All my money is mine, and yours is yours,” her husband laughed, unaware that she had just received a multimillion-dollar inheritance.

“Can you imagine? The terrace faces directly east,” Igor squeezed her hand as they crossed the street. “We’ll wake up in the morning and the sun will rise over the pines.”

Vera smiled, leaning on his shoulder. The February wind ruffled her scarf, but next to Igor she felt warm. They walked along the promenade, talking about their dream house, a topic that came up more and more often.

“I just need a bigger window,” she said dreamily, closing her eyes. “So there’s plenty of light. I’ll put an easel there.”

“And you’ll paint your pictures,” Igor nodded, gently ruffling her hair. “And I’ll make special shelves for your paintings.”

Vera leaned closer to him. A year of their relationship had flown by like a single day: long conversations, evenings together, a trip to Kazan during the May holidays.

Igor seemed so reliable, self-assured. His construction business was doing well, although he often complained about competitors and problems with contractors.

“Listen,” Igor paused by the railing, looking out at the water, “if all goes according to plan, by next winter we’ll have saved enough for the down payment.”

“Really?” Vera looked at him. “Then I’ll have to start doing commissioned portraits.”

Igor frowned:

“Why? I can handle that, I have a plan.”

“But I want to be involved too.” Vera stepped back a little. “It’s our home together.”

He smiled, hugging her shoulders:

“Better focus on decorating our apartment before the wedding. And the money—that’s a man’s thing.”

Vera wanted to argue, but was interrupted by a call. An unknown number.

“Vera Andreievna?” said a deep male voice. “This is from the law firm of Konovalov and Associates.”

She took a few steps back, turning her back on Igor. There was something in the stranger’s official tone that made her lower her voice.

“I’m listening.”

“This concerns your uncle, Gennady Viktorovich Sokolov.”

Vera instinctively gripped the phone. Uncle Gena. Her mother’s brother, with whom the family had severed ties due to an old dispute.

She only remembered his gray mustache and his large hands handing her a rocking horse.

“Did something…happen to him?” She turned toward a shop window so Igor wouldn’t see her face.

“Unfortunately, Gennady Viktorovich passed away two weeks ago. Illness.” His voice softened. “We need to discuss some matters that require your personal presence.” Could you come to our office?

Vera looked over her shoulder. Igor was a few feet away, absorbed in his phone.

“Would tomorrow at three be okay?” he asked quietly. “Please tell me the address.”

After the call, she returned to Igor, who was looking at her expectantly.

“Who was that?” He nodded at the phone.

“Oh,” Vera waved her hand, “wrong number. What were we talking about?”

They continued walking, but Vera was distracted. The news from her uncle made her think about how quickly everything could change. The next day, she told Igor she was seeing a client for a portrait. In fact, she sat in the leather chair in the lawyer’s office, listening to him and unable to believe her ears.

“Forty-seven million,” Konovalov repeated, handing her a folder of documents. “Plus an apartment downtown and a country house.”

Your uncle was a very successful investor and never started a family. You are his only heir.

Vera took the documents with trembling hands. The amount was incomprehensible.

“Okay,” she could only say. “And… I’d like to keep this a secret for now.”

“Of course,” the lawyer agreed. “Confidentiality is our priority. And you’ll only inherit everything in six months.”

That evening, she and Igor discussed their upcoming wedding. He talked about the restaurant, the guests, the honeymoon.

“And when we get back, we’ll start saving for the house.” He stroked her wrist tenderly.

“My little artist will soon be living in a real mansion. But let’s not rush into children—we have to establish ourselves first.”

Vera remained silent, looking at her hands. The inheritance documents were still hidden in her studio, among the canvases. An inner voice whispered insistently: wait, don’t tell him yet, see how things develop.

“Can you hear me?” Igor snapped his fingers in front of her face. “I’m talking about our future, and you’re daydreaming.”

“Sorry, I was thinking about the invitation design,” Vera lied with a smile. “Let’s do them in shades of blue, to match your eyes.”

The wedding was intimate and cozy, like home. Instead of a banquet hall, it was a café with panoramic windows.

Instead of luxurious bouquets, it was paintings painted by Vera. Instead of a limousine, it was a taxi with a cheerful driver who played jazz and told stories about his violinist daughter.

While the guests danced, Vera stood by the window, watching the rain trace paths on the glass. The inheritance documents remained untouched in his study. Even today, she didn’t dare tell Igor. Something inside her told her: wait a little longer.

“What are you thinking about, wife?” Igor came up behind her, hugging her tightly.

“I can’t believe I’m your wife now,” she turned to him. “It sounds so… official.”

“Get used to it,” Igor smiled. “Everything will be official. Marriage registration, house registration, registration…”

“Children?” Vera laughed.

Igor’s smile faded a little.

“Let’s not rush this. First, get established.”

Vera remained silent. Lately, he’d been returning to that topic frequently. “Get established” sounded strange, as if they were on their knees. The week after the wedding passed in a cloud of honey. They moved into Igor’s apartment: larger, but cold.

