The Mistress

by Danielle Steel

  They agreed on a place to put the other painting, on the opposite wall in her bedroom, and he asked her for a hammer and nail. She went to get them, and he hung it for her, and then she looked at him with a question.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were Lorenzo Luca’s son? Especially when Vladimir bought the painting?” She had been about to say “we,” but she was conscious that she didn’t own it. Vladimir did, he had bought it, and unlike Theo’s portrait of her, it was not a gift. She had no ownership in the art he purchased.

  “It seemed irrelevant. What difference would it make? I don’t usually tell people. It’s distracting. I don’t like to trade on his name.”

  “You don’t need to,” she said softly. “Your work is very good. I’ve been trying to study art history on my own. I’d like to take classes one day at the Sorbonne, but we don’t stay in one place long enough for me to do that, and he doesn’t want me to,” she explained. “Maybe now that we have the apartment here, I can take some classes, or hire a tutor.”

  “You already seem very knowledgeable to me.” He had gleaned it from the discussion they’d had on the boat, when he delivered his father’s painting. “You probably know more now than some of the professors you’d have classes with,” he said honestly, and she was flattered. She had learned a lot on the Internet and from what she read in her books and magazines.

  They both stood back then and admired the portrait again and where they had hung it. They had found the perfect place, and they both looked pleased. He was trying not to think that they were standing in the bedroom she shared with Vladimir, and the bed was only a few feet from them. It gave him a shiver to think it.

  He had an idea then. “Are you busy? Would you like to go to lunch?” It was a spur-of-the-moment inspiration, and he didn’t know if Vladimir was at work or away and didn’t ask. She seemed to be free and on her own. She hesitated for a long moment when he asked her. She never went out to lunch, except with Vladimir. She had never been to lunch with another man in all the years she’d been with him, but there was no reason not to. The invitation wasn’t inappropriate, and it sounded like fun to her. Having lunch with him was so out of her normal universe and activities, and she knew Vladimir wouldn’t like it, but he didn’t have to know. And she didn’t want to just take the painting and send Theo away. That seemed wrong too. She felt slightly dazed as she responded, after weighing it all in her head.

  “Yes. Why not? I don’t usually go out to lunch. But there’s an easy restaurant down the street. We have dinner there sometimes, and lunch on Sundays.” He knew it too, it was L’Avenue, a casual, friendly, popular restaurant full of models and movie people and people who worked in fashion, ordinary people, and sometimes celebrities, and they had tables on the terrace so Vladimir could smoke his cigars. It was a fashionable Parisian hangout, and only two blocks away. “I’ll get my coat,” she said, and came back with an enormous Russian sable Vladimir had bought her at Dior. It was a rich dark brown in contrast to her light hair, and she had put on tall dark brown suede boots, and was carrying a brown alligator Birkin and brown alligator gloves from Hermès. He smiled when he saw her.

  “Are you sure you don’t mind being seen with me?” He had dressed to go to the gallery, and hang out in the sixth and seventh arrondissements, where the galleries were. He was wearing jeans, a heavy sweater, and a windbreaker that had seen better days, and brown suede boots too. He looked considerably less formal than she did, although he had had a good haircut and looked neat. And she wasn’t entirely unaware of his good looks, although she didn’t flirt with him. She didn’t know how to behave. Having lunch with young men close to her own age, who might even become friends, was entirely out of the realm of the possible for her. It was part of her unspoken agreement with Vladimir. She was entirely his in every way, body, mind, and soul. That left no room for anyone else in her life, which was how he wanted it, and she knew that too. She told herself, as they walked to the restaurant, that this was a one-time exception she would make, and it would do no harm. And this time, with no boat crew to report to him, Vladimir would never know.

