**The Wealthy Man**
Zakharov tossed his wife out after her infidelity—dramatically, of course. He made sure she was well taken care of, financially, at least. But he never wanted to see or speak to her again, under any circumstances.
*”You’re the one to blame! Taras, please, forgive me!”* Yulia pleaded, her words clumsy and desperate.
*”Have you lost your mind in your old age?”* he bellowed. *”Humiliating me like this? Be grateful I’m just throwing you out!”*
Yulia was forty-six then, the same as him. Thanks to his money, she could easily pass for thirty. And that only made Taras even angrier. Who would want a middle-aged woman who hadn’t been polished with cash?
**All the Stories of Life**
*”Taras, hello! Why the cold shoulder?”* called an old neighbour from years past—Dima, if memory served.
Taras Ilyich gritted his teeth. What a curse this was! He’d left this neighbourhood behind years ago, yet people still recognised him. Still called him by name. And of all people, it had to be the local drunk.
The car window rolled down, and Sergey, his driver, asked quietly, *”Do you need assistance, Taras Ilyich?”*
He waved him off dismissively and strode toward the building, ignoring the man who’d once been more than just a neighbour—maybe even a friend? Hard to remember now.
*”You never remarried after the divorce, eh? Still playing the bachelor?”* Dima pressed on.
Or was it not Dima? What did it matter? Taras had spent half his life trying to forget. Once, they’d been young men together, drinking cheap wine, laughing. That was thirty-five years ago. Now he was supposed to greet a washed-up drunk just because his mother still lived here?
*”Hello, Mum!”* he called loudly as he pushed open the apartment door.
*”Taras!”* she cried back, delighted as ever.
Why wouldn’t she just move into his sprawling estate in Surrey? No, she clung stubbornly to this old flat, her family home, as if it were her last tether to life itself.
*”How are you, Mum?”*
At seventy-eight, his mother was still lively. She walked ten thousand steps a day, ordered groceries effortlessly through an app, scoffed at modern cinema on the expensive system he’d bought her, and still twice a year jetted off to somewhere warm—Spain, Italy, the South of France. A modern elderly woman, and he was proud of her. He helped gladly. But this flat? He couldn’t fathom her attachment to it. Every visit somehow circled back to the same argument.
*”Mum, have you reconsidered?”*
*”Reconsidered what?”* she asked, feigning innocence perfectly.
He loved her. He’d miss her terribly when she was gone—though he refused to dwell on that.
*”You know what. Move in with me. So I don’t have to keep coming here.”*
*”Then don’t come!”* she retorted brightly. *”We can meet in town if you want to see me.”*
How could she say things like that so easily? *Not* come? This was his mother—the closest person in the world to him.
*”I can’t just stop coming!”* he insisted. *”I need to know you’re alright. The flat, everything—”*
*”Everything?”* she cut in, eyes wide with mock confusion. *”My sanity, perhaps?”*
He couldn’t help but smile.
*”Mum, please, must you gossip about my personal life with all your old friends?”*
*”Do I?”* She arched a brow.
*”You must, if the local drunks are asking if I’ve remarried.”*
*”Perhaps you *should* remarry,”* she sighed. *”Then you’d have less time to hover over me.”*
*”Ah, so that’s how it is?”* His frown deepened. *”Me visiting you—that’s *hovering* now?”*
She rose from her armchair, foot stamping indignantly. *”You don’t just *visit*! You wait, biding your time until I’m feeble, just so you can drag me out to your Surrey manor!”*
*”Mum!”* Taras was genuinely hurt.
She jabbed a finger at him. *”Yes! By force! You’ll never understand—I just want to live out my days peacefully, in the home where I raised you, you ungrateful wretch!”*
Taras actually stepped back. Where was all this coming from?
*”I’ll come another time,”* he muttered, already turning toward the door.
*”Next time, don’t bring up moving!”* she shouted after him. *”I’m not relocating to some nouveau riche estate!”*
Taras lived in a gated community just outside Surrey, but his mother dismissed such details. To her, it was all the same—flashy, tasteless new money. She had spent her life as a professor of literature, chairing the department, widowed young at fifty-two.
*”After Ilya, that part of my life was over,”* she’d told him once. *”There’s so much else in the world to enjoy. Must everyone be obsessed with marriage?”*
Back then, Taras had been happily wed to Yulia, climbing the financial ladder, raising their son, Peter. But Peter had left for university in America and never returned. And after Yulia’s betrayal—eight years gone now—Taras found himself alone. And he didn’t mind it.
Except sometimes, he wondered—was he repeating his mother’s fate?
—
The dinner with Dima’s sister Natasha had been unexpected. He barely recognised her—thirty-five years had passed. She smiled just the same, though, that same infectious grin from childhood.
When she nudged him playfully in the hallway, something shifted. Suddenly, he wasn’t a lonely millionaire. He was just Taras again.
*”Fancy dinner?”* he’d asked on impulse.
She laughed. *”Do I need to dress up?”*
*”Come as you are.”*
And she did.
That night, they laughed like children. No pretence, no calculation. Just two people remembering a time when life was simpler.
At her doorstep, he kissed her.
*”I only meant to apologise,”* he admitted after.
*”Then do,”* she teased.
He took her home with him instead.
—
When Taras married Natasha, his mother was in fine spirits, dancing at their wedding. He no longer cared what society thought. With Natasha, he felt alive again.
As for Dima, Taras paid for his rehab. Peter sent a congratulatory message from overseas.
People whispered that Natasha had won the lottery—what billionaire marries a middle-aged woman?
But Natasha knew the truth.
She’d won far more than money.
And neither of them cared who understood.