Vera brought in her paintings, arranged flowers, tried to create warmth. Igor didn’t object, but always reminded himself:

“We’ll save up for the house, less spending on those little things.”

On Friday, he announced he wanted to reduce his teaching hours at the art school.

“I want to work on a solo exhibition,” Vera said at dinner. “Even if I have to tighten my belt a little.”

“What do you mean, ‘tighten’?” Igor put down his fork. “Are you going to earn less?”

“Temporarily,” he nodded. “Just a couple of months. I thought now was the best time to focus on art while we’re childless…”

Igor abruptly stood up from the table.

“Listen carefully,” his voice turned cold. “All my money is mine, and yours is yours.

I’m not going to support anyone. If you want something, earn it yourself.”

Vera froze, her mouth ajar. Her husband’s words hit her like a slap.

“But we’re family,” she finally managed. “Isn’t that what marriage is all about, supporting each other?”

“Support, yes,” Igor interrupted her. “Profit, no. Your job is your responsibility.

My job is mine. We both invest in our future. But I’m not going to throw money away while you paint your pictures.”

He left the kitchen, leaving her stunned. That night, the bed felt too wide: they each occupied their own side, as if there were an invisible boundary between them. The next morning, Igor acted as if the previous night hadn’t happened.

At breakfast, he flipped through movie listings, talked about ski resorts for winter vacations, joked about a colleague stuck in the elevator with an accountant.

Vera watched him, trying to understand where she had gone wrong. His perfectly trimmed beard, his impeccable hairdo, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiled: all so familiar and suddenly so foreign. Behind every gesture of care, she now saw cold calculation. Behind every compliment, an assessment of her usefulness.

“Will you lend me five thousand until payday?” she asked, testing her theory.

Her smile faltered, her gaze frozen for a moment.

“I won’t give you any money, remember that,” she delicately changed the subject.

Two months later, Vera signed a contract with the Neo-Art advertising agency. Now her day started at six in the morning and ended late at night. The schedule was a puzzle: mornings at art school, days sketching for advertisements, nights on other assignments that drained her strength. She arrived home when the city was already asleep. On the eighth day of this marathon, Igor finally noticed her absence.

“Did they promote you to night watch?” he said from his laptop as the key turned almost at eleven.

“I took on extra work.” Vera took off her shoes, her feet feeling numb. “How else am I going to support myself?” That was the deal, remember?

Igor grimaced as if he’d swallowed something bitter.

“Don’t be dramatic. I just meant not to give up a steady income for creative experiments.”

“Don’t worry,” he went to the bathroom, tossing over his shoulder, “your budget is completely safe.”

By the end of their third month of marriage, Vera was working three jobs at once, as if she wanted to prove something, not so much to Igor as to herself. School, agency, private workshops on weekends.

She saw her husband less than the food delivery man. She arrived when he was already asleep, left before he was awake.

She knew she wouldn’t have to work soon thanks to the inheritance, but she wanted to prove she could manage without that money.

During the rare encounters, she managed to do laundry, clean the bathroom, and cook something for the next day: silently, efficiently, like a robot programmed for housework.

Igor barely noticed her efforts. He stayed longer at work, came home irritated, and exploded over trivial matters. One day, she found messages on his phone from a certain Margarita, clearly flirting. When she asked, Igor dismissed him: “She’s an interior designer, we’re talking about a project.”

“At one in the morning?” Vera raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t tell me when or who to talk to,” he interrupted. “And don’t check my phone.”

The following weeks passed coldly. Vera stopped cooking for two, doing her laundry, or asking about her day. She lived like a roommate: parallel lives, never intersecting. One day before their six-month wedding anniversary, she received the first transfer of her inheritance. The amount in the account made her slightly dizzy. Igor didn’t know: he’d opened a separate account.

That night, he arrived later than usual. He smelled of alcohol and perfume.

“We had a party,” he responded to her look. “We signed a new project.”

Vera nodded silently. She had already packed her things, the few that truly mattered: paintings, paintbrushes, clothes, her mother’s photo album. On the table, an envelope with the divorce petition. Waiting for her moment.

“Did you buy the milk?” Igor asked without taking his eyes off his laptop, his fingers still typing.

A month passed since Vera packed her things, but the application remained in her desk drawer. She wasn’t held back by feelings, which had already faded, but by a painful curiosity: how far this strange experiment in her life could go.

“In the bag on the left,” he placed the bags on the counter. “And I paid for the internet; the receipt is on the fridge.”

Igor barely nodded, absorbed in his work. Vera silently went to the bedroom and pulled out the top drawer of the closet.

There, under a pile of winter sweaters, was a simple shoebox: her personal safe. In those weeks, she had turned the inheritance into a tangible reality: consultations with lawyers, meetings with financiers, paperwork, investments.

Now the money, the city apartment, and the country house legally belonged to her.

Her fingers carefully went over the new documents: bank statements with seven-digit numbers, a sealed property certificate, a bunch of keys to a spacious apartment overlooking the river. A collection of freedom waiting for its moment.

That evening, while they were having dinner, Igor suddenly perked up:

“Hey, remember we wanted a house outside the city?”