  Once at the restaurant, they sat down at a table, and she felt awkward with him for a few minutes. He had turned off his phone so no one would bother him, and he gazed at her intensely, as though trying to understand her, and drink her in, but she felt as though he already knew her. They made casual conversation until they ordered, a salad for her and a veal chop for him. The food was good there, and the restaurant was busy. She felt like a child at Christmas, looking around her. She lived in Vladimir’s shadow, and never spoke to his friends, and they never spoke to her. The Russian businessmen she saw him with only spoke to each other. Even when they had women with them, they never addressed them. The only thing that interested all of them was work, and the deals they were making. Women were for decoration, and entertainment later. And Vladimir was no different. It was what she was used to.

  They chatted inanely for a few more minutes, and then Theo couldn’t stand it any longer. He had lived with her in his studio for months and felt as though he knew her. It made him braver about asking her what he didn’t know.

  “I don’t know how to say this nicely,” he began cautiously, “and I know it’s none of my business, but I feel as though I know you after painting you, and there is always something familiar about you every time we meet, as though we have a connection. I think I want to understand you better…Why are you with him? Do you love him? It can’t just be the money. I don’t even know you, but that doesn’t seem like you.” He had great faith in her, even though they were essentially strangers, but there was a certain purity about her. She just didn’t seem like the sort of girl who would sell herself for what she could get. The expensive clothes she was wearing and her surroundings seemed to mean nothing to her. And surely not enough to sell her soul.

  “He saved me,” she said simply, looking deep into Theo’s eyes, and he could tell that she was being honest with him. “I would have died in Moscow. I’d be dead by now probably if he hadn’t rescued me. I was starving and sick, and freezing cold.” She hesitated for a moment before opening up to him. But she felt an odd connection between them too. “I grew up in a state orphanage. My mother abandoned me when I was two, and died two years later. She was a prostitute. I didn’t have a father. When I left the orphanage, I went to work in a factory. I didn’t have enough money to buy food or warm clothes or medicine…women died in my dormitory every month, from illness or despair…Vladimir saw me and tried to take me away from all that, and I wouldn’t let him. I turned him away for a year, and then I got pneumonia and I couldn’t do it alone anymore. I was very sick. He took me to his apartment and nursed me himself, and when I got better, I didn’t want to go back…I couldn’t…he was too good to me…I didn’t want to leave…he takes care of me, and where would I go if I left him? I can’t go back. He’s kind to me and he takes care of me, and I take care of him too. I have nothing to give him except myself. I am grateful for what he did for me then, and what he does now…it’s a special life,” she said quietly, well aware that it might shock him. She felt as though she owed Theo an explanation. But it seemed like a fair exchange most of the time, and people like Theo, and most people, had no idea what that kind of poverty and hardship was like, how hopeless it made life seem, and there was no way out. “He understood. He grew up poor too, very poor. He still has nightmares about it. We both do. You can never go back to that. I don’t care about what he gives me, although it’s nice, but what matters is that he protects me and keeps me safe.”

  “Safe from what?” Theo probed deeper into her eyes and heart.

  “Life. Dangerous people sometimes, who want to hurt him, or me.” She thought of the previous summer in Sardinia when she said it.

  “I’m sure he can be dangerous too.” Vladimir had that quality about him, and Natasha seemed so innocent that Theo wondered if she was aware of it, but she wasn’t as naïve as she looked. She had seen and guessed a lot in se
ven years, although she would never admit it to a stranger, out of loyalty to Vladimir.

  “I’m sure he can be dangerous,” she said honestly. “But not to me. He would never let anyone hurt me. I respect what he has built, from nothing. I admire him for that. He’s a kind of genius, in business.”

  “My father was too, as a painter,” Theo volunteered. “They’re never easy people. Don’t you miss having your freedom, or are you freer than I think? Do you do whatever you want?” She laughed at the question, and he was curious about her life, if it was as it seemed or different.

  “And what would I do with freedom? Go to school? Have friends? That would be nice. But who would protect me if I didn’t have Vladimir?”

  “Maybe you wouldn’t need protection then,” he said gently.

