Chapter 4: good girl
The silence in the penthouse was a different creature now. It was softer, punctuated by the faint hum of the climate control and the distant, melodic purring from the corner of a charcoal-grey sofa. Kaspar had taken ownership of a particular cushion with imperial disdain, a small grey king in a castle of steel and glass.
Vanja emerged from the bedroom, her hair damp from a shower, dressed in soft leggings and one of Max’s old university sweatshirts. She paused in the doorway, the scene before her momentarily stealing her breath.
Max was sprawled in an armchair opposite the sofa, a sleek laptop balanced on his thighs. His reading glasses were perched on his nose, a detail so disarmingly ordinary it made her chest tighten. And curled in a perfect circle on his chest, rising and falling with his breath, was Kaspar. The cat’s eyes were slits of contentment, his paws kneading absently against the fine wool of Max’s pullover.
Max’s hand moved slowly, rhythmically, stroking the cat’s back from head to tail. He didn’t look up from his screen, his brow furrowed slightly at whatever he was reading.
“Cozy,” Vanja said, her voice warm.
Max glanced up, a slow smile spreading across his face. He looked from her to the cat and back again. “He’s a traitor. One scratch behind the ears and he’s abandoned you.”
“He has good taste in furniture. And in people, apparently.”
Max chuckled, a low, genuine sound. He carefully shifted, trying to extricate himself without disturbing Kaspar. The cat gave a disgruntled mrrt and resettled on the now-warm chair as Max stood. “He knows who stocks the premium salmon now.”
The evening unfolded with a strange, domestic ease that felt both profound and deceptive. They cooked together, a silent dance in the massive kitchen. He chopped vegetables with a surprising, precise skill while she stirred a fragrant curry, the radio playing a low mix of jazz and blues. He watched her, his gaze a physical weight she could feel between her shoulder blades. It wasn’t the predatory hunger of before; it was contemplative, almost wondering.
They ate at the bar, knees touching. The conversation was light, meandering through books, a funny story from her university, his dry observations about a business associate. The undercurrents were there, humming beneath every word, but for now, they were ignored.
Later, they migrated to the vast sofa, a football match flickering on the massive screen. Arsenal versus Chelsea. The blue light played over Max’s focused face.
“Who do you prefer?” he asked during a lull in play, his arm slung casually along the back of the sofa behind her.
“Manchester United, honestly,” Vanja said, tucking her feet beneath her. “But right now, I guess Arsenal. I want them to win the league. Anyone but Manchester City again.”
He laughed, a quick, sharp exhale. “Sentimental.”
“It’s boring when one team wins everything.”
He was quiet for a moment, his eyes on the screen but his mind elsewhere. “Have you ever thought about owning a football club?” he asked, his tone deceptively casual, as if asking about the weather.
Vanja snorted, taking a sip of water. “Gods, no. It’s such a hassle. A money pit with too much drama.”
He lifted a brow, turning his head to look at her fully. “Really? No appeal in that kind of power?”
She met his gaze, sensing the test in the question. “My father is one of the minority owners of Borussia Dortmund. Saved them from bankruptcy in the early 2000s. Maybe the only sentimental thing he’s ever done in business.” She shrugged. “I saw the stress, the politics, the sheer noise of it all. Not for me.”
Max’s smile was slow, knowing. “Aren’t you going to work for Bayern soon? The enemy.”
She rolled her eyes but nodded. “Starting next month. In their youth development psychology program. It’s a good opportunity.”
“Bad girl,” he murmured, his eyes glinting with amusement. “Dortmund blood working for Bayern. Your father must love that.”
“He doesn’t get a vote.” Her voice held a finality that ended that thread of conversation.
On screen, Arsenal scored. They watched the celebration, a burst of noise in the quiet room. Kaspar slept on, oblivious.
When the match ended, Max stretched, the fabric of his shirt pulling tight across his shoulders. He stood and offered her his hand. “Come,” he said, his voice dropping an octave. “Let Kaspar sleep on his new throne.”
