The air in my mother-in-law’s apartment was thick and heavy. It smelled of old fried cabbage, dusty carpets, and the acrid Red Moscow perfume that Zoya Anatolyevna, it seemed, hadn’t changed since her youth.
Every time I stepped inside, I felt that atmosphere press down on me, trying to make me shrink and become invisible.
Nikita squeezed my hand tightly as we walked into the living room. His palm was warm and strong—my anchor in this sea of hypocrisy.
I gave him a grateful smile, bracing myself for yet another act of our little play that had been going on for almost a year, ever since our wedding.
“Well, look who’s here—our lovebirds, finally decided to drop by!” sang out Zoya Anatolyevna, tearing herself away from setting the table.
Her gaze, sharp as a needle, slid over my simple wool dress, lingered on my worn shoes, and came to rest on my face with poorly concealed disdain. “Come in. Why are you standing in the doorway like strangers?”
Her daughter, Svetlana, raked me with the same x-ray look, pausing at my bag.
“Marinochka, what a… vintage dress you’ve got on. Do they still make those? Or is it from grandma’s stash?”
I habitually raised my inner shield, letting the jab pass by my ears.
“Hello, Svetlana Viktorovna. That color suits you very much.”
Nikita slipped an arm around my shoulders a bit more firmly than necessary, marking his territory.
“Mom, Sveta, enough. We came for a family dinner, not a fashion tribunal.”
Dinner took place to the monotonous drone of the news from an old TV set. The conversation was viscous and sticky, like molasses. Zoya Anatolyevna and Svetlana conducted their usual interrogation, masquerading it as polite small talk.
“Marina, how’s work? Still sitting in the archive, shuffling papers?” my mother-in-law asked, placing the biggest piece of chicken on her son’s plate. “Do they pay you anything at all, or are you working for a ‘thank you’?”
“Same as always, Zoya Anatolyevna. Enough to live on.”
“Well yes, you orphans can’t do without stability. The main thing is to cling to your spot, even if it’s for pennies,” she drawled with a false sympathy worse than open hatred.
Nikita tensed, the muscles in his jaw working, but I lightly touched his leg under the table. Don’t. I’ve got this. This was my test, my deliberate choice.
My father always said, “If you want to know a person—give them power or show them your weakness.” After his death I had seen too often how the closest friends turned into vultures the moment they smelled money. I didn’t want a repeat.
Svetlana noticed the corner of my old notebook peeking out of my bag.
“Oh, do you still carry around that dog-eared notebook? You must be writing down your girlish dreams about a prince on a white horse?”
That notebook held my father’s last advice, outlines of multibillion-ruble projects, and my thoughts about the foundation’s future. But to them it was just a naive diary of a poor girl.
“Something like that,” I replied calmly, meeting her mocking gaze.
The TV droned on in the background, reporting on some economic forums. I barely listened, focused on not betraying myself with a single twitch of a facial muscle.
“…and to conclude, a news item from the world of major philanthropy.”
The country’s largest charitable foundation, “Vozrozhdenie” (Renaissance), founded by the late industrialist Alexei Korshunov, announced today the launch of a new, grand project…
Zoya Anatolyevna snorted contemptuously.
“Money goes to money. They stole in the nineties and now they play saints. No one brought anything to our Nikitochka on a silver platter. He’s done everything himself, with his own back.”
She shot me a reproachful look, as if I were to blame for all her son’s troubles, as if my “poverty” were a contagious disease.
“…the project has been headed by his only daughter and heiress, who until now preferred to lead an absolutely private life, just as her father had wished, shielding the family from the press.”
My photograph appeared on the screen. Not from social media, but a formal, official one, taken for the foundation’s documents.
The face was serious, the gaze confident. The way no one here at this table had ever seen it.
“It will be led by Marina Alexeyevna Korshunova,” the announcer said clearly and deliberately, and my name rang out in the stuffy room like a gunshot.
The fork slipped from Zoya Anatolyevna’s hand, clinked against the plate, and fell to the floor. Svetlana froze with her mouth open, her painted lips forming an O. Both of them slowly, as if in slow motion, turned their heads from the screen to me.
Their faces reflected the full spectrum of emotions: first confusion, then shock, sliding into horror. They looked at me as if I had suddenly sprouted wings and horns.
Under the table, Nikita took my hand and squeezed it tightly. There was a sparkle of amusement in his eyes.
Our little game had just ended with a spectacular finale.
The room flooded with a thick, deafening silence. Even the TV, having finished the segment, switched to a muted toothpaste commercial.
