He sat in his office, sipping expensive coffee prepared by his secretary, when the head of security entered his office. The owner of the office nodded toward the chair and immediately asked:
“Did something happen?”
“Arseny Borisovich, I have information that you might be in danger.”
The boss pondered, trying to guess from whom the danger might be coming. Of course, there were plenty of competitors and envious people, but no one had openly threatened him.
“Oleg, do you have concrete information, or are these just your guesses?”
“My guesses have never failed me—and they saved your life twice.”
“Alright,” the boss said amicably. “What are you going to do?”
“You need a bodyguard.”
“But Max is already my driver and bodyguard.”
“Arseny Borisovich, please excuse me! But with your lifestyle…” the security man hesitated, realizing he’d said too much.
“Well, go on—talk about my lifestyle!”
“Your late-night strolls…”
“I’ve been a bachelor for two years now,” he replied rather brusquely. “And you handle the security, so don’t meddle in my personal life!”
“But your personal life is your greatest danger.”
Arseny Borisovich Rozanov was forty years old and an oligarch – though only on a regional scale. Everything was going splendidly until his father, who managed both factories, was alive. Two years ago, however, his father died. His young yet shrewd wife immediately filed for divorce. They had no children; she received a substantial settlement and disappeared without a trace.
After that, Arseny was somewhat broken. But his father always said that their business relied on seven employees. You could quarrel with them as much as you wanted, but you always had to listen to their opinions, and under no circumstances could you fire them – they would always pull you out of a difficult situation. And they did pull Arseny out. He returned to leading his “empire” but continued his life as a bachelor and a playboy. At the slightest hint of a serious relationship, he immediately broke up with yet another girlfriend.
One of these seven employees was his head of security, Oleg.
“What do you want?” Arseny asked in a friendly tone.
“That while you’re out on your walks, you must always have a bodyguard by your side.”
“Fine, do it your way, but make sure that they don’t irritate me.”
“I promise you that!” A mysterious smile appeared on the security man’s face. “But you must also promise that for the next week or two you won’t go out in the evenings without a bodyguard.”
“Alright, what have you come up with?”
“Arseny, she’s a woman, and I guarantee she won’t irritate you.”
“What? You mean I’m going to have a female bodyguard?” The oligarch was stunned.
“Everyone is used to having women constantly around you. She won’t arouse suspicion, but she will save your life in case of danger.”
The confusion on the oligarch’s face turned into curiosity, and a smile flickered:
“Alright! What’s her name?”
“Nastya Dubrovina. She’s in my office.”
“Call her in!” He glanced at his watch. “It’s lunchtime. Today, since I have a bodyguard… a female bodyguard, I’ll have lunch at a restaurant.”
And so she entered Arseny’s office. She appeared to be about thirty, sporting a stylish short haircut, moderate makeup, an elegant trouser suit, and a woman’s handbag slung over her shoulder. A smile involuntarily flickered across his face:
“And what? This girl is going to protect me?”
“Nastya Dubrovina,” she introduced herself, and in a serious voice added, “Your bodyguard.”
“Excellent! I was just about to go to lunch,” Arseny said, nodding as he made his way to the door. “Let’s go!”
Maxim – Rozanov’s driver – was sitting in the car waiting for the boss, who frequently dined at restaurants. Now, he came out of his office with a young woman. Maxim wasn’t surprised; lately, Arseny’s girlfriends had been changing often, but he was even more taken aback by what happened next.
The woman opened the rear door, helped the boss into the car, walked around the vehicle, and sat on the left side.
“Nastya,” she introduced herself while simultaneously inspecting the car.
“Maxim, let’s head to the restaurant!” Arseny ordered, barely suppressing his laughter.
The car pulled away. The bodyguard turned and glanced at the cars parked nearby. Her face remained serious despite the smiles of the men.
The car stopped near the restaurant. Arseny, accompanied by his bodyguard, made his way to the entrance, but Nastya halted at the door:
“Arseny Borisovich, I will wait here for you. Sit in a way that we can see each other.”
“Stop talking nonsense!” he said as he opened the door. “Come in!”
She looked at him with a stern gaze yet stepped inside. She chose a table on her own and sat first so that she could see the entire hall, the door, and the street outside the window.
A waiter approached and politely asked:
“Is it the usual order?”
“Yes,” Arseny nodded and then asked his companion, “Nastya, what will you order?”
“Nothing.”
