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—
I’m wokenby a rough hand on my shoulder, shaking me awake. I open my eyes blearily to see David looming over me, fully dressed, his face creased with anger that’s startling to see first thing in the morning. “What thehellis this?” he snarls, shoving a piece of paper into my face, and I blink, grabbing it reflexively from his fingers as I flinch backward.
“I don’t—” I push myself up and away from him, dazed from being jerked so unceremoniously out of sleep. “It’s—”
My stomach twists when I realize it’s a receipt—and not just any receipt, but the one from the thrift store where I bought the fur stole. In the light of day, I can see the mess that I made of the room last night—the clothes and boxes torn out of the closet and scattered around, the glass still sparkling on the floor in the morning sun, the shattered mirror. “I—”
“Don’t bother with excuses.” David’s face is a study in rage, his anger sharper and hotter than I think I’ve ever seen it. “I can’t believe I told you last night that I might have been wrong to regret marrying you. You wore something from athrift storeto a gala with my fuckingparents? To the party last night? Are you a fucking idiot, Amalie? Do you have any idea how much you would have embarrassed me if anyone had known?” His jaw clenches, the muscle leaping as he stares me down. “I can hear it now, the gossip about how the Carravella heir can’t afford to clothe his wife properly, after our misfortune. They all see me renovating this mansion as a noble family gesture, but that tune would change if—”
“How would they know?” I sit up, clutching the sheet to my breasts, my anger suddenly matching his? “They wouldn’t, because it was agoodpiece. I know how to choose clothing; after all, it’s one of those skills that my mother taught me that aresoin demand. What does it matter where it came from? It’s not as if any of those women stepped foot in that shop—”
“And neither should you!” David bellows the words, making me suddenly grateful that we have no staff to hear it. “You were never supposed to go out in the first place! You have beennothingbut a problem for me, Amalie, since the moment I stepped into your mother’s house—”
“You don’t seem to mind being married to me when you’re fucking me!”
“Neither do you!” He shouts it, his hands fisting at his sides as if he wants to reach out and grab me, and I shrink back. “You moan and beg for my cock like you can’t get enough. So don’t pretend—”
“Don’t pretend what? I haven’t pretended to beanythingwith you!” I can feel hot tears filling my eyes, and I blink them back, refusing to let him see me as anything but angry at this moment. “Neitherof us said who we were in Ibiza, but neither of us asked! We were never supposed to see each other again! I told you the truth about everything—”
“Not that you were pregnant.” David’s glare is withering. “You keptthata secret until after the wedding. I imagine because you knew I would put it off until there was proof that the baby was mine. And why not wait, if itis? The only reason I can think of is because you’re passing off some billionaire’s son’s brat as mine—”
“You were the only one!” I scream it again, my hands fisting in the sheet against my chest. “And I regret that as much as you regret marrying me! My mothermademe keep it a secret. She was worried you’d find a different bride if you had to wait. I have never hadanychoices aboutanythingexcept the one I made with you, in Ibiza. And I wish togodI’d picked someone else!”
“I wish you had, too.” David is breathing hard, his jaw clenched, the edges of his nostrils white with tension. “If you’d been honest with me—”
“You weren’t honest with me either,” I whisper. “You didn’t tell me that you were married. You still won’t tell me what happened. So we’ve both kept things from each other. You’re no better than I am.”
We stare at each other from across the bed, the seconds ticking away. David makes a sound like a growl deep in his throat, turning away at last, the muscles in his shoulders bunched with rage. “Don’t ever let me see you wearing that again,” he says finally. “And clean up this fucking mess. Even if I had staff, I wouldn’t send them up here to help you.”
And with that, he stalks away, out of the room.
It takes me a long time to clean up the mess, after I’m sure David is gone, and I’ve had a chance to get dressed. I have to wander through the lower part of the house, looking for a broom and anything else I might need to use to clean, and I can hear him in his office behind the closed door, his voice low and quiet. The anger from our argument earlier is still simmering, and I bite my lip, forcing myself not to barge into his office and demand answers. I know that won’t help me get them, but the urge is still there.
The only way I’m going to get answers is by finding them myself. David’s attitude toward me has turned chilly again. I don’t feel the slightest bit of guilt the next day when I slip out of the house, intent on visiting the nearby church and graveyard. He’s not home today—he left on business before I was even awake, and I don’t bother asking any of his security to go with me. I know exactly how he’ll feel about that, but I’m too angry, and too desperate for the truth to care. If he won’t tell me, I’ll figure it out myself.
It’s a warm summer day, and the walk makes me feel a little better. I walk down the paths that lead away from the estate to the old church a few miles off, finding that being outside in the fresh air settles my stomach and eases some of the pregnancy symptoms that felt as if they were on the verge of returning. It’s become very clear that they’re exacerbated by stress, and there’s been no shortage of that since the moment I walked into the living room in my old home and saw David standing there.
The graveyard is behind the historic church, filled with moss-covered stones, the age of it reminding me of David’s mansion. I walk through the rows, looking for the Carravella plot, which is easy enough to find. There are a handful of graves, all marked with dates, and I look at each one, trying to find the most recent.
There are four, within the past ten years.Maricia Carravella. Lucio Carravella. Bria Carravella. Marcus Carravella.
The last one startles me more than the rest, when I look at the dates. Marcus was a child when he died—not quite four. I remember the thought I had when David told me that his brother had been married—that the family would never have sent his widow away if she’d had a child—and I wonder if that’s why. But when I look at the dates again, I realize that Marcus died a little over two years ago. Lucio Carravella—whose death date matches up with what David hinted at—died two years before that.
Bria’s death date is only slightly after her son’s.
I sit back on my heels in the grass at the edge of the graves, my heart racing. I feel a chill despite the heat, trying to piece it all together. David’s refusal to talk about it, his attempt to hide his prior marriage from me, his conflicting feelings about my pregnancy. The way he’s hot and cold, the way everyone seemed so surprised and pleased to see him married again—and the things I found in the attic, the photos and the belongings that had been a woman’s and a child’s.
The pieces don’t quite fit together, but in all the ways that I can think of, they point at something terrible. Something that might spell danger for both myself and my child.
I press my hand against my chest, trying to ease my racing heart.Maybe he’s so cold because he doesn’t want to be hurt again,I try to reason, pushing aside my fears for a moment. If Bria really was David’s wife, if Marcus was their child, then to lose them so soon after losing his brother would have been a terrible blow. I can understand how he might resist any feelings he has for me, how feeling anything might make him instantly pull back. I can see how the unexpected news of my pregnancy might make him lash out. And—
Marcus was born before David married Bria, if I’m calculating the dates right.He might not have been David’s son.There could be something to that—some other part of the mystery that explains David’s paranoia about my child being his.
But the bloodstains. The photos, were clearly taken by someone following the woman in them.I don’t know that the woman is Bria, that she and Lucio’s wife might not be two different people. But I can’t ignore that there’s evidence that something terrible must have happened in that house.
Fear creeps through me again, impossible to ignore. I can easily imagine the worst—and the worst means that I’m in danger. I think of David’s anger last night, this morning, and a swell of nausea ripples through me. I touch my stomach, my pulse racing again, and I know I need more answers. I need to know who these people were for certain, to try to tie the threads together before I come to any conclusions.
And I have to try to find a way to mollify David until I know.