Zoya Anatolyevna was the first to recover. Moving slowly, as if afraid to make a sound, she bent down, picked up the fork, and carefully set it on a napkin. Her face had turned into a frozen mask of astonishment and barely concealed fear.
“Marinochka…” she whispered, and the word sounded so foreign and syrupy that my jaw tightened. “Is this… is this some kind of mistake?”
Svetlana swallowed nervously, her eyes darting between me and her brother as if searching for a trick.
“Nikita, did you… did you know?”
Nikita smirked without releasing my hand and leaned back in his chair.
“What, Sveta, am I not supposed to know who I’m marrying? It wasn’t exactly a mail-order arrangement.”
His calmness finally knocked them off balance. They realized this wasn’t a prank. That he had been in on it with me. That he’d sat at the same table all this time, silently watching their humiliating performance.
“But… how…” Svetlana glanced helplessly at my modest dress, my simple bag. “Why all this? This… masquerade?”
I decided it was time to speak.
“And what exactly has changed, Svetlana Viktorovna? I’m the same person I was five minutes ago.”
She flinched at my new tone—even, cool, with no hint of hurt and none of my former softness.
“But how… You’re…” she stumbled, grasping for words. “You’re… Korshunova.”
Zoya Anatolyevna picked it up at once, her voice flowing obsequiously like melted sugar.
“Daughter, why didn’t you say anything! We would have opened our hearts to you! Did we ever wish you ill? We were just being simple, like family…”
She tried to reach across the table for my hand, but I moved back slightly.
“Is ‘like family’ what you call me behind my back—a poor orphan? Or advising your son to find a ‘richer match’?”
My mother-in-law jerked her hand back as if burned. An unhealthy flush flooded her cheeks.
“Who told you that? Malicious tongues!”
“I don’t need anyone to tell me. I can hear perfectly well, Zoya Anatolyevna. And see. And draw conclusions.”
I looked straight at them, and they couldn’t hold my gaze. Their former arrogance, their self-confidence evaporated without a trace.
All that remained was pettiness and naked greed, shining through in their shifting eyes. They no longer listened to me; in their heads they were feverishly calculating how to profit from this shocking news.
Suddenly Svetlana brightened, her face taking on the most gracious and businesslike expression she could manage.
“Marinochka, forgive us fools. We didn’t mean any harm, we were only worried about Nikita. You know, I’ve got a business idea… a brilliant one! We could be partners!”
Nikita couldn’t help it—he burst out laughing. Loud, genuine, rolling laughter.
“Partners? Sveta, seriously? Yesterday on the phone you told Mom that Marina ‘has no brains and no imagination, all she can do is swallow dust in the archive.’”
Svetlana flushed to the roots of her hair.
“I never said that! Nikita, how can you!”
I rose from the table. My appetite had vanished.
“Nikita, I think it’s time to go. The evening’s lost its charm.”
Zoya Anatolyevna jumped up.
“Where are you going! Dinner isn’t finished! Stay a bit longer! Marinochka, perhaps some dessert? I made it especially for you…”
She was lying. There was no dessert. She had never cooked “especially for me,” always tossing me a portion from the common dish as if doing me a grand favor.
I walked up to her slowly.
“You know, Zoya Anatolyevna, my father taught me one important thing. People don’t change. Only the masks they wear change with circumstances.”
I looked at her frightened face, then at Svetlana, who was already, it seemed, composing a list of her financial wishes in her head.
“You wanted a rich daughter-in-law for your son. But you got me. And I wanted a real family for my husband. But it looks like I miscalculated.”
I turned and headed for the door without looking back. Nikita followed, tossing over his shoulder a phrase that sounded like a sentence:
“See you. Maybe.”
Outside, the frosty night air felt intoxicatingly fresh and clean after the stuffy apartment. We got into the car in silence.
Nikita started the engine but didn’t pull away. He turned to me, his face in the dim cabin light serious and a little tired.
“Marin, how are you? Really okay?”
I exhaled deeply, letting the tension of the last hours flow out of me.
“I’m fine. Better than I expected. Like a heavy weight fell off my shoulders.”
“Forgive them. They… they are what they are. I’ve seen it all my life, but I hoped they’d be different with you.”
I took his hand.
“You have nothing to apologize for. This was my decision. I needed to do it. For myself. And for us.”
He gave a wry smile.
“Play along? That was the best performance of my life. You should’ve seen their faces. I’ll remember that expression forever.”
“I will see it again,” I sighed. “This is only the beginning. The siege starts now.”
And I was right. We hadn’t even driven away from their building when my phone, which was usually silent, exploded with calls. First from Zoya Anatolyevna. Then Svetlana.