“Bring the lady something very delicious!” Arseny instructed the waiter.
“Why did you do that?” Nastya asked when the waiter went off to place the order.
“My head of security said that you should act as though we’re…” he suppressed a smile. “Good friends. So you’ll have to eat a little.”
“My head of security also said that I’m supposed to protect you.”
“But he added that you should not irritate me with your behavior?”
“Yes, he did. I will try.”
In his inner thoughts the bodyguard increasingly irritated him. To me, she’s like a wooden effigy. Her eyes wander everywhere except on me. Does she really think she can protect me? I managed just fine for many years without any protection. In my youth I practiced sambo, carried a pistol in my pocket, could shoot quite well, and have the right to carry it. What if in case of danger she has to defend herself?”
The waiter brought the order, set it on the table, and left.
“Nastya, eat!” Arseny smiled.
The woman picked up her fork and tasted the food. It was clear that she wasn’t a regular at restaurants—she had likely never tried a steaming Kamchatka crab with salmon roe—but she ate it as if it were herring with zucchini roe.
When they arrived at the office, Arseny addressed his bodyguard in formal language:
“You’re off for today! In the evening, Maxim will drive me home, and I’ll go to bed. If needed, I’ll call.”
“Very well!” the woman nodded.
That evening, Arseny returned to his vast, empty cottage—a house that had never felt like home. It had been built five years earlier, before his wedding. He had married a beauty fifteen years his junior when he was thirty-five.
He soon realized there was no love there; they lived together only because his wife feared her father-in-law, who had promised to leave her penniless. After his father’s death, she immediately filed for divorce. Fortunately, her father-in-law had insisted on a prenuptial agreement. Having received everything she was entitled to under the agreement plus what she could squeeze out of Arseny, she vanished.
Numerous women, from eighteen-year-old girls to forty-year-old ladies, were eager to marry him, but Arseny had no desire to remarry. Occasionally, melancholy would strike and he would remember his father, who had always longed for a grandson—a wish that was never fulfilled.
That very evening, melancholy overwhelmed him:
“Some of my peers will soon be grandfathers, and I still don’t have children. Does true love not exist, and will I never meet my other half? Perhaps she is out there somewhere; maybe we’ve even met before.” Thoughts raced through his mind as if he were a twenty-year-old instead of a forty-year-old man.
A housemaid, an elderly woman, knocked on his door:
“Arseny, will you have dinner?”
“No, Aunt Anya!”
He collapsed into his chair as gloomy thoughts continued to invade his mind:
“Tonight I won’t be able to sleep again. Should I get drunk? Or invite one of my girlfriends over?”
He took his phone and began browsing through the names of his girlfriends. Yet he felt no real desire to meet any of them. Just then, as if in self-justification, he thought:
“No. Besides, I promised Oleg that I wouldn’t go for an evening stroll without my bodyguard.” Suddenly, her figure flashed before his eyes, and an astonishing idea came to him: “What if I invite her? After all, she’s supposed to accompany me on my walks.”
At that thought, his heart felt light and joyful, as if a heavy burden had been lifted. He grabbed his phone and dialed the number that had just appeared in his contacts today.
“I’m listening, Arseny Borisovich!” came a serious voice.
“Nastya, let’s go for a walk!”
“I’m coming right away!” responded the voice of someone who’d just been summoned to work.
“I’ll come pick you up!”
He then called the second driver, the one who worked on his other car during the evenings and nights.
Arseny meticulously shaved and washed as if he were about to go on a date. And indeed, that’s exactly what it was.
She was already waiting for him outside her home—still dressed in the same trouser suit with her handbag over her shoulder. For a moment, a thought crossed his mind:
“I wonder where she keeps her pistol? Probably in her handbag. For me to draw my pistol, it only takes two seconds. I wonder how quickly, in case of danger, she would find hers. Oh, protector!”
“Where are we going?” Nastya asked in her firm tone.
“Just for a walk,” he gestured to the driver. “I’ll call when you’re needed.”
He then phoned the evening driver.
Arseny shaved carefully and washed up as if he were preparing for a date. And indeed, it was a date of sorts.
They strolled through the evening city. His companion kept scanning the surroundings with cautious glances at every passerby who aroused suspicion.
“Nastya, can’t you walk calmly and relax?”
“I’m on duty,” she replied succinctly.
“We’re just taking a walk; no one’s going to attack us,” he said, unable to help but ask, “Nastya, do you ever smile?”
