Viktor
I’d never imagined I’d have an arrangement like this with any woman I wasn’t strictly dating, much less someone who rents from me. Because of the nature of my work, there’s always the possibility of a woman finding out exactly why I own so much property, getting freaked out, and turning me in.
I have absolutely no indication that this isn’t something that Millie would do, but I’m too invested in her now to let her keep living here. Besides, she knows I killed a man. If she wanted to rat me out, she’d have done it by now.
“How much stuff should I bring?” Millie asks, pulling an old suitcase out of the coat closet near the door.
“However much you want. If there’s anything you need, we can always just buy you a better one. No point in keeping all this stuff around if you’re going to be living with me anyway,” I reply.
She pauses for a moment, looking at me questioningly. “I mean, I know I don’t have much, but these are still my things. I don’t know if I’m ready to part with all of it,” she replies with hesitation in her voice.
“Listen, the net worth of the stuff you have in this apartment could be stolen right out of my bank account, and I wouldn’t even notice. We can replace everything,” I insist.
Millie shrugs and makes her way into her bedroom to begin packing. I follow her purely out of curiosity, just to see what a girl like her would keep in her most intimate living space.
It’s messy, which somehow doesn’t surprise me but doesn’t bother me either. In fact, I find it somewhat endearing. She has a pink posterboard on her wall that’s overflowing with photos of her and people I assume are her friends. This item, in particular, emphasizes the age gap between us, which I find fascinating more than anything.
She digs through her closet, glancing over her shoulder self-consciously as I explore her bedroom.
“You have a lot of stuff with the Eiffel Tower on it. Have you been there?” I ask, observing the third Eiffel Tower print I’ve seen on a throw pillow that’s been tossed to the floor.
“No, actually, I just always liked the idea of it,” she admits, and I can sense a bit of hesitation in her voice.
“Why haven’t you gone?” I ask. The idea of not traveling somewhere I want to see seems strange to me. Most of the time, I’ll decide I want to go somewhere and be on a plane the next morning.
“I mean, I have a bakery, and I have so many expenses that the idea of budgeting for a vacation like that would be more of a nightmare than its worth,” she replies, examining a green sweater and placing it in the suitcase before she changes her mind and tosses it onto the bed.
I decide to let it go, and after about twenty minutes, Millie has thrown together a collection of clothing and personal items that I assume have some kind of sentimental value to her.
When we arrive at the apartment, I realize I’ve forgotten to tell her that Nikolai has been spending time with me in my home office drafting business plans for the better part of the day. I didn’t realize that I hadn’t informed him of her arrival either, and for a moment, I can sense some tension between them.
“You two have met before, right?” I ask, introducing one to the other.
“Um, yeah, he’s the one who came to our first meeting about the rent spike,” Millie replies, clearly feeling tense about bringing up business at this point in our interactions.
There’s a brief pause as Nikolai recognizes her, and I can tell he’s equally uncomfortable.
“Okay, well, you two will have to learn to get along since you’ll both be spending quite a lot of time here,” I say to break the silence. “In the meantime, I’m going to get dinner started.”
“You can cook?” Millie asks incredulously, smirking a bit as if I’ve told an obvious joke.
“Yeah, does that shock you?” I ask, leading her into the kitchen as I begin to gather supplies for a basic lasagna.
“Of course, none of the guys I’ve dated could ever cook. They mostly ate takeout and hotdogs out of the package. It was gross,” she confesses, and I’m not sure whether or not I should judge the men she dates or judge her for dating them. She did the same to me on our first date.
“That kind of shit doesn’t fly here. I get busy and don’t have time to cook a lot, but I’m good at it, and I enjoy it. You can help if you want to,” I suggest, and her face lights up.
We work on dinner together, and I can see that Millie has a natural aptitude for cooking. I should have assumed so, given the fact that she runs a bakery, but there’s an art to cooking that a lot of people lack. None of the women I’ve dated could cook either, but I’d die before confessing that to her.
“Is there anything I can do to help? I’m feeling a little bit useless,” Nikolai says, walking into the kitchen and observing Millie as she cooks the ground beef for the sauce.
She moves over to make room for him, showing him what she’s doing, and asks him to take over while she looks through the fridge for some vegetables as a side dish. Having such an inflammatory history, Millie and Nikolai seem to work very well together.
After spending so much time looking for a job for Nikolai to do, I’m shocked to see that he appears to be naturally talented at cooking. It’s not like that serves the mafia particularly well, but it’s good to see him feel confident about something.
When we finally sit down to eat, I begin to pour glasses of wine for everybody until Millie glances at me with uncertainty.
“Um, I’m trying to cut back on alcohol. Is it okay I just have some water?” she asks, pausing as she sets the table.
I find this confession strange, but I know that Millie does tend to drink a lot of wine on her nights out with her friends, so I don’t want her to feel pressured. Whether or not she drinks isn’t a problem for me. Alcohol is a complex issue, and I’ve seen far too many people slip into addiction.
As Millie and Nikolai begin to talk, they easily find a groove in the conversation and end up debating about a few different topics that I didn’t even know either of them was interested in.
I’m honestly a little bit shocked by how well they’re getting along, and I have to admit that it’s making me a little more jealous than I would have expected. I know Nikolai would never touch a woman that I’m seeing just out of fear of losing his job, but the pit in my stomach remains regardless.
However, Millie seems happy, and I don’t want to act like an asshole because I feel slightly insecure. With any other woman, I’d have cut her off from the rest of the world in the act of greed, but I don’t want to ruin Millie’s life, even if I end up doing that in the end. I just want to see her smile.