I declined them without a word. Nikita glanced at the phone vibrating in my hand.
“Don’t answer. They need time to digest the shock and come up with a new strategy.”
“They won’t digest it. Right now they’re drafting a plan to turn this to their advantage.”
At a red light, Nikita gently took my phone and switched it off.
“That’s it. No one will bother you again tonight. End of Act One.”
But a new surprise awaited us at home. A huge basket of exotic fruit and the most expensive champagne stood by the door. On top lay a thick, high-quality envelope.
“Marinochka, darling! Forgive us old fools! We love you very much and are always waiting for you to visit! Your second mother, Zoya.”
Nikita read the note and his face darkened.
“Second mother… How quickly she changed her tune. She couldn’t remember for a year what tea you drink, and now in an hour she’s become your mother.”
He took the basket decisively and, without hesitation, carried it to the trash chute.
“Hey, there are expensive products in there,” I stopped him more out of habit than anything.
“Cheap gestures don’t come at a high price, Marin. She’s trying to buy you. Just like before she tried to humiliate you. Don’t let her.”
I couldn’t fall asleep for a long time that night.
I didn’t feel gloating or triumph. Only a bitter aftertaste of disappointment and a strange, ringing emptiness where the hope had been that, somewhere deep down, there was at least something genuine in them.
I thought about my father. He always said that money is the best X-ray for the human soul.
Money doesn’t corrupt people; it simply shines through them: all the rot, all the greed, all the pettiness that had been hidden under layers of respectability.
Nikita’s phone buzzed on the nightstand. He picked it up, frowned, and handed it to me. It was a message from Svetlana.
“Nikita, tell your wife that Mom feels very ill after your departure. Her blood pressure spiked. If anything happens to her, it will be on Marina’s conscience.”
I gave the phone back.
“Classic manipulation. Stage two: play on guilt.”
Nikita quickly typed a reply.
“What did you write?”
“That Mom’s health was always excellent when she was humiliating you, and I advised Sveta not to waste money on a taxi to the pharmacy but to save it for her ‘brilliant business idea.’”
I couldn’t help smiling.
“You’re cruel.”
“I’ve just learned to speak their language. Otherwise they don’t understand. They haven’t understood for years.”
He hugged me tightly.
“From now on, things will be different, you hear? This circus is over. From now on—our rules.”
The next morning felt different. The air in our small apartment seemed cleaner, the light brighter.
I woke with the sensation of having shed an old skin. The role of “poor relation,” which I had taken on myself, was left in yesterday.
Nikita brought me a cup of fragrant herbal tea, the kind I love.
“Well then, Ms. Korshunova, ready for your first day in the new position?”
I smiled.
“More than ready. Father prepared me for this my whole life. I just… wanted to live a little for real. Without all of this.”
“And did you?”
“I did. I met you. And I realized that the real thing isn’t the absence of money, but the presence of the right person by your side.”
The foundation’s building greeted me with glass and steel. A vast lobby, my father’s stern portrait on the wall.
Employees who had known me as the modest assistant in the archive watched with poorly hidden shock as they escorted me to the elevator.
My new office was on the top floor, with a panoramic view of the city. Everything was ready for my arrival. I sat in a chair that still smelled of new leather and opened my laptop. There was a mountain of work.
I threw myself into it, going through reports, planning meetings, studying projects. I felt like a fish in water. This was a world of numbers, logic, and big goals—the world I had grown up in.
Around noon my secretary, pale, announced over the intercom:
“Marina Alexeyevna, your… relative is here to see you. Svetlana Viktorovna. She insists on a meeting.”
I sighed. They hadn’t waited long.
“Send her in.”
The door flew open and Svetlana swept into the office. She was dressed as if for a red carpet: a bright dress, flashy jewelry, a ton of makeup, and a fawning smile. She held a folder in her hands.
“Marinochka! There you are! I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”
She surveyed my office with greedy curiosity, her eyes appraising the furniture, equipment, the view from the window.
“Well, well… Quite the scale! Nikita never said. He was being modest.”
I motioned to the visitor’s chair.
“What did you want, Sveta? I’m very busy.”
Her smile widened even more.
“I’m here on business! You see, now that you’re such an important person, you must be surrounded by vultures, each one wanting a piece. You need your own person. Someone you can trust.”
She leaned forward, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, and put the folder in front of me.
“Here. I sketched out a business plan. I could be your assistant. Your right hand! I’m family. I would never betray you. I’ll make sure no one cheats you.”
