Chapter 1

Deep breath, exhale... I go to my parents' house. Despite the fact that I warned about my visit, my father and Alina, his wife, decided not to wait and sat down to dinner without me. However, I was not particularly upset, now a piece will definitely not go down my throat. “Although, they are also unlikely to want to continue the meal after what they saw,” I thought maliciously.

Fortunately, there was no need to fake tears. They still had no effect on the father. So I gave free rein to my real emotions - anger and resentment.

At the sight of me, my father looked up from his steak and greeted me, gesturing to an empty chair.

- Something happened? the stepmother asked sympathetically.

- It happened! Kirill Ruseev happened to me! I angrily retorted and threw some photos on the table.

The father only glanced at them, while Alina carefully studied the images.

"It's not you, I take it," she said slowly.

I really wanted to be sarcastic, but I restrained myself. Yes, it was definitely not me in the photos, despite the fact that my half-naked fiancé appeared there. On it, with her back (thanks to this one too) to the camera, sat the same half-naked girl. It was quite difficult to confuse us, if only because her back was covered with a scattering of blond curls, while my hair was straight and almost black. And on her lower back there was a tattoo either in the form of a butterfly, or in the form of a moth ... in any case, I would never allow myself such a vulgarity.

“Polina,” the stepmother began with a sigh, “you and I have already discussed this. She threw a quick glance at my father, but he was in no hurry to save her from an awkward conversation. “Men… especially the powerful ones… it’s hard for them to be in a monogamous relationship. Yes, sometimes they have weaknesses, but they always return home ... to people like you and me. And they don’t come back empty-handed,” she giggled.

I can’t call our relationship with her warm, but we certainly weren’t enemies. So now her words aroused in me only pity. Maybe she is ready to endure her husband’s numerous betrayals in exchange for diamonds or a new car, but I don’t want such a life for myself.

Yes, I remember our conversation. But if I'm not mistaken, then you meant smart men, those who, so to speak, are not particularly scorched.

The father grimaced a little at these words. Yes, well-bred girls do not say the word “burning”. If there is one thing that mattered to Leonid Vorontsov, it was reputation and upbringing. But in this situation, his attitude to “what will people say” was only to my advantage.

“The problem is,” I deliberately made a significant pause, “that these photographs were on display today at the entire university. Well, at least 68 people in our stream found them in their desks at the first lecture. It is difficult for me to imagine the full scale of the disaster, but I dare to assume that by the end of the day, few people were left in the dark of Cyril's adventures.

This finally got my father's attention. Angrily, he threw away the instruments and they hit his glass with a loud ringing, thereby knocking him over. Red wine spread on the table and I watched the stain as if spellbound, wondering if the drops would fall on the light carpet or not.

"Puppy," his father said angrily. - Cattle, it is cattle, whatever you say. Does he not understand that he is compromising not only himself, but also our family?! I'll call his father right now, this sucker won't leave a wet spot.

Welcome to the hypocritical world of the “powerful ones,” as Alina put it. You can easily cheat on your women right and left, and no one will say a word to you. But as soon as you “burn out”, the wrath of all the “decent family men” around will pour out on you.

“I don’t know how to go to university now,” I admitted. “Today, I ran away as soon as I saw these photos, but I can’t hide forever. Maybe I should switch to an apprenticeship? Well, or at least self-study until all this hype subsides?

- You? You are Vorontsov! And the Vorontsovs are not hiding! You will go to the university with your head held high, as always. The mutts around will always yap, what do we care about them?

Already something, but the father does not hold self-esteem. This is perhaps the only feature that I would like to adopt from him. But, unfortunately, it didn’t work out, so I always endured curious and mocking glances. And when she learned to ignore them, it was by no means because she considered herself better than others. It’s just that at a certain moment, the body responsible for the opinions of outsiders could not withstand the load and burned to hell, and I didn’t give a damn about what others think of me there. Still, it is impossible to live your whole life worrying about the opinions of others. Unfortunately, I have a lot of experience with this.

There was no point in lingering any longer. I was sure that after my father's call, Cyril would not try to justify himself and pester me. Let our parents sort things out among themselves, after all, they had huge plans for our couple. Although ... at first we had. It wouldn't be true to say that it was our parents who brought us together. We began to meet by mutual agreement and, I'm not afraid of this word, sympathy, but then the parents saw this as a chance to reliably unite their companies and placed great hopes on us.

My father was very proud of his pedigree and the so-called “old money”. Cyril's family, on the contrary, moved here from the provinces and, although they were very rich, they could not boast of “blue blood”. As soon as we started dating, the parents began to discuss building a new plant in the south of the country, thus cementing their companies as leaders in the industry. So our marriage, in theory, was supposed to kill two birds with one stone: fix small problems in my father’s business and “move” the Ruseev family up the social ladder.

Unfortunately, I realized too late what a trap I fell into. Initially, the relationship with Kirill was a breath of fresh air for me. At school, no one talked to me in recent years, except for one and only friend, Alex Bulavin, but he, having entered the university a year earlier than me, left me all alone in my senior class. The most annoying thing is that my own brother Maxim and his best friend Gleb Uritsky were to blame for my loneliness. These two hated me so much that they practically created a “club of Polina's haters” and weaved such a web of lies and gossip that no one was left behind. The saddest thing was that they themselves believed their lies with all their hearts and did not want to give me the opportunity to tell my version of events. But that was four years ago, now there is absolutely nothing connecting us, and even the common past seems to have been simply erased from memory. I am nothing to them, an empty place. They are for me… they are just NOT for me.

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Dear readers! I'm thrilled to share my first book with you and I really hope you enjoy it! I will be glad if you support her with likes and comments! And I, in turn, promise new chapters every day! Thank you!