  “We all need that,” she said quietly, “even Vladimir. Life is dangerous. Being poor is dangerous. You can die from it. I almost did. So did he, like a dog in the streets when he was fourteen. We all need someone to watch over us.” Theo could see why she was with him now—she had come from such a raw, barren, dangerous place that survival was all important to her, not furs and jewels and the expensive clothes she wore, or his yachts, which were important to him and not to her. She was focused on survival. She couldn’t conceive of living in a safe world where she wasn’t at risk every day, as she had been as a young girl. Vladimir had lifted her from that world into his own. It was all she knew. And even now she remembered the dangers too clearly. A life like Theo’s growing up was utterly foreign to her. Or other people’s lives, where there were few risks, if any, and you did ordinary things, met people, had friends, fell in love, had relationships, went to work or school. He sensed that she liked the idea of it, but it was all too unfamiliar to her. All she knew was a world of bodyguards and yachts, with a man at her side who was her savior and protector, in her eyes, no matter how dangerous he might be to others. It was all about that for her, safety from the demons and real dangers of her past. She cared about what he provided in an otherwise dangerous world.

  “Russia is a hard place,” she said quietly, “or it used to be. I think it still is for most people. The strong ones like Vladimir survive and climb out, and he pulled me out with him. The others don’t make it, and many of them die. I might have been one of those.”

  “You gave up your freedom for all that,” he said, still shocked by it, and sad for her. She seemed so fragile, but he suspected she was stronger than she looked. But her innocence was real.

  She nodded, but didn’t seem to mind sacrificing her freedom to Vladimir. “It’s the price I paid for a peaceful life. We all give up something.” She was philosophical about it.

  “You never answered me when I asked if you love him.” He knew he had no right to ask but wanted to know. It had tormented him for months, and he knew he might never get the chance to ask her again. He doubted that he’d be able to see her.

  “I think I do. He is very good to me, in the ways he knows. He’s not a soft man. He doesn’t want children. I don’t either. The world is a frightening place for a child. What if everything goes wrong for them? I couldn’t do that to someone else and give them the life I had.” It was hard for Theo to understand, his parents had adored him and doted on him, his entire life had been comfortable and safe. He had never been at risk in any way. How could he judge a life like hers? He knew he couldn’t and didn’t want to, and was willing to forgive her anything she had done to survive. And who knew what he would have done in her shoes, what he would have been willing to trade for his survival? She had known danger from the day she was born. And he suspected that she wasn’t exempt from it with Vladimir now, but she didn’t seem to see that, and believed herself safe with him. Theo couldn’t assess it, it was just a feeling he had, a sixth sense, given who and what Vladimir was.

  “And if it ends, then what happens?” he asked, looking concerned for her. They were all the questions he had had about her for months, and it was his only chance to ask them and get to know her better, in a single afternoon. The food had arrived by then, and they were eating, but the conversation was more important to both of them than the meal. She had wondered about him too, and men like Theo were a mystery to her, men close to her age, who had wholesome, normal lives. She never met men like him, and never would. Vladimir saw to it, and she was a willing partner in her own isolation.

  “I don’t know what would happen if it ends,” she said honestly. “I don’t think it will. He needs me. But one day there may be someone younger, or more exciting. He’s a generous man. If I betray him, he will never forgive me. If I don’t, I think he’ll take care of me. And if not, I will have to find my way. I wouldn’t go back to Russia then. I couldn’t survive there, even now, without him. It’s too hard.” Theo knew there was another solution too, but didn’t say it to her. As his mother had said, most women like her found another man like Vladimir if they were cast off. The mistresses of rich, powerful Russian men always seemed to find another one, perhaps not as important as the first, or sometimes more so, if they were lucky. But the life they had led made them unsuitable for ordinary men. There was no way they could adjust to a real life once they had existed in the rarefied atmosphere of men like him, and most of those women didn’t want to. He wasn’t sure about Natasha and what she would do. She seemed different to him, but maybe she wasn’t, and perhaps she was addicted to all the benefits she reaped daily in Vladimir’s world. How could you leave a life like his for a real one? Few women could, and most wouldn’t want to. In a way, Vladimir had ruined her for everyone else if he ever left her, except a man just like him. Theo felt deep compassion for her, as they finished lunch and ordered coffee, and decided to share a dessert. They ordered the soft chocolate cake, which was delicious.