A brief smile flickered across her face, but only for an instant. Then she said plainly:
“There are few reasons to smile in life.”
“Tell me about yourself!” Arseny requested.
“Just an ordinary life. I was never considered a beauty. My parents weren’t wealthy. I practiced karate—and was even a regional champion once. Then I took up rapid pistol shooting. I was invited to a bodyguards’ school, and I’ve been working as a bodyguard for three years now.”
“And what about your personal life?”
She looked at him in surprise, but answered:
“Not at all. What kind of personal life can a bodyguard have? I chose this path in life, and there’s no turning back.”
“And what do your parents say?”
“They scold me. I’m their only child. We weren’t well off, and they never dared have another child. Now they dream of grandchildren, but with a daughter like me, I suppose they’ll never have one.”
“I feel the same way,” Arseny said unexpectedly, even to himself. “My father always dreamed of a grandson, but I married at thirty-five. We divorced three years later, immediately after my father passed away.”
“And your mother?”
“I don’t remember her. My parents were complicated people—something I realized later. My father thought only of his work and of me, since I was his heir. Considering my mother never even tried to meet me, I suppose she was satisfied with everything.”
“Indeed, your parents sound complicated.”
“Nastya, we’re always talking about complicated and sad things. Look, what a nice café. Let’s go in and have some coffee.”
She only shrugged in response.
When they left the café, a warm summer evening had settled over the city.
“Nastya, let me see you home…”
“No, Arseny Borisovich,” the woman said as her expression switched back to work mode. “We’ll stop by your house; I can get home on my own.”
“Agreed.”
Her home was far away, yet he didn’t want to part from her—especially since his personal car was always nearby, making it irrelevant where they went.
“Come on, give me your hand!” he offered.
“No, Arseny Borisovich, I need my hands free.”
“Nastya, can you forget about your job for a moment?”
“No.”
“Alright then, let’s go like pioneers.”
“Like what?” the young woman did not understand.
“Like pioneers. My father once said that when I was in first grade, there were still pioneers in school, wearing red scarves. Perhaps they didn’t always walk arm in arm.”
For over an hour they walked until they reached his cottage, chatting about trivial matters. Neither wanted to discuss work.
“Here’s my home!” Arseny pointed to the enormous cottage.
“Beautiful.”
“Will you come in for a visit?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
“No, I’ll go home.”
Somehow, that answer delighted him and, to hide his joy, he turned and waved his hand. At that moment, a car pulled up. Arseny opened the door:
“Get in, Nastya! Tomorrow I’ll be at work until the evening; then I’ll call you,” he ordered the driver. “Take me home!”
“Alright!” the driver replied with a nod.
Night fell, and Arseny lay awake as if he had returned to his youth—feeling the rush of his first pure, beautiful love:
“I’m no longer twenty, but I’m not sixty either. I might still have time to raise children and, if luck favors me, see grandchildren. Nastya is not my ex, the one who only loved going shopping and to restaurants. But she’s so dedicated to her work that she can’t think of anything else. And she’s always watching her surroundings. Well, in a week or so this whole circus with the female bodyguard will end. For now, we’ll just have our evening walks. Tomorrow, I need to go somewhere to impress her—although it’s hard to tell what she likes. She isn’t interested in restaurants. She won’t go shopping. Not even flowers will work; she’ll say her hands must remain free. Alright then, by tomorrow evening I’ll come up with something.”
Nastya couldn’t sleep either. She was thirty and had been burned by love a couple of times before—but while before she was merely hurt, now she might be set ablaze. After all, there shouldn’t be any intimate relationship between a bodyguard and his charge. Besides, who was he, and who was she? Yet she longed for passion, wishing for him to be close.
“How did it happen? When they told me whom I would be protecting, I learned about his life. At first, I didn’t like him,” she recalled with a tender smile. “But he’s so simple—not at all like the oligarch one would expect to protect. I never expected that I would fall in love. I thought I was incapable of such things. It’s fine to guard him for two weeks; then all of this will be forgotten.”
The next morning, as usual, there was a meeting. However, work problems didn’t really cloud his mind. His seven loyal aides were accustomed to this and only reported problems so that the boss would be informed.
