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EMERY
A FEW HOURS LATER
I stand outside my apartment door and try to shake off the evening, even though I know that’s not remotely possible.
I won’t be shaking any of this off for a long time.
I can still feel Adrik's hand on my throat.
I can hear his words in my ear like he's standing behind me even now, whispering them.
"I need a wife."
Now that I'm alone, I can almost laugh at the absurdity. Almost.
But Adrik? He wasn’t laughing. Not in the slightest.
He was just standing perfectly still and staring at me in a way that made me feel like reality was melting down at the edges. Like the background of the room, all the colors and noise and shape and shadow, was all dissipating into a fog.
But Adrik never dissipated. He stayed right where he was, constant and unyielding. Unmovable. Unchangeable.
Standing in front of him, utterly at his mercy, I felt consumed by him. Wrapped up in him. It was a miracle I’d managed to keep my head and my dress on.
I press a palm to my forehead and take a deep breath.
All of this needs to stay out here. On this side of the door. This side of my life. Once I go in, only one thing matters.
I pull out my keys and unlock my apartment. As soon as it swings open, I hear the television playing low.
The room is dark, the only light coming from the TV screen. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust.
Then I see Isabella sitting in her wheelchair on the far side of the couch. She grins at me.
“Mama!” She wheels over, using the joystick built into the arm. The wheelchair is only a few months old—a gift from Malcolm, with some repulsive strings attached—but she can already maneuver it like a champ.
I have no idea what we’ll do when she outgrows it. Or more to the point, what I’ll have to do in order for Malcolm to give a sick little girl what she needs.
But I can’t think about that now.
“Hey, baby.” I press a gentle kiss to her cheek, stabilizing her on the other side with my hand. This late in the day, her neck muscles are often tired. She goes “floppy,” as she likes to call it with a giggle. “What are you still doing up?”
She glances at our middle-aged next door neighbor sleeping on the sofa. “Barb fell asleep,” she explains in a little kid whisper that makes me smile. “I didn’t want to wake her up.”
“But that’s half the reason she’s here, you silly goose. To help you into bed.”
“I’m not even sleepy, though!” she argues. “And I want you to put me to bed. You know how to do the pillows the best.”
I give her my best Mama knows you’re full of it glare, but she just grins up at me. The right side of her mouth slopes down a little on the end. The muscles on that side can’t quite make it symmetrical.
I love that uneven smile more than life itself. I’ve loved it since the moment she was born and I held her against my bare chest. Just a pink little bread loaf when she looked up at me and smiled that smile for the very first time.
So much has changed since then.
Some things have gotten better. Others, worse.
But since she started the experimental drug trial three months ago, things have actually stayed relatively the same. We’ve been in a beautiful state of stasis.
It’s almost enough to give even a cynic like me some hope.
“Go to your room, stinker. I’ll meet you in there.”
She wheels off, her chair’s engine buzzing down the hall, while I rouse Barb.
“Time to go home already?” the woman mumbles, wiping her eyes. “Isabella was an angel. Went down like a dream.”
I don’t even bother correcting her. Barb may not be the best babysitting option, but she’s the only option I can afford: free.
I cringe, remembering how I threw my father’s money at Adrik, trying to entice him to help me. As if he doesn’t already have enough for several lifetimes.
It was embarrassing. And also, a straight-up lie. I may be heiress to the Montague fortune, but the money isn’t mine until I marry. So it might as well get burnt to a crisp, because if I can find a way out of my Malcolm Water nightmare, I’m never going to have a husband.
Besides—as easy as the money would make my life, I don’t want it. I don’t want to be the kind of person who cares more about the bottom line than the people around me. The kind of parent that my father was, who cared more about how his daughter’s rape would affect his public image than how it affected his actual daughter.
I squeeze my eyes closed, shoving away too many old memories, and hold the door open for Barb. “Thanks again for watching her.”
“Don’t mention it, sweetheart,” she says sleepily with a wave over her shoulder. “Anytime.”
I close and lock the door behind me. I don’t even change out of my gala dress before I go to Isabella’s room. It’s so far past her bedtime that she’s half asleep by the time I pick her up out of her wheelchair and lay her in bed.
“Did you dance?” she mumbles as I position a pillow between her legs and arrange the one beneath her head the way she likes it.
“I did,” I say. “I twirled around and around just for you.”
Truthfully, Adrik Tasarov did the twirling. His strong hand wrapped around mine, the other at my lower back pinning me close to him.
He could afford a fleet of wheelchairs for Isabella. A team of personal doctors. A specialized bed to keep her comfortable. A full-time caregiver to watch over her.
But thoughts of him have no business here. I slammed that door closed when he told me what it would cost to walk through.
I kiss her forehead. “Holler if you need me, okay, pumpkin?”
“Love you, Mama,” she says as her eyes drift closed.
My heart squeezes. “I love you, too, Bug.”
You have no idea how much.
I’ll be back in her room at least a few times throughout the night to help her readjust and flip over. But if I go to sleep now, I can get a few hours in a row.
Problem is, I’m not tired.
My body is exhausted and my mind has been turning one hundred miles a minute since Adrik interrupted my evening with Malcolm, but I still can’t imagine going to sleep.
Too many nightmares that way lie.