Vera looked up from her plate:

“Yes.”

“I found out…” she leaned forward. “There are good options in Sosnovo. If we take out a mortgage, and our down payment…”

“Ours?” Vera interrupted. “You mean your down payment?”

Igor froze for a second, but quickly recovered.

“Well, technically mine. But it’s for both of us.”

“That sounds interesting.” Vera put down her fork. “And I thought all your money was yours and mine was mine. Or have the rules changed?”

She blushed, but only for a moment.

“I don’t understand your tone.” Igor opened his hands. “I’m just suggesting we fulfill our dream. The one we talked about before the wedding.”

Vera slowly got up from the table.

“I’ll wash the dishes tomorrow,” she said. “I have to prepare for tomorrow’s classes.”

In the morning, Igor intercepted her at the door:

“Listen, I didn’t mean to hurt you yesterday. Just… let’s think about the future together. You wanted a house, a studio, a garden…”

Vera looked at him for a long time. The man before her wasn’t the one she once loved. Or maybe he was, only now she saw him clearly.

“I’ll be late today, don’t wait for me,” he said.

That afternoon, Vera didn’t go to work. Instead of her usual route, she asked a taxi to take her to a glass building in the financial district, where her lawyer’s office was, and then to an old house on the Fontanka River.

The inherited apartment greeted her with the cold of an uninhabited space and scattered light streaming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

She walked slowly across the parquet, listening to it crunch under her heels, as if recounting the story of former inhabitants.

Five rooms, stucco ceilings, marble windowsills, spaciousness and airiness. Real paintings should be born there, not forced advertising illustrations, but living canvases with soul.

A week later, Igor arrived home earlier than usual. His eyes sparkled, his movements nervous and sharp.

“Vera!” he almost shouted. “You won’t believe this! I ran into Anton, remember? He works at a bank and says…”

He stopped when he saw her sitting in the chair with a box on her lap.

“What happened?” Her smile faded.

“This is for you.” Vera handed him the box.

Igor weighed it in his hands, as if assessing its importance, then removed the lid. His eyebrows rose slowly, his fingers still over the documents. The seconds ticked by in silence.

“Are you joking?” Her voice cracked, her dilated pupils revealing a mixture of disbelief and a newly awakened appetite.

“Look at the stamps.” Vera leaned against the doorframe, watching his expression change. “An apartment with a view of the Neva, a mansion in the pine forest, and a bank statement with seven-digit figures. No forgeries.”

He flipped through the papers, his eyes wide with numbers.

“Where did all this come from?”

Vera allowed herself a small smile.

“Remember the call on the embankment before the wedding? It was my Uncle Gennady’s lawyer. He left me his entire inheritance. Forty-seven million, to be exact.”

Igor sank down onto the sofa, as if the air around him had thickened.

“And you’ve been silent all this time?” He raised his darkened gaze. “Why?”

“You yourself set the priorities in our family,” she approached the window, ran her finger along the sill. “All my money is mine, and yours is yours.” I just followed the rules.

Turning around, she looked him in the eye:

“At that moment, I understood that for you, this wasn’t a marriage, but a profitable business. You get freedom of action and a convenient housekeeper, and in return… nothing. I needed to be sure once and for all. Now I have no doubts.”

Igor swallowed, his fingers ruffled the papers as if looking for a way out.

“Let’s not be impulsive,” her voice became falsely gentle. “This is a wonderful opportunity to fulfill our dreams! The house you wanted, your studio! We could even have a child…”

“No,” Vera said softly, but so firmly that he stopped. “Here you are,” she placed an envelope with an official seal on the table. “Divorce petition. My signature is already there. Yours is missing.”

“Are you crazy?” he jumped, throwing down the papers. “That’s our money! I’m your husband!”

“But you said yourself…”

“To hell with your words!” He lunged at her, grabbing her shoulders. “I won’t sign anything!”

Vera gently but firmly pushed his hands away.

“You’ll have to do it,” there was anger in her voice. “Otherwise, the court will receive a detailed report of your encounters with Margarita. And with Elena from accounting.

And that blonde from the gym whose name I didn’t even bother to learn. Call logs, camera recordings, testimonies: my lawyer was surprisingly diligent.”

Igor stepped back, his face pale.

“That’s blackmail.”

“No,” he shook his head. “It’s an investment in my future. And, honestly, not the most expensive one.”

Sunlight shone on the facade of the two-story building. Vera stood in the entryway, admiring the new sign: “Breath of Color Art Space. Painting School and Gallery.” Three months had passed since the divorce. Three months of absolute freedom and transformation. In that time, she managed not only to finalize the purchase of the building, but also to finish the renovations, select teachers, and launch an advertising campaign.

Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket: a message from the real estate agency about the final registration of the property. Now that building was officially hers. No liens. No claims. No ghosts from the past.

Vera pushed open the glass door and entered. The spacious room, flooded with light from the large windows, was filled with the voices of the first students: fifteen bright-eyed children, impatiently sitting in their chairs at their easels.

“Good afternoon, young talents!” he smiled, looking at their faces. “Ready to create your first masterpieces?”