It all began at university, during a lecture on financial law. Kostya, returning after an academic leave, saw Alina for the first time. She sat by the window, completely absorbed in her notes, serious and somewhat distant, as if her whole world consisted of the scribbles in the margins of her notebook. At that moment, Kostya had no idea what real responsibility meant. His father had persuaded him to take a break and work in the family business — just for a year to gain some experience. At first, it all seemed strange: there was plenty of work, but it felt like none of it was really for him.
“Why did you decide that MY apartment could be part of the prenuptial agreement?” Alina asked her husband, trying hard not to lose her composure.
And as it often happens, it all started with a small thing — Kostya asked Alina for her notes. From there, things took off. A few days later, he invited her to a café, then to the movies. Alina hesitated, saying she didn’t have time, but eventually gave in.
“All right,” she said rather reservedly, “but only if you don’t bore me. I’m tired.”
They never tried to build some idealized romance. It wasn’t like in the movies — there was no lightness, only many doubts and questions. Even when he invited her to the cinema, she worried more about not missing her seminar. But they met anyway.
Then, as often happens, life intervened. Kostya’s mother, Elena Vitalyevna, couldn’t accept Alina. She immediately felt something was wrong.
“From a simple family,” she whispered to her husband, thinking Kostya couldn’t hear. “Father’s a teacher, mother’s a nurse. Is this really a match for our boy? Don’t we deserve someone better?”
Surprisingly, Kostya didn’t listen to these reproaches. He rejected his parents’ insistence on finding a “proper” fiancée. Then, when Alina inherited the apartment from her grandmother, everything changed. Kostya started visiting her more often, as if every corner of that small place had become precious to him.
“We’ll live in my apartment,” Kostya said when their talks moved beyond just renovation. “I’ll invest money; we’ll do everything properly.”
Elena Vitalyevna didn’t hide her surprise upon hearing this. She grimaced as if she had just tasted a lemon.
“In that Khrushchyovka?” Her tone was full of disbelief. “Kostya, we have a three-room flat downtown; why do you need…”
“Mom,” Kostya interrupted before she could continue, “this is our choice. You won’t convince me otherwise.”
The renovation took six months. Kostya invested all the money he had saved over a year of work, and Alina added the funds she had earned through part-time jobs. It wasn’t just a renovation — it was a project. They argued, chose materials and designs, then bought paint, wallpaper, and lightbulbs together. Step by step, they built their future.
The wedding was modest, only close family. But Elena Vitalyevna couldn’t hide her displeasure.
“Not even a proper wedding…” she sighed, moving a napkin from one side of the table to the other. “I had dreams…”
The first few months were happy. In this small corner they had begun to make their own, there was something special, genuine, almost magical. But one evening, while sitting in the kitchen drinking tea, Kostya casually said:
“Mom thinks we need a prenuptial agreement.”
Alina raised an eyebrow, not expecting such a turn.
“A prenuptial agreement?” she asked, hardly believing her ears. “After the wedding? Something’s wrong.”
“It’s normal nowadays,” Kostya answered calmly, pulling out some papers. “It’s just a formality.”
“Are these papers from your mom?” Alina took them in her hands, her heart skipping a beat.
“I included your premarital apartment in the prenuptial agreement. Just sign it,” he said, handing her a pen.
“Why did you include my apartment?” Alina couldn’t understand what was happening.
“It’s fair. I invested almost two million in the renovation,” he replied without looking her in the eyes.
Her heart grew heavy. Alina felt a bitter chill run down her throat. Her vision blurred and thoughts tangled, but she held herself together, trying not to show how much she was shaking inside.
“So… the apartment that my grandmother left me now has to become joint property? Just because we renovated it?” Her voice was nearly cold, though inside everything was boiling.
“Well, how else?” Kostya shrugged, as if truly confused. “Mom says…”
“What does your mother have to do with this?” Alina put the papers down on the table and sharply looked at him. Her gaze grew firmer, and a note of determination appeared in her voice. “This is our family. When we started the renovation, there was no talk of a prenuptial agreement.”
“Exactly — our family!” Kostya echoed her tone, suddenly feeling he found some logic in his words. “So the property should be joint.”
“Joint?” Alina smirked, but her laughter was bitter and filled with displeasure. “Then why aren’t your shares in your father’s company included? Or the bank accounts your parents opened in your name? You haven’t forgotten about those?”