After the meeting, the lawyer lingered:
“Arseny Borisovich, yesterday I had a ‘friendly’ conversation with the people of Belsky”—the lawyer stressed “friendly” to imply that the conversation was far from friendly—“regarding that electrical equipment factory. They claim that the factory rightfully belongs to them, but even your father had invested in it with the understanding that it would later be bought out, which we did.”
Arseny half-listened, vaguely recalling that disputes over that factory had been ongoing for years—and even threats had been made against him, which he never really took seriously.
“Igor Evgenievich, we need to resolve this matter with Belsky once and for all. If he doesn’t understand, get Oleg involved!”
“He’s aware and is already taking measures.”
“Good.”
Finally, the day ended along with all its problems. Returning home, Arseny shaved, washed up, and called his bodyguard:
“Nastya, let’s go for a walk; I’ll be at your place in half an hour.”
“Alright,” her voice now less businesslike than the day before.
Nastya left wearing her trouser suit with her handbag on her shoulder. It seemed that nothing had changed about her appearance—only that her makeup was applied more meticulously and her perfume had an intoxicating new scent.
“Where are we going?” asked the bodyguard, her tone filled with pure, curious femininity.
“Just a walk in the park.”
She understood that with a man you liked, you might wander the city, but merely strolling in the park might not suffice.
They walked along a pathway, chatting idly. Arseny longed to start a conversation about what had occupied his mind all night—to thaw the cool heart of this reserved woman—but the few passersby, though seldom encountered, prevented him from starting to speak about what truly mattered.
He noticed a narrow trail and turned off the main road. A smile flickered across his companion’s face, yet she did not dare object, nor did she wish to. When they had moved a little away from the road, he gathered his courage:
“Nastya, what I’m about to say may surprise you. You don’t have to answer immediately…”
At that moment, they saw three men emerging from the bushes. They were holding firearms. Arseny realized he wouldn’t have enough time to draw his own, and a terrible thought rushed through his mind:
“Because I have Nastya with me.”
She stepped aside, shielding him with her body, and in her hand a pistol became visible.
In that split second, Arseny managed to draw his own weapon, pushed his bodyguard aside, and fired.
He then saw his companion falling to the ground, a red stain spreading on her jacket.
“Nastya!”
He caught her, gently laid her on the grass, and took out his phone. Without taking his eyes off his beloved, he called an ambulance, then Oleg.
He knew that nothing he did could help her; he could only plead:
“Nastya, please don’t die!”
Soon the sound of an approaching car was heard. It was Oleg’s vehicle, followed by an ambulance and the police. A doctor leaped from the car and hurried to Nastya, brushing her neck lightly with his fingers:
“She’s alive! Quickly, get in the car.”
Darkness. Nastya tried to open her eyes, but she didn’t even have the strength to lift her eyelids. In her mind, images of the park flashed by, and a terrifying thought surfaced:
“I managed to shoot twice, and there were three of them. Arseny!”
Fear made her eyes open suddenly.
“What, Nastya?”
Her beloved’s face appeared against a white ceiling.
“Are you alive?” he asked, trying to smile.
“Don’t say anything! You must not worry. The doctor will come soon, and then your mother.”
Nastya awoke again. Beside her sat her mother, tears streaming down immediately:
“Daughter, how could this be!”
“Mom, stop! I’m feeling better. It’s my job, after all.”
“Why did you choose such a job?” her mother suddenly asked, a smile breaking through on her wrinkled face. “Arseny said that you would no longer work as a bodyguard.”
At this, a smile appeared on the patient’s face:
“Have you met him yet?”
“We sat with him beside you while you were in labor,” her mother paused, uncertain whether to say something important, but eventually added, “Nastya, and he loves you.”
“What are you saying?”
“I can feel it. He may be wealthy, but he’s a good man.”
“Mom, he’s rich—and who am I? A bodyguard.”
“Nastya,” her mother said with surprise, “you love him too?!”
Tears welled in the daughter’s eyes, and she nodded in response.
The doctor later informed Nastya that the operation had been successful and quite satisfactory. Now she awaited the evening, for Arseny was expected to arrive.
And then he entered. He kissed her on the cheek and sat next to her in a chair:
“How are you?”
“Fine.”
“Nastya, you saved me.”
“Not at all. It’s my job.”
“It was…”
“What do you mean?”
“Nastya, in the park I didn’t get a chance to say…” he gathered his courage. “I love you, Nastya! Will you marry me?”
“I love you too, Arseny! I’ve never experienced anything like this before.”
“So, do you agree?”
“Yes!”
