“Give me
The words came out almost reflexively. “I’m not in love with you,” she said.
He snorted a little laugh. “At this point,” he said, “what does that matter, hey?”
She groped for more words, more of an explanation, but instead was more at a loss for them than any previous time in her life. “I couldn’t possibly marry you,” she finally expanded.
She abruptly closed the ring box and set it back on the side table.
Federov was, however, neither hurt nor perturbed.
“Be realistic,” he continued. “This is my gift to you. If I am in love with you, what does it matter whether you love me? What would-?”
“Yuri, please. Stop this or I’ll leave.”
“How much time do I have left on this earth?” he pressed. “No one knows. You believe in God? Well, your God is in the process of taking me. So you give me a small gift before I die, and I will give you tremendous gifts that will last your lifetime.”
He paused and moved a hand to the ring box. He fingered it but didn’t open it.
“Let’s be honest,” he continued. “I am a very wealthy man. See that drawer? “ he asked, indicating the same drawer that had held the Tiffany bag. “All my financial information is in there. Bank accounts. Some in Ukraine, some in New York. Most of them safe here in Switzerland. You will also see letters I have on file with lawyers here in Geneva. You would have access to everything I own if you were my wife. I have a will. I have already named you as a beneficiary.”
“I don’t want your money, Yuri,” she said. “When it comes down to it, I can only be honest with you. I am appalled by the way you acquired your wealth. How many people did you betray? How many did you kill?”
“A small number compared with how many tried to harm or kill me,” he answered. “I have taken care of my daughters who live in Canada,” he said, “although they do not know it.”
“They should inherit your wealth, not me,” she said. “They’re your flesh and blood. They suffered because of you. They deserve whatever you can give them.”
“They hate me,” he said matter-of-factly. “Do you hate me?”
“I don’t hate you,” she said.
“There then, you see?” he said, attempting to close an argument around her. “I want to leave my fortune to someone who doesn’t hate me. Do you understand what a wealthy woman you would be, what a wealthy widow you will be in a short period of time?”
“Yuri, I don’t think like that. And it was about a year ago that I had to get myself past the death of my fiance in Kiev. So-”
“I believe I’m worth more than twenty-five million dollars,” he continued. “Most of it in cash.”
She blew out a long breath. “Yuri, that’s not my idea of marriage,” Alex said. “Material wealth is not what motivates me.”
“What motivates you, then?” he asked. “I’m not sure I understand. Wealth is wealth. Wealth is power. Think of all the charities you could finance, if that is your goal. You would never have to work again in your life. You are young. After my passing, which will be soon, you would be free to do as you wish. You-”
“Yuri, I hate to be so brutally frank. But I’m not in love with you! I couldn’t marry a man I didn’t love. It might seem quaint and old-fashioned to you, but that’s how I am. That’s
“The man who died in Kiev…? The man you just mentioned…?”
“Robert.”
“Did you love him?”
“Of course I did!”
“And you still miss him?”
She opened her mouth to answer yes, but her voice broke before she could find the words. “Of course I do!” she said again, almost indignantly. “Why do you even ask me that?”
Several seconds ticked by. Finally, he spoke again.
“You know, my precious Alexandra,” he said, “my whole life, whenever I have tried to show my best innermost desires, to be generous, to be a morally good man, I have faced contempt, scorn, and disbelief. And whenever I gave in to my most base desires I was praised, respected, and encouraged. It is no different now.”
“I will not marry you,” she said. “I will not even consider it. The discussion is over.”
“All right,” he said after a pause. A flicker of a smile and, “But then, please allow a grievously ill man a final fantasy. If you would.”
“What would that be?” Alex asked.
“Put my ring on your finger. Let me see you wear it, if even for a moment before you say a final no to my offer and hand it back. Before the darkness arrives and the long night claims me, let me hold in my head the image of you wearing my ring, even if the reality of a marriage will never come to be. Let me die with that vision.”
“Yuri, I don’t know-”
“Please,” he said softly, from dry lips below beseeching eyes. “What does it cost you to give me this small amount of comfort?”
To his question, she had no immediate answer. So, “All right,” she said softly.
She removed the ring from the box under his careful gaze. Fighting back second thoughts and with a little voice within her screaming that she should know better than to do something as wildly inappropriate as this, she slid the ring onto the third finger of her left hand, where Robert’s ring had once been.
Not surprisingly, Federov had chosen the band size perfectly. The ring felt exquisite and repugnant at the same time.
She looked up and her gaze met his. He was looking back and forth from her hand to her eyes, then back again. He reached forward and took her hand, the one with the ring.
“You’re sure,” he said, “the answer is no?”
“The answer is no,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
He pulled her hand to him and brought it to his face. He pressed his lips to the back of her hand, then released it. She withdrew her hand from him.
“Very well,” he said. “I didn’t expect you to accept.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“One never knows.”
With her right hand, she pulled the ring off her finger. Respectfully, she replaced it in the ring box, closed the box, and handed it back to him.
“Be careful with this,” she said. “It has a great monetary value. You don’t want it to disappear.”
He took it and returned it to the drawer. “It barely matters,” he said. “Maybe I’ll give it to the nurse.” Alex wasn’t sure if he was kidding. “She might like to sell it.”
He dropped it in the drawer and stared at the drawer. He looked lost again. Alex noticed a fresh line of sweat across his brow. She waited for him to come back again. In time, he turned to her.
“I wonder then,” he said. “When the time comes, there is another thing that needs to be done. And I have no one else I can ask. No one else that I can trust.”
“Tell me what it is,” she said.
“My instructions are that my body is to be cremated,” he said. “Then, afterward, there is a place nearby here,” he said, “a very pleasant, peaceful place, a section in Geneva, just to the south of the center of the city. It’s called Plainpalais.” His voiced trailed off for a moment. “Do you know it?” he asked.
“I’m familiar with it,” she said.
“I have all that paperwork in the drawer here too,” he said. “I have made all the arrangements. So when the time comes…” With a weak smiled, he added, “Not before.”
She nodded. “Not before,” she said. “I’ll make sure that everything is done properly.”
“And you will be there?”
“If I can be,” she said. “I promise.”
“Thank you. You are more kind to me than I deserve,” he said. “Will you also forgive me? ” he asked.
“For what?”
“For my greatest sin, my greatest malefaction ever.”
“I’m not following,” she said.
“No?” Federov asked.
“No.”
“I thought you might have figured it out by now.”
A deep feeling of unease began to creep over her, as if deep within her she knew what was coming next.
“No. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alex said. “Figure what out?”
“Robert’s death,” he said. He held a long beat, and then he said very clearly, “I was the person responsible.”
“What?”
“And the attack on Barranco Lajoya, also,” he said. “Completely responsible.”
An extraordinary silence crashed down upon the room.
“I ordered the attack in Kiev,” he continued. “I ordered it, organized it, and financed it. Then I did everything I could to blame it on my opposition, the
With wide eyes and a sense of disbelief, Alex listened to him, his familiar voice, now racked with pain that was as severe spiritually as it was physically. He was assuming complete culpability for the carnage in Kiev that had shattered her life as well as so many others, the attack that had rewritten in blood one