She placed her hand in his, a familiar thrill shivering up her arm. He led her not directly to the bedroom, but to the wall of glass overlooking the city. Munich was a tapestry of light below them, the Olympiapark a dark patch in the distance.
He stood behind her, his body a solid line of heat against her back. His arms circled her waist, his hands splaying possessively over her abdomen. He nuzzled her hair, inhaling deeply.
“You smell like my soap,” he said against her ear, his breath warm. “And spices. And you.”
She leaned back into him, feeling the hard proof of his arousal press against her. A shiver that was part anticipation, part surrender, ran through her.
“Does that bother you?” she whispered.
“It makes me hard,” he said simply, crudely, his hands sliding up to cup her breasts through the soft sweatshirt. He squeezed, his thumbs finding her nipples and pinching them through the fabric. She arched into the touch, a soft gasp escaping her lips.
He turned her then, his mouth claiming hers in a deep, languid kiss that tasted of red wine and intent. His hands pushed the sweatshirt up, breaking the kiss only to pull it over her head and discard it. Her leggings and underwear followed, a quick, efficient motion that left her naked and exposed in the city’s ambient light. He took a moment to just look, his blue eyes dark, drinking her in.
Then he undressed himself, his movements fluid and unhurried. When he was naked, he stepped close again, his skin hot against hers. He didn’t lead her to the bed. He backed her against the cold glass of the window, the vast drop at her back a silent scream.
“Put your hands on the glass,” he instructed, his voice a rough command.
She obeyed, her palms flattening against the cool, hard surface. He knelt behind her. His hands gripped the backs of her thighs, spreading her, opening her to the night. Then his mouth was on her, his tongue a ruthless, knowing stripe against her core.
She cried out, her forehead resting against the window. He feasted on her, his tongue delving inside her, then circling her clit with focused, brutal precision. He held her firmly, allowing no retreat from the intense, building pleasure. Her moans fogged the glass. One of his hands slid around her hip, his fingers plunging into her wetness alongside his tongue, fucking her with a relentless rhythm.
“Max… please…” she begged, her legs trembling.
“Please what?” he growled, the vibration against her sensitive flesh sending another shockwave through her.
“I need… I need you inside me.”
He stood abruptly, his body aligning with hers, his cock, thick and heavy, pressing against her entrance. He didn’t enter her. He rubbed the head up and down her soaked slit, teasing, smearing her own wetness.
“Who do you belong to?” he whispered, his teeth grazing the tendon in her neck.
She was beyond pride, beyond the complicated web of their names and histories. There was only this need, this exquisite pressure. “You,” she gasped.
He thrust into her in one brutal, deep stroke, filling her utterly. She screamed, the sound swallowed by the penthouse and the night. He set a punishing pace immediately, each powerful drive of his hips slamming her into the glass. His hands gripped her waist, holding her in place as he pounded into her.
The view of the city blurred. Her world narrowed to the feel of him splitting her open, the slap of his skin against hers, the primal sounds he made. He fucked her with a focused intensity, as if trying to brand himself into her very bones.
“So fucking tight for me,” he grunted, one hand snaking around to find her clit. His fingers rubbed rough, perfect circles as he pistoned into her. The dual sensation was overwhelming, a coil of pleasure winding impossibly tight.
“Come,” he ordered, his voice ragged. “Come on my cock. Now.”
The command, the unyielding pressure of his fingers, the deep, claiming penetration—it detonated her. Her orgasm ripped through her, violent and convulsing, her inner muscles clamping around him in rhythmic waves. She sobbed, her body shuddering against the unyielding glass.
He followed with a guttural roar, his thrusts turning erratic, desperate. He buried himself to the hilt and held there, his body rigid as he pulsed inside her, hot jets of release filling her. He collapsed against her back, his weight pressing her into the window, his breath coming in ragged gasps against her shoulder.