Kostya froze for a moment, looking at her confused. He didn’t know what to say.
“Well, that’s different… It’s a family business…”
“And my apartment isn’t family property? Not an inheritance from the grandmother who raised me?” Alina’s voice softened but carried so much pain that each word cut like a knife.
“Don’t you trust me?” Kostya started to get irritated, his voice growing harsher. “You think I’m after your apartment?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Alina stood up, avoiding his eyes. “We’ve been married for only a month, and you’re already talking about contracts, papers, conditions…”
“It was mom’s idea,” Kostya admitted, as if his shoulders suddenly lost their usual confidence. “She says everything must be documented these days…”
“Your mother?” Alina laughed, but her laugh was not joyful, rather bitter, almost poisonous. “The same one who was against our wedding from the start? The one who offered you that downtown apartment just so we wouldn’t live here?”
And then, as if on cue, his phone rang. On the screen: “Mom.” Everything was clear without words.
“Don’t sign,” Alina said quietly, hoping her words might somehow change the course of events. “Let’s figure things out between us first.”
But Kostya was already on the call, his voice calm, as if nothing had happened:
“Yes, mom… No, she hasn’t signed yet… Yes, I explained everything about the renovation…”
Alina looked at him and suddenly felt him slipping away. This was not the guy who once promised his family that everything would be decided only between them. Not the one who said they would build their life together, step by step, unafraid of difficulties. Where was the one who promised to support her in any situation so she could fully trust him?
“Mom wants to come over,” Kostya said, putting down the phone. “She says we need to discuss everything…”
“No,” Alina said firmly. “Your mother will not decide matters of our family.”
“But she just wants to…”
“What exactly does she want, Kostya?” Alina interrupted sharply, her voice cutting like a knife. “To take away the last thing I have left from my grandmother? Or to prove that without your money, I’m nothing?”
Kostya fell silent. His face became strange, frozen in bewilderment. And again, his phone vibrated in his pocket, reminding him of something he didn’t want to acknowledge.
“You know what’s the most painful?” Alina went to the window, seeing nothing but distance. It felt like she was looking through someone else’s eyes. “I really believed we were building our future. This renovation — for us, for our family. Not so that later someone would start keeping score.”
“Keeping score? I just want it to be official…” Kostya tried to explain, but his words failed to come together.
“Official about what?” She turned to him. Her gaze was so cold that even the air seemed to freeze. “To stake a claim on the apartment? What about your words about love and trust?”
At that moment, someone knocked at the door. Elena Vitalyevna entered — as always, in an expensive suit, holding a folder. She didn’t wait for an invitation and walked into the kitchen without asking.
“I was passing by, thought I’d drop in on the young couple…” The mother-in-law looked around the kitchen, sat at the table, and without waiting for a greeting added, “Oh, you’re discussing the agreement? Alinochka, you understand, it’s just a formality…”
“A formality?” Alina stood up slowly but confidently. Her movements became broad, each word like a verdict. “Haven’t you thought, Elena Vitalyevna, that this is humiliating? To come a month after the wedding and demand to rewrite my apartment?”
“My dear,” the mother-in-law sat down as if nothing had happened and began pulling documents from her folder. “No one is rewriting anything. It’s just that nowadays everything needs to be legally formalized. Kostya invested serious money…”
“Money I never asked for!” Alina raised her voice, not hiding her anger. “We decided to do the renovation together! As a couple, as a family. I also invested all my savings!”
“What are you comparing…” Elena Vitalyevna grimaced, but her face showed irritation. “Your savings and Kostya’s money…”
“Mom,” Kostya spoke up, as if trying to put out the fire, “maybe it’s better not to…”
“No, let her finish,” Alina crossed her arms, standing opposite. “Let her say that my savings are peanuts. That I’m a beggar hunting for your family’s money.”
“Why be so harsh?” Elena Vitalyevna started flipping through the papers in her folder. “We just want to protect interests…”
“Whose interests, mom?” Kostya suddenly asked, his voice dull like a hammer strike. “Mine? Or yours?”
Elena Vitalyevna froze, holding the papers, her face suddenly so tense that Alina barely noticed her hands trembling.
