“I don’t know what to say,” she said, realizing what he was offering her, security for life, a child if she wanted, and marriage, so she would be allegedly respectable, although not in her own eyes, and the apartment she loved so she wouldn’t have to move. She could keep her clothes and jewels, and she knew he was a generous man. She had seen what he gave the girls he went out with.
He was offering her the kind of security she was used to, even more than Vladimir ever had. Yuri had waited years to make her the offer, hoping that at some point she and Vladimir would part ways. “It’s extremely generous of you, Yuri. But I don’t want to settle down with anyone. It’s too soon.” She tried to look demure, and what could she say? That he disgusted her and made her skin crawl? That she wanted to live in a tiny apartment smaller than one of her current closets? And get a job that she could barely survive on? That she was selling everything she owned and when she ran out of money, she had no idea what she’d do? What she wanted now was her freedom, not to trade her life and body to a rich man for security. Maybe the women who did so were smarter than she was, she told herself. But she didn’t want to sell herself into slavery again, at any price. She wasn’t for sale, but Yuri would never understand it if she said it to him any more than Vladimir would have. In their minds, she was a commodity they could buy. The only question was for how much. He was offering her a business deal and a good one, and she wondered if others would too. The competition between men like him and Vladimir was fierce, and they all thought that acquiring what he had, even his cast-off women, would somehow make them more like him. But there was only one Vladimir, and she had had him. She didn’t want another one, neither a worse nor a better one. She would rather try to make it on her own now, even if she drowned. She hadn’t realized it, but she had wanted this for years, and Vladimir had handed her her independence on a silver platter. She wasn’t willing to give it up again. “I’m not ready,” she said kindly, and he looked disappointed, but said he understood.
“Well, when you are, I’ll be waiting. And know that the deal stands. I won’t take it off the table. If you feel you need more, we can talk about it.” He was used to women who negotiated hard. Natasha never had. She had asked Vladimir for nothing, and received much, but she had left it up to him.
She finished her dinner sitting with Yuri, and tried to pay for her own, but he wouldn’t let her. He kissed her lightly on the lips when she left him at the restaurant, and he asked to stay in touch, which she knew she wouldn’t do. She ran back to the apartment and wanted to shower when she got there. She had passed up a major business deal, and the idea of it made her feel sick. It made her realize what she had done for the past eight years. She had sold her body and soul to one of the richest men in the world. And no matter what happened now, she knew she would never do it again. No one would ever control her, and she wasn’t selling her body, her life, or her freedom at any price. Not to Vladimir or Yuri, and to no one else. She was free at last, and no longer for sale.
Chapter 14
Natasha’s clothes arrived from the boat the week after she had left, and she sorted through them too. She kept very few of them except the white jeans and bathing suits and a white Birkin she could wear in the summer. She couldn’t imagine having a boat life again, and she shuddered every time she thought of Yuri’s proposal. He meant well perhaps, but she felt dizzy when she thought of selling herself again. Another woman, and many she had met with the men Vladimir knew, or even most, wouldn’t have cared how old Yuri was, what he looked like, or whether they were attracted to him or not. It was all about what he had and what they could get. In a way, she thought they were high-priced prostitutes, and she wondered if she had been too. She had dignified her relationship with Vladimir by believing that she loved him and that he needed her, but as it turned out he didn’t love or need her. She had been a possession, and maybe what she had felt for him wasn’t love, but gratitude and respect. And now she didn’t even respect him. And the only feeling she had for Yuri was revulsion, although he had certainly made her a good offer, and he would never have understood why she turned him down.
Her final meetings with the auction houses were efficient and depressing. It occurred to her that they had been right to ask her if it was an estate. The person she had been when she wore those clothes no longer existed and had died. She was selling a dead person’s clothes, from a dead life. She would get decent money out of what she sold, to live on, not to show off. But she would only get big money if she sold her body again, and took an offer like Yuri’s. But she didn’t need big money now or want the life offered, or the one she’d had.
She stood to make the most money on the Birkins with the diamond clasps, which usually sold at auction for more than what they went for at Hermès, which was good for her. And she still had the jewels to sell. She took them to a jeweler and sold them for a fraction of what Vladimir had paid for them and put the money in the bank.
She signed the papers with the larger of two auction houses she’d spoken to, to include her clothes in an haute couture sale in September at the beginning of the auction season. And she consigned her bags to an Hermès auction later that month. They were picking everything up the day before she moved. And she felt strangely free and unencumbered after signing the papers. The symbols of her slavery were slowly disappearing, like chains that were falling away. She wanted to be rid of the trappings of her old life and everything she didn’t need. She didn’t want the reminders of a past she was ashamed of.
She had signed the lease for her apartment by then, and rented a van and went to IKEA after measuring the spaces in the apartment so she knew what would fit. She bought all the basics she needed, including plates and cooking pots, and went to a slightly nicer place for linens and towels. They were nothing like what she was used to buying, but she was willing to give that up too. There would be no fancy lace-trimmed Porthault sheets in her new life.