The air left from my lungs, and I swallowed hard. “What does that mean? What truth?”
But Elena dipped her head. “Forgive me, Mrs. Vitale, I must prepare luncheon. The master expects several guests this afternoon. I suggest you also get ready. He wouldn’t like seeing you roaming around wearing this.”
I looked down at myself. The clothes I wore were indeed revealing, but I didn’t care.
“Guests?” I frowned. “Who?”
“Important ones.” That was all she gave me before she got up and swept away to the kitchen. Alone, I