  There was one last question he wanted to ask her, although neither of them knew the answer to it.

  “What if you ever left him?” Admittedly, it was hard to imagine.

  “Why would I? He’s good to me, he’s a kind man. I think he loves me in his own way.”

  “But if you did for some reason?” She thought about it for a minute and almost said “he would kill me,” but she didn’t want to shock Theo or frighten him.

  “He would never forgive me.” And they both suspected he could be dangerous then, but neither of them said it, they just thought it.

  “When I first met you, I wondered if you were happy with him. He’s so much older than you are, so hard, so tough. Men like that don’t get softer when they go home at night.”

  “No, they don’t,” she agreed. “I’m happy enough. I would be more unhappy without him.” And Theo knew now that it wasn’t about the lifestyle or the perks he provided, but the safety she believed he afforded her. Theo hoped she was right. But whatever her reasons, he was sorry for her. He thought she was missing a lot, whether she knew it or not. But she seemed to have no regrets about her lost freedom. She seemed to think it was unimportant, as a trade for her allegedly protected life.

  He felt astonishingly close to her as he walked her back to her building farther up Avenue Montaigne. It had gotten colder and there were snowflakes in the air, which caught on her lashes as they stood outside her address.

  “Thank you for the painting.” She smiled at him. “And lunch.” She knew it was a special moment, for both of them. She and Theo had had some kind of connection from the first time they met. It was as though they had known each other for years. She didn’t understand it. She could see it in his portrait of her, he knew her intimately, and she felt the same way about him. It had been just a chance meeting, but a nice one. And she felt a little sad, leaving him, knowing they wouldn’t meet again. She couldn’t. Vladimir wouldn’t like it if they became friends. That didn’t fit into her life, and Theo knew it.

  “Thank you for having lunch with me, and answering my questions. I kept wondering about you, while I was doing the portrait.” And he didn’t say it to her, but now that he knew her better, he wanted to do another one, to capture a w
hole different side of her. She was a many-faceted woman, both wise and naïve, frightened and brave, and poignantly human. He wrote his phone number down on a piece of paper for her then, and handed it to her. “If you ever need me, or need a friend, or need help, or you just want to talk, call me. I’ll be there.” And she suspected he would. He seemed like a man you could trust and rely on.

  “Don’t worry about me.” She smiled at him again. “I’m safe.” She leaned toward him then and kissed him on the cheek and he held her for an instant, hoping that she was right and what she said was true, that she was safe. But how could she be with a man known to be ruthless, who had dangerous connections like Vladimir’s? Theo found it hard to believe. Maybe she knew him better. But Theo wasn’t sure.

  She waved as she walked into the building, and used the code to let herself into the inner door, and then disappeared, and Theo walked back to his hotel on the Left Bank, lost in thought. He knew he wouldn’t see her again, except by coincidence somewhere, and the time they had just spent together was a once-in-a-lifetime gift.

  It was nearly five when he reached the hotel. They had sat at the table at L’Avenue for hours, and he took his time walking back to where he was staying when he left her, to digest what she had said. And as he let himself into his hotel room, he saw Inez packing her suitcase and looking enraged. Her eyes were blazing, and he realized he had never turned his phone back on after lunch, and had forgotten his promise to call her at lunchtime. He felt like a complete jerk, but once he had been with Natasha, everything else had gone out of his head.

  “Where the hell were you, or should I guess? And why was your phone turned off?”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I forgot to turn it back on after lunch. I had lunch with Jean, and we got engrossed in a conversation about the art world. I’m really sorry, I lost track of the time.”

  “I called him four times and you left him at noon,” she said, looking irate. “Were you with the Russian girl in the portrait?” He thought of lying to her again and decided not to. There was no point.