They stayed like that for long minutes, a slick, tangled sculpture against the skyline. Gradually, he softened inside her, slipping out. He turned her gently, cradling her against his chest where she could feel his heart hammering against her cheek.
He led her to the massive bed, wiping her down with a towel before pulling her under the duvet. He held her spooned against him, his arms a heavy band around her middle.
He held her spooned against him, his arms a heavy band around her middle. His breath slowed into the deep, even rhythm of sleep against the back of her neck, a warm contrast to the cool sheets. Vanja lay awake in the dark, listening to that rhythm, her mind a tangled knot of sensation and foreboding.
She woke to an empty bed and the smell of coffee. Sun streamed across the rumpled sheets. She found him in the kitchen, shirtless, pouring a cup. He smiled, a genuine, easy thing that made her stomach flip."Morning." He came to her, kissed her forehead, and handed her the mug. His fingers brushed a strand of hair from her face, lingering on her cheek. "Sleep well?"
"Surprisingly, yes." She took a sip, watching him move. A small, red smear on the collar of his discarded shirt, lying over the back of a barstool, caught the light.
It was lipstick. A vivid, crimson kiss of it. She froze, the ceramic mug suddenly burning in her hands.
He followed her gaze. His expression didn't change, but something in his eyes tightened, a shutter falling. He picked up the shirt, looked at the stain, then back at her. "Vanja," he began, his voice carefully neutral.
She set the mug down with a sharp click. The calm of the morning shattered like dropped crystal."Whose is that?" Her own voice sounded distant, cold.
"Mine," he said, a stupid, flippant answer born of pure male panic. He instantly regretted it.
She let out a short, humorless laugh. "Of course it is." She turned to walk away, to the bathroom, to anywhere.
He caught her arm."Wait."
"Don't." She wrenched her arm free. The motion was violent, final.
"I didn't cheat on you," he said, the words forceful, his grip now on her shoulders, forcing her to look at him.
She shook her head, her golden-green eyes glacier-cold. "We are not even together," she said, each word a shard of ice. "So how can you cheat on me?"
"Vanja," he said, his voice dropping, straining for calm. "It's my sister's. She thought she was being funny."
Vanja looked away, towards the vast, indifferent city. She would not cry. She would not give him that. She pulled away from his grasp and walked, stiff-backed, to the master bathroom. She locked the door. The click of the bolt was a period at the end of a sentence.
Twenty minutes later, she sat on the tiled floor of the massive shower, the hot water cascading over her hunched shoulders. She cried then, silent, heaving sobs that stole her breath. The water masked the sound. It couldn't mask the hollow, breaking feeling in her chest. He knocked, a firm rap on the door. "Open the door, please. Let me explain."
"You already did," she called out, her voice raw and muffled by the water and the ache in her throat. She felt it all—the sharp pain of betrayal, the loss of the fragile trust she’d just begun to tentatively offer, the hot anger at her own stupidity for believing, even for a moment, in a different kind of story.
A part of her, a weak, foolish part, wanted to believe his ridiculous story. The other part, the part forged in the quiet disappointments of her father’s world and her own previous hurts, knew better. She had been hurt before. This was just a more elegant, more devastating version.
"Please," he said, the word a plea through the wood.
She didn't open it. She heard him slide down to sit on the other side. For hours, his voice, low and persistent, filtered through the door.He talked. He explained about Masha, his younger sister, her chaotic, dramatic life. He described their meeting at their father’s house, a tense discussion about family business that had left him agitated. He talked about her ridiculous, theatrical goodbye kiss on the cheek, how he hadn't even noticed the smear. He talked until his voice grew hoarse.Vanja didn't respond. But he heard her move, the rustle of a towel, the soft pad of her feet on the floor. She was listening.
Finally, he called her. "Masha," he said, the fatigue and fury evident in his tone. "You fucked up. Vanja thinks I was with a woman."
Masha's laugh tinkled through the speaker, bright and unrepentant. "You were with a woman.Me."
