form of address.”
But that only emboldened him. He was convinced it was merely a defensive mask.
“Are you married?” he asked bluntly — with the shamelessness of a man used to getting whatever he wanted. “Doesn’t matter. Just know this — I always get what I want. And I intend to have you back. I’ll correct that old mistake.”
Elena silently made a note in her tablet and turned toward the door.
