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Unfortunately, he does. I’m eating the last of the yogurt when I see his shadow stretch across the tiled floor, and I look up with a sigh.
“Don’t worry, I haven’t run off. Although I wouldn’t even know where to runto, out here.” The mansion appears to be a little ways away from the civilization of Newport—I can see the water off to one far side, and a half-cultivated garden behind it, but not much else. Whatever neighbors David has, they’re out of seeing distance.
“I see you found something you were capable of preparing for yourself.” He points to the yogurt cup, and I briefly consider throwing it at him, but manage to contain myself and toss it in the trash instead. It’s not really enough for breakfast, but I don’t trust myself to keep anything more down.
“You should really think about hiring staff.” I push myself away from the counter, starting to walk past him, but he grabs my elbow. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to let me know he wants me to stop and talk to him.
“I was going to give you a tour,” he says in a calm, neutral voice. “Or don’t you care to see your new home?”
I don’t, not really. The entire house has an uncomfortable feeling to it, and it’s not at all what I thought David would be bringing me home to. I thought, at the very least, that the home I’d be living in would befinished.
“Sure.” I give in anyway, because it’s not worth the inevitable fight. “Show me around.”
“Well, you can see the garden from here.” He guides me towards the large window on one side of the kitchen, where I can get a better view of it. “It needs some landscaping and for the fence to be fixed, but I have some people coming in for that.”
“It needs a lot more than landscaping,” I mutter, and he gives me a glowering look.
“Is this not up to your standards, Amalie? I promise you, at one point, this place was stunning. A mansion every bit as luxurious as the one you grew up in, but with history behind it. My family relocated to Boston some years ago, and it fell into disrepair, but I’ve taken it upon myself to fix that.”
“The army of workers you’ve hired, you mean.” I toss my head back, looking up at him. “I can’t imagine you’ve lifted a single finger or hammered a single nail.”
David frowns at me. “I’ll have you know I have done some small things myself,” he says flatly. “I enjoy working with my hands.”
The last is said with just the smallest hint of lasciviousness, just enough to remind me of the things he can do to me, how quickly he can bring me to my knees—quite literally. I narrow my eyes at him, trying not to take the bait.
“But,” he adds when I don’t say anything, “I find it’s usually better to let those with actual experience do the job. Come with me, I’ll show you more.”
His hand touches the small of my back as he guides me out of the room, and I try not to react. I try not to let him see the heat that floods through me at that simple touch, the way I want to lean into him. I follow him into the hall, and he leads me into the formal living room—which right now is just a huge room with the walls stripped bare and a fireplace with no hearth or stonework around it, dustcovers thrown over the furniture. “My brother started repairs on it,” he says, gesturing around the room. “That’s why so much of it seems half-finished. I decided to take it over shortly after—”
He pauses, and I look at him curiously. It’s the first time in a while that I’ve heard any hint of emotion in his voice, and he clears his throat, looking away.
“He passed away two years ago,” David says shortly. “I started looking into finishing the repairs after that. But it’s taken some time. A lot has—happened.”
I feel a pang in my chest. I know what it’s like to lose a family member, even if my father wasn’t someone for whom I felt the loss too deeply. “I’m sorry,” I say softly. “Were you—close?”
“To a point.” David’s jaw tenses. “We don’t need to talk about it. But I did want to explain to you why the place is in such a state of—disarray, I suppose you could say.”
I open my mouth to say something in response—I’m not even sure what, yet—and I’m hit with a sudden surge of nausea that sends me spinning on my heel, rushing for wherever the nearest bathroom might be. I fling open two separate doors that lead to the wrong rooms, on the verge of throwing up before I can make it to one before I finally find the doorway that leads to a half-finished bathroom and collapse in front of the toilet, heaving.
Yogurt isn’t on the list of safe foods,I think dizzily as I cling to the edge of the bowl, tears dripping down my cheeks as I empty my stomach entirely.
There’s a knock at the door, and I wince. “Amalie?” David’s voice comes through it, sounding more than a little confused. “Are you alright?”
“Keep it up, and I’ll start to think you care,” I mumble, before a fresh wave of nausea sends me lurching forward again.
He lets out a heavy sigh. “Are you sick?”
“Yes.” I sit back, trying to gauge if it’s safe to rinse my mouth out and leave, or if I’m going to end up right back here. “I’m sick.”
I haven’t really thought out when to tell him about the pregnancy. My mother made a point of sayingafter the wedding, and here we are. We’re married—but she also said to wait as long as possible. Long enough, I suppose, for him to think it might be a result of sex post-marriage, and not before.
The thing is, I don’t think there’s anything that will make David divorce me. If there was, I think I’d try to use it just to get out of this hell of a marriage. I think, with the endless years ofthisstretching out in front of me, that I might do just about anything to stop this from being my entire future.
Slowly, I stand up, flushing and then cupping my hand under the running water to rinse out my mouth. I want to get upstairs to my toothbrush; I want to go back to bed. Instead, I know I’m going to have to deal with David, who I can tell is still hovering outside the door.
I snatch it open, and the way he briefly recoils back, startled, is somewhat satisfying.
“Amalie?” He looks at me warily. “You didn’t seem sick last night. Did something at the wedding reception not agree with you? We ate the same food—”