"Masha," he warned, the single word a vortex of cold threat. "It's not funny."
"Oh, Max," she sighed, the laughter dying. "You are so pussy-whipped.But fine. Put her on the phone."
"She won't open the door."
"Can she hear me on speaker?"
"Yeah," he said, shifting closer to the doorframe. "She can."
"Okay, Vanja? Hi," Masha's voice became clearer, intentionally softer. "It's Masha. Max's sister.I'm sorry. I thought it was funny. I'm really sorry. The red lipstick, Dior 003, that was mine. He came to talk to our dad and I was there. I've never seen him so worked up over a girl before. I thought I was being funny."
The silence from the bathroom was absolute. It was a tangible thing, heavier than any shouted accusation.
"Well," Max said, his voice flat with defeated exhaustion. "That was that. Thanks for nothing, Masha."He hung up.
In the morning, he woke to an empty bed. The space beside him was cold. He was covered with a blanket she had tucked around him before she left. That detail was a knife-twist. She had done that, a last gesture of… something.Care? Pity? Then she had left him.
Worst of all, Kaspar was gone too. The cushion was empty. She had taken her damn cat and left him.
The silence in the penthouse was no longer soft. It was a screaming vacuum. He got out of bed. He walked to the living room. He saw the empty spot where her suitcase had been. He picked up the empty coffee mug she had used, the one she had set down so carefully before seeing the stain. He looked at it for a long moment. Then he threw it, hard, against the black marble fireplace. It exploded in a satisfying cacophony of ceramic shards.
It was a starting pistol. He broke everything he could. A vase of orchids. The crystal whiskey decanter. A small, brutalist sculpture that cost more than most cars. The violence was methodical, silent except for the crashes. He didn't roar. He just destroyed. When he drove his fist through the smoked glass of a side table, the jagged edge opened a gash across his knuckles. He watched the blood well, dark and thick, and felt nothing. He needed three stitches. He didn't care.
He was standing amidst the glittering wreckage, holding a ragged towel to his bleeding hand, when he heard the electronic chime of the elevator. The soft ding was obscene in the aftermath of his rage.
The doors slid open.
Vanja stood there, holding a plastic pet carrier. Kaspar yowled indignantly from within. She took in the scene: the shattered glass, the upended furniture, the wild, bleeding man in the center of it. Her expression didn't change.
"You have serious anger issues," she said, her voice calm. "Kaspar is now in a crate. The vet said he's fine, just annoyed."
He stared at her, the towel dropping from his hand. The cut was deep, the blood fresh. "Where were you?" he asked, his voice weak, stripped raw.
"Took Mr. Kasparov to the vet," she said, walking carefully through the debris, placing the carrier down. "His annual check-up. I thought to give you space."Without telling me?" The words exploded from him, a hoarse shout. "Fuck, I thought you left me!"
She finally looked at him, really looked, her gaze traveling from his devastated face to his bleeding hand to the chaos around them. "And you broke everything breakable instead of going after me?" she asked, her head tilting. The question was genuine, laced with a clinical curiosity that was somehow more damning than any scorn.
"Shut up," he whispered. He crossed the space in two strides, his good hand coming up to cup the back of her head. He kissed her. It was a desperate, bloody, claiming thing, his mouth desperate against hers. He tasted of copper and fear. When he pulled back, his forehead rested against hers, his breath mingling with hers. "I didn't lie," he said, the words a raw scrape in his throat. "And I didn't cheat on you. I would rather die than do that."
He sounded utterly, devastatingly sure. Vanja looked from his wild, blood-flecked face to the ruins of his living room. The destruction was a language. It spoke of a violence she’d only glimpsed in his quiet commands and the ruthless snap of his hips. This was the raw, unfiltered version. This was the man behind the charm, the one who discussed liquidations before dawn.
She didn’t pull away from his forehead resting against hers. She tasted his desperation, metallic and sharp. “Why?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper in the cavernous, broken room. “Why would I trust you?”