The offer was so absurd I barely stifled a laugh. She, who just the other day had thought me a fool, now proposed to “protect” me. I opened the folder.
Inside were a few handwritten pages, riddled with grammatical mistakes and numbers pulled out of thin air.
“Thanks for your concern, Sveta. But I have a security department, a staff of lawyers, and a team of professionals I trust.”
Her face twitched for a moment.
“But they’re strangers! They work for money! And I… I’m your husband’s sister! Nikita and I had such a childhood, we always stood up for each other! He’ll be glad if we get closer.”
She tried to press on family ties, on Nikita. But it was a misfire.
“Nikita will be glad if I’m not distracted from work by trifles,” I said coolly, closing the folder and sliding it to the edge of the desk. “Anything else?”
Color crept back into her cheeks. The mask of amiability began to crack.
“You… you talk to me like that? I came to you with all my heart, with a business proposal, and you…”
“This isn’t about heart,” I stood, signaling the conversation was over. “This is business. And competence. And in my business there’s no place for you.”
I pressed the intercom.
“Irina, please show Svetlana Viktorovna out.”
Svetlana sprang up, her face twisted with anger and humiliation.
“You’ll regret this, orphan! Think money made you somebody? You were a nobody and you still are!”
She stormed out, slamming the door so hard the walls shuddered.
I sat back down. My hands were trembling slightly. Not from fear, but from disgust.
Father had been right. Money doesn’t change people. It magnifies what’s already inside. Like litmus paper.
Epilogue. A year later.
A year passed. Snow covered the city again, but in our new house with Nikita it was warm and bright.
We bought it six months ago—not a palace, but a cozy home with a big garden, just what I’d always dreamed of. It smelled of wood, fresh baking, and happiness.
Under my leadership the foundation had grown stronger. We launched several major projects, one of which—a program to support talented graduates of orphanages—became my life’s work.
I no longer hid from publicity. My name was now associated not only with my father’s fortune but with real deeds that had improved hundreds of lives.
Nikita found himself, too. He left the office job he hated and—with my support not financial but moral—opened a small woodworking studio.
He made wonderful handcrafted furniture, putting his soul into each piece, and the business was slowly taking off. I saw the light in his eyes when he talked about the grain of wood, and that mattered more to me than any dividends.
And his family? Their attacks continued for a few more months, changing tactics. There were tearful calls from Zoya Anatolyevna about imaginary illnesses.
There were Svetlana’s attempts to smear me in the tabloid press, which crashed and burned—my reputation was spotless, and the foundation’s lawyers worked fast.
Once, Svetlana even ambushed Nikita at his workshop, begging him to “influence” me and give her money to pay off loans.
Nikita silently wrote out gave her an amount sufficient to clear the debts and said it was the first and last time. After that, their communication dwindled to nothing.
We learned how to withstand it. We simply built a wall. An impenetrable, polite wall, against which all their intrigues and manipulations broke. We changed our numbers, and they were no longer welcome at the door of our new home.
The last I heard of them was about a month ago.
Nikita ran into an old acquaintance who said that Zoya Anatolyevna now complains to all the neighbors about her ungrateful millionaire daughter-in-law who “bewitched” her son and left the poor mother with nothing.
As for Svetlana—after paying off her loans, she immediately took out new ones and tried to launch another “brilliant” project.
I didn’t pity them. I felt neither anger nor satisfaction. I felt nothing. They simply ceased to exist for me, turned into white noise, a distant echo from a past life.
This evening we were sitting by the fireplace. Big snowflakes swirled outside the window. I was reading, and Nikita was sketching a new chair.
“You know what I was thinking?” I said suddenly, looking up from my book.
He looked at me.
“What?”
“That little game of ours… the ‘poor orphan’ bit. I did it for them. I wanted to test them, to see their true faces.”
“And you did. In all their splendor.”
“Yes. But only now do I realize that the exam wasn’t for them. It was for me.”
Nikita put down his pencil and sat beside me, taking my hand. His palm was rough from working with wood, and there was something real in that.
“I wanted to make sure you loved me and not my future money. But, in fact, I was testing myself. Could I be happy without all of this? Could I be just Marina, the girl from the archive?”
I looked into his loving eyes.
“And you know what? I could. Those months were among the happiest. Because you were there.”
And they… They looked at the wallet, when they should have looked into the eyes. That was their main mistake. And our greatest happiness.
He pulled me close and kissed me. And at that moment I understood that I had found the most precious luxury in the world.
Not money, not status, not power. Peace. The peace to be myself beside someone who sees right through me and loves me not for something, but despite everything.