“What do you mean ‘mine’? I think about your future! Investing that much money in someone else’s apartment…”
“In my wife’s apartment,” Kostya suddenly straightened, and his voice carried both strength and determination. “And I didn’t invest it to demand anything later.”
“Kostenka, but you understand…” the mother-in-law began, but Kostya interrupted her.
“No, mom, you need to understand. I love this woman. When we did the renovation, I thought about our home, not how to insure my investments.”
“But nowadays…” Elena Vitalyevna wiped her eyes with a handkerchief, as if words came hard.
“Nowadays,” Alina interrupted, her voice firm and cold, “decent people don’t come a month after a wedding demanding a share of an apartment.”
“I’m not demanding!” The mother-in-law jumped up, her voice almost a scream. “I’m just suggesting legal formalities…”
“Mom,” Kostya’s voice was steel-hard, “pack your papers and leave. Alina and I will sort things out ourselves.”
“But son…”
“I said — leave. And don’t interfere in our family affairs anymore.”
Elena Vitalyevna pursed her lips; her face became like a stone wall. “So, you choose her? That… that girl from a simple family, with a tiny Khrushchyovka apartment?”
“Mom!” Kostya raised his voice, his hand clenched into a fist. “Stop it immediately!”
“And why stop?” The mother-in-law shouted, her words flying like arrows. “Telling the truth? That she surrounded you? That there could’ve been a better match — the daughter of your father’s business partner, with a downtown apartment…”
“Get out!” Kostya sharply pointed to the door, his voice firm as stone. “Right now!”
Elena Vitalyevna went pale, her eyes blazing with anger but also with a kind of pain that was hard to hide. She stood in the doorway, pressed her lips, and seemed to hold back tears.
“You… you’re kicking out your own mother?”
“I’m asking you to leave and stop meddling in our lives,” Kostya took her by the elbow and gently but firmly led her to the door. “And take your agreement with you.”
When the door closed behind the mother-in-law, a heavy silence filled the apartment, so deep that Alina felt as if everything had gone still and only her ears were ringing. She stood by the window, her back straight, but her eyes showed how hard she was holding herself together.
“Sorry,” Kostya said quietly, his voice full of guilt. “I shouldn’t have listened to her. Not from the start.”
Alina turned to him, tears standing in her eyes that she struggled to hold back.
“Did you really… really do the renovation not for a stake in the apartment?” Her voice trembled, as if she was trying to find something in his words to calm herself, to dispel doubts.
“Really,” Kostya replied, hugging her. “I just wanted us to have a beautiful home. Our home.”
“You know,” Alina pressed close to him, her voice barely audible from emotion, “I worried about the renovation too. That you put in so much more than I did…”
“Silly,” Kostya said, kissing the top of her head. His gaze was warm like sunshine after the rain. “I put in the money, you put in your soul. Every little detail here was chosen by you, every element thought through. And besides…” He smiled, “you endured all that mess for two months while the renovation went on.”
At that moment, the doorbell rang again. They both tensed, but fortunately, it was the pizza delivery — the order they had completely forgotten about.
“Remember,” Alina took out plates, trying to dispel the tension, “how we ate pizza here the first time? Before the renovation, sitting on the floor because we’d thrown out the table…”
“I remember,” Kostya hugged her from behind, a warm nostalgia in his voice. “And how you were afraid I wouldn’t like the apartment. And I looked at you thinking — how beautiful you are when you talk about your renovation plans.”
Kostya’s phone rang again. It was his mother once more. He declined the call, switched off the phone, as if trying to block out the outside world.
“I’ll talk later. When she calms down,” he said.
“She won’t forgive me,” Alina sighed, her face darkening again.
“Not her to forgive,” Kostya said firmly. “This is our life, our family. And you know what? Tomorrow we’ll go pick paint for the nursery. Since we haven’t finished one room yet…”
Alina froze.
“The nursery?” Her voice was soft, like a gentle breeze.
“Yes,” Kostya smiled, something almost peaceful in his smile. “We have to start sometime. If you don’t mind, of course.”
Outside, a light drizzle began — fine and barely noticeable, creating a cozy feeling. The smell of fresh pizza and coffee filled the air, and on the table lay the forgotten folder with the prenuptial agreement. Tomorrow they would throw it away. Not because they had forgotten it, but because that paper no longer mattered. After all, a real family isn’t built on papers — it’s built on trust.