Page 2
M y father once apologized to me for the strangest thing.
He said he was sorry I was born with his face.
I didn’t understand it at the time.
I was maybe nine, maybe ten—young enough to still sleep with a stuffed animal and old enough to know when adults were trying not to cry in front of you.
And I liked my face. I liked his face.
Sharp cheekbones, full mouth, long lashes, and eyes that didn’t miss a damn thing.
Everyone told me I was beautiful.
Teachers. Waiters. Strangers in grocery stores.
I never quite knew what to say.
Thank you, never felt right.
I did nothing to earn it.
I didn’t work for this face.
I didn’t study for it.
Didn’t bleed or sweat or claw my way into these genetics.
Being beautiful felt like winning the lottery on a day you didn’t even buy a ticket.
Oh, maintenance is real.
The work behind the scenes—waxing, threading, contouring, learning to smile just enough to seem friendly but not enough to invite trouble.
Holding eye contact without inviting someone’s hands.
Balancing confidence on a knife’s edge.
But the bones? The symmetry? The skin that photographs like porcelain even when I feel like hell inside?
That’s just DNA.
Just Dad.
And Mom. I have her eyes and skin color.
But on that night, in the quiet hush of my pink-and-purple bedroom, my father sat at the edge of my bed with a look on his face I’d never seen before.
Haunted.
He reached out and traced a line from my brow to my chin, gentle like I was something fragile.
“I’m sorry, Lucy,” he murmured. “Sorry you got stuck with this.”
I laugh a little, confused, thinking it’s a joke.
But he doesn’t smile. Not even close.
His dark eyes are heavy with secrets I’m too young to understand, and I see something in them that makes my stomach twist.
“I hope you never have to learn why I’m saying this,” he says, then kisses my forehead and tucks the blanket around me like armor. “I love you so much. Now go to sleep, my little Devil.”
I carry that moment with me like a pressed flower in a favorite book—flattened and faded. But never forgotten.
Because at almost thirty years old, I think I do understand.
Beauty opens doors.
But it also paints a target on your back.
It invites unwanted hands, eyes, and assumptions.
People think they know you because of your face.
They think you asked for the attention.
That you enjoy the looks.
That you’re fair game.
Sometimes I think being born beautiful is the one thing I’ll never stop paying for.
And sometimes, when I see the way men look at me— not like I’m a person, but like I’m a prize —I wonder if this face is more curse than gift.
But then I remember my father’s voice.
And I remember that he knew.
He always knew.
Because he was born beautiful, too.
Sharp jaw. Movie star eyes. The kind of presence that walked into a room five seconds before he did.
People saw my father and assumed things about the untouchable Marat Volkov they couldn’t have possibly known.
Power. Danger. Lust.
They built their stories around his face before he ever opened his mouth.
And now I live in that same cage.
Because what the rest of the world doesn’t realize? What they never want to realize?
Is that beauty can feel like a prison.
A glass box where everyone can see you, judge you, desire you, but no one really knows you.
I’m stuck playing a role I never auditioned for.
I didn’t choose to be the sultry heiress, the fantasy on every screen, the perfectly filtered cover girl at every event.
But that’s who they see.
So that’s who I have to be.
If I look too hard, if my gaze lingers too long, the world calls me a bitch.
Uptight. Cold. Calculating.
Just another icy rich girl with an attitude problem.
And the press? God, the press will eat it up.
The headlines practically write themselves.
“Volkov Heiress Snubs Charity Host,” “Lucy Volkov Glares Her Way Through Gala Dinner.”
Every time my gaze lingers too long it costs my family something.
Every frown I make in public adds a zero to a bill somewhere.
It’s like every single thing I do is being tallied by some auditor hellbent on ruining my life.
And if I look too soft?
If I smile too wide or laugh too easily?
Then I’m na?ve.
Fake.
A spoiled little playgirl with too much money and not enough sense.
The kind who’s probably high on champagne and Daddy’s credit card, fluttering through life with no real depth.
God forbid I show an interest in someone— anyone .
Do you know how many men have flat out left me mid-date because they couldn’t deal with the publicity? With the people staring, snapping pictures, and posting comments?
So, yes, I am still single.
I rarely go out.
And when I do, it is always planned in advance.
There’s no winning.
No safe angle.
Every expression is a strategy.
Every outfit is a risk.
Every step is a goddamn performance.
They see the designer dresses, the glossy magazine covers, the curated moments on social media.
They see the name.
Volkov .
And decide they already know the story.
Spoiled. Privileged. Pretty. The end.
They don’t see the degrees I earned with honors from NYU and later, Columbia.
The sleepless nights, the deadlines, the constant need to prove I belonged in rooms where everyone assumed I was there for decoration.
They don’t care that I speak four languages— including American Sign Language —or that I’ve volunteered to interpret at community centers since I was sixteen.
They don’t know I’m classically trained in music.
Or that every year, without fail, I learn a new Italian aria to sing for my parents on their anniversary.
That it’s the one time I see my father soften without reservation.
No one asks if I have hobbies, passions, fears.
They just want the image. The illusion.
And I give it to them because it’s easier than trying to correct the narrative.
But when the cameras are gone?
When the makeup’s wiped off and I’m sitting cross-legged on my kitchen floor in a hoodie three sizes too big for me, I eat an entire pint of Haagen-Dazs for dinner.
Not because I’m heartbroken or spiraling.
Just because I want to.
Because it’s vanilla bean and I can.
And maybe that’s why I still think about what my father said that night.
Why the words he spoke to me so long ago still echo in my brain during the quiet moments.
Why the way he looked at me—like he was mourning something before it had even happened—still tightens around my ribs some nights like a warning.
Dad wasn’t just talking about my face.
He was talking about the cost of it.
About how beauty can be both blessing and weapon, crown and shackle.
And now that I’m older, I understand.
I really understand.
Because I’m not just beautiful.
I’m famous. Insta-famous, but still I am notorious.
And that can be the most dangerous thing of all.
Because behind all my father’s steel and shadow and cunning, he was warning me.
Not about beauty itself.
But about what the world does to beautiful people.
What it’s trying to do to me every second of every day.
I should have heeded his warning.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2 (Reading here)
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47