Page 202 of Cashmere Cruelty

No one.

My last hope shatters. I can feel the shards sink into my feet as I stand.

No one.Those two words keep repeating in my head like a slap on loop. Not Matvey, and not anyone else, either.No one.

“You want me to be alone?” I croak. “You don’t want me, but you want me to be alone—forever?”

I’m barely holding back tears. Of all the things I knew Matvey to be—possessive, mercurial, jealous—I just never…

I never thought he’d be this cruel, too.

When his lips remain sealed, I whisper, “You want our child to be alone?”

“I’d be there,” he retaliates. “I’d visit.”

“For dinner. Without saying a word.”

He grimaces. “It’s better than nothing.”

That’s what I deserve—slightly more than nothing. That’s whatour childdeserves, according to its father.

Silence.

And no one.

“I want you and no one else. Not even if it’s fake.”

How quickly they end, fairytales. I can almost glimpse the last paragraph of mine. As I stand shell-shocked in the middle of the living room, listening to the sound of the door closing behind Matvey’s back, I try to picture it: the grain of the paper, the black lines of ink. And then, just before the final, empty page…

“Happily never after,” I murmur into the silence.

64

MATVEY

It’s fucking torture.

All week, I can’t bring myself to look at her. I can’t bring myself to speak.And for what? What would I even say? What couldI say, after all this mess?

The truth, a new, unfamiliar part of me suggests.Tell her the truth. Tell her everything that happened—Petra’s baby, Yuri, all of it.

It’s tempting. So, so fucking tempting.

But if I could trust April with the truth, then we wouldn’t be here to begin with.

“I saw April again today,” Grisha informs me on the drive to the office. “Her eyes were red.”

“Then buy her some eye drops.”

“She hasn’t been sleeping. I could hear her sobbing from the hallway.”

I turn my head to the window and ignore him.

“It’s every night, Matvey. This has to stop.”

“Then buy yourself some earplugs, too,” I snap.

“Are you really going to be so dense?” Grisha snaps right back. “This isn’t about me, man. This is about her. This isn’t good for her.”

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