She turned in his arms, pulling her miniskirt down before stringing her arms around his neck. “I know this. And I love you right back, baby.”
He kissed her, “Good. I will make you prove tonight.”
But when Alexei arrived home that night, he did not find Eva waiting for him as she had promised. In fact, the apartment was dark when he came in, filling him with worry. She had also not stopped by the school’s security desk, where he usually sat with one of his thick Economics textbooks, to visit with him. He also hadn’t seen her while making his rounds, which he was required to perform every hour on the hour.
Halfway through the day, he peeked into the window of her Non-Violent Conflict Resolution classroom, which was the seminar he thought she took on Friday afternoons, but no Eva. And when he called the apartment’s landline to tell her he was on his way home, she hadn’t answered.
As he walked home from campus, he vowed to haul Eva down to the nearest electronics store to get her a cell phone the next morning. Her father had shut hers off when she insisted on staying with Alexei. And whenever Alexei talked about adding her to his plan, she pointed out that they couldn’t afford it. Eva hadn’t taken out any student loans, because her father had been covering all of her expenses. And when he cut her off, it was too late to apply for any work-study jobs.
She had wanted to get a part-time job, but Alexei had talked her out of it. With her summer credits, she’d only one more semester to go versus the remaining full year of B-school he had left. Also, she had enough to deal with, having to get field-work hours in on top of a full class load. He’d just have to figure out a way to afford adding another person to his plan. Maybe he could take on a second work-study job.
He tried to keep his thoughts on her lack of a phone as opposed to letting them stray to other territories. Territories that included the kind of foul play that had gotten his mother killed when he was four and his father shot down when he was eighteen.
So when he arrived home and found their apartment empty, rather than panic, he chose instead to focus on finding her. As he flipped on the lights, he forced himself to think about the simple gold band, which had been sitting in his sock drawer for almost a month now. Its price tag was the reason he’d only had forty-two dollars left in his bank up until today. He’d wanted to take her to a nice dinner after he proposed, so he’d had to wait until he got paid. It troubled him that he had to wait just to be able to afford to take her out to a decent meal, and even more so that he wouldn’t be able to truly provide for her until he was finished with his program.
But he hoped Eva wouldn’t care about the current miserable state of his finances. He imagined her only condition to marrying him might be his promising to do her laundry at least once a month, a condition he would gladly meet if it meant he’d get to spend the rest of his life with her.
But now, standing in their empty apartment, a new, uneasy feeling came over him, and he realized why when he looked around. The two loads of laundry he had done for her that morning were no longer sitting on top of the table where he’d left them. Usually she had to be badgered into folding and putting away her clothes in a timely manner. But now the table was completely cleared off and the laundry basket was nowhere to be seen. If she’d been kidnapped, or even if he’d just beat her home, there’d still be laundry on the table. No, something about this wasn’t right.
Like a player in a bad romantic drama, he yanked open the top drawer on her side of the dresser and found it empty, then the next drawer, and the next. He opened the closet with trembling hands, not wanting to believe what was beginning to become obvious. But the closet was empty, too. Her dresses, hats, and other items were missing, the empty space giving no indication that anything had ever been there. And when he went into the bathroom, he found all of her toiletries gone. She’d even taken her toothbrush and dental floss.
He eventually found her note, hanging on the refrigerator door, written in the loopy handwriting he’d thought so endearing up until that moment.
Alexei,
I’m sorry, but I can’t live like this anymore. I want my old life back. My father was right. I can do better than you. Please take care of yourself. You’re a hard worker, and I know you can make it if you put your mind to it. Please concentrate on trying to better yourself, and don’t try to find me. I’ve made up my mind, and I’m sure this is for the best.
Eva
Years later, business pundits would ponder onscreen and off what had made Alexei Rusakov the absolutely ruthless businessman he became after graduating from business school. Many would point to the untimely death of his father or the temporary estrangement from his Russian crime family.
But Alexei would always know the hidden truth. A silly black girl from a small town in Texas had ripped his heart out one night when he was least expecting it. And after that, he’d found it rather easy to be heartless.
Chapter One
Eight years later
WHILE everyone else at Layla’s New Year’s day wedding was either dancing, drinking, or mingling, Eva stood in a barely lit corner in an alcove near the Sinclair Mansion’s first-floor bathroom, texting with Aaron, the love of her life.
When are you coming home?
Soon, sweetness. I’ll be back tomorrow.
Okay.
He didn’t say, “I miss you.” He had never been one for big shows of affection, but the fact that he was text messaging her as opposed to playing a video game or watching some mindless television show, like he usually did when they were both home at night, meant he missed her very much. Still Eva liked to hear the words, so she texted, “I love you.”
“Love you too.”
Eva sighed and lowered the phone, once again feeling guilty about having left him in Texas during the holidays to attend Layla’s wedding. She would have brought him, but weddings really weren’t Aaron’s scene. He detested wearing a suit, and having to stand around while she made small talk with people he didn’t have much in common with.
But she couldn’t just skip the wedding. Layla and she had met in a CPR class, a requirement for both her Masters in Social Work and Layla’s degree in physical therapy. And though they hadn’t known each other all that well, Layla had proven to be a godsend when she’d decided to leave Alexei. She put Eva up for the few weeks it had taken to get the rest of her summer field-work hours done, so she could transfer her credits to the University of Texas-Arlington and do the last semester of her social work degree there.