He went very still. The only sound was Kaspar’s annoyed shuffling in his carrier and the drip of water from a shattered vase. Max pulled back just enough to look into her eyes. His own were a stormy, wounded blue.
“My father cheated on my mother,” he said, the words coming out in a rushed, unbroken stream, as if he had to expel them or choke. “Masha was younger than me. My mother found out. She was never the same. She killed herself a year later.” He sucked in a sharp breath, his gaze locked on hers, holding her there in the wreckage of his past. “I don’t do relationships. Well, not until you. But one thing I know, one thing I promised to myself and my mother, is that I would never be that man.”
The confession hung between them, stark and ugly. It explained the penthouse’s sterile perfection, his controlled ferocity, his terror at her walking away. It wasn’t just about her. It was about a ghost in a Moscow apartment, a promise made to a photograph.
“Oh, Max,” Vanja whispered, her heart cracking open. She brought her hands up, cradling his stubbled jaw, her thumbs brushing the stark planes of his cheeks. She could feel the tension in his clenched teeth. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said, his voice rough. “You haven’t done a thing but—” He stopped, his composure finally shattering. A raw, broken sound escaped him. He leaned into her touch, his eyes squeezing shut. “Fuck. Please don’t leave me again.”
It was the plea that undid her. The most dangerous man she’d ever met, standing in a field of his own making, bleeding and begging. Not for forgiveness, but for her not to go.
“Ok,” she said softly. She leaned in and pressed her lips to his wounded knuckles, a gentle kiss on the broken skin. She tasted his blood, salt and iron. A sacrament.
She led him to the one intact sofa, avoiding the glittering shards. She fetched the first-aid kit from his pristine bathroom, a compact black leather case filled with suspiciously professional-grade supplies. He watched her, silent and spent, as she cleaned the cut. It was deep, but clean. She sterilized it, applied a clotting agent, and wrapped his hand in a neat bandage, her movements precise, clinical. He winced only once, when the antiseptic bit.
When she was done, she sat beside him, not touching. The distance was inches, but it felt cavernous. He reached for her with his good hand, threading his fingers through hers. They sat like that for a long time, in the quiet dusk of the destroyed room.
Later, in the undamaged sanctuary of the bedroom, she undressed him slowly. She pushed his shirt over his shoulders, her fingers tracing the hard muscle of his chest, the old, silvery scars she’d never asked about. He stood passively, letting her guide him. She undid his trousers, let them fall. She led him to the bed and pushed him down onto his back.
She straddled him, still in her own clothes. She leaned down, her hair curtaining their faces, and kissed him. It was soft, a slow exploration. He responded hungrily, his good hand coming up to tangle in her hair, but she set the pace. A languid, deep tasting. She pulled back, looking down at him.
“My turn,” she murmured, her voice low.
She stripped for him, each movement deliberate. The slow pull of her zipper. The shrug of her dress from her shoulders. The clip of her bra. She let him look, let his eyes drink her in. His cock lay thick and heavy against his stomach, already fully hard. A vein pulsed along its length.
She lowered herself onto him, taking him inside her in one smooth, slow descent. She was wet, still tender from the night before, and the stretch was a perfect, aching fullness. She sank all the way down until she was seated fully on him, feeling him nudge deep inside her.
“Fuck,” he gasped, his hands flying to her hips, his fingers biting into her skin.
She began to move. A slow, rolling grind of her hips, a sinuous undulation that made him curse softly, his head tipping back into the pillows. She set a torturous, gentle rhythm, riding him with a focused intensity that was all her own. She watched his face, watched the play of pleasure and surrender across his features. She leaned forward, her breasts brushing his chest, and increased the pace, her clit rubbing against him with every rise and fall.
“Vanja,” he choked out, his hips bucking upward to meet her downward stroke.
“Mine,” she whispered, leaning down to lick the shell of his ear. “You’re mine.” She said it with the same quiet certainty he used.
It tipped him over the edge. With a guttural roar, he grabbed her ass and flipped her onto her back, never slipping out of her. He drove into her, once, twice, three times, deep and hard, before his orgasm ripped through him. He came inside her with a broken shout, his body shuddering, pulsing, emptying.
He collapsed atop her, his weight a crushing, welcome anchor. He was asleep within minutes, his breathing evening out into a deep, exhausted rhythm. She lay beneath him, feeling the sticky warmth between her thighs, feeling the solid reality of him.
She fell asleep with his weight pinning her to the bed, to him.
He woke hours later to the faint grey light of pre-dawn. She was curled into his side, one hand resting on his bandaged one. Her face in sleep was untroubled, ethereal. He watched the slight flutter of her eyelashes, the part of her lips. She was so pretty that it hurt. And so kind, and so smart, and so fucking brave to walk back into a shattered room and see him, not the monster, but the broken boy inside.
He thought he was in love.
He had never felt that before. The concept had been an abstraction, a tactical weakness. Now it was a visceral, terrifying ache in his chest. It felt like a rib had been cracked open and something vital was exposed to the air. He watched her sleep until the sky lightened to a soft periwinkle.
A day later, the doorbell to the penthouse chimed. Vanja, reading a journal article on the sofa with Kaspar purring in her lap, looked up. Max, who was at his laptop at the desk, tensed almost imperceptibly. He stood and went to the door monitor.
On the screen was a younger woman, early twenties, with Max’s same shocking blue eyes and a wild tumble of platinum curls. She held a large pink box from Dallmayr. Masha.
Max sighed, a long-suffering sound, and buzzed her up. “Be nice,” he said to Vanja, without turning around. “She’s chaotic, but she means well.”
The elevator doors opened. Masha breezed in like a small, fragrant hurricane, her eyes immediately finding Vanja. She stopped dead, the pastry box held out in front of her like a shield. Her gaze swept from Vanja’s face, down to the cat on her lap, and back up.
“Fuck, Max,” Masha breathed, her eyes wide. “She is fucking gorgeous.” She took a step closer, as if examining a priceless painting. “How is… fuck. Wow.”
Max chuckled from behind her, a real, warm sound Vanja hadn’t heard often. “Behave, Mash.”
Masha ignored him, handing Vanja the pastry box. “Hi. I’m the idiot sister. These are a peace offering. And an apology. For the lipstick. And for my brother being a emotionally constipated lunatic who breaks things.”
Vanja took the box, a smile playing on her lips. “Thank you. I’m Vanja.”
“She is doing her PhD, you know,” Max offered, leaning against the doorway to the living room, arms crossed, a smirk on his face.
Masha’s eyes widened further. She looked at Vanja with new, impressed appreciation. “No shit?”
“Sports psychology,” Vanja confirmed.
“And she loves cats,” Max added, nodding at Kaspar, who was inspecting Masha’s designer handbag with feline disdain.
“Perfect,” Masha declared, as if this sealed some internal assessment. She plopped down on the sofa next to Vanja, uninvited. “And football,” she said, shooting a look at her brother.
Max’s smirk softened into something more genuine. “Yeah.”
Masha’s expression grew more cautious. She leaned slightly toward Vanja, her voice dropping a conspiratorial notch. “Does she know about…?”
Max’s posture shifted, the easy warmth freezing over. “What, our father still owning Chelsea? No, Masha. She does not know who our father is.”
Masha looked back at Vanja, then at the luxurious penthouse, then at her brother’s protective, possessive stance. A slow, incredulous smile spread across her face. “And yet she lives here now.”
“Yeah,” Max said, his eyes finding Vanja’s across the room. They held a softness that made her stomach flip. “And, as it turns out, pays half of the bills. I just got two thousand pounds from her on Venmo.”
Masha’s laugh was a bright, delighted burst of sound that filled the sterile space. She shook her head, looking from her brother to Vanja and back again, her smile turning wistful. “This,” she said, gesturing between them, “is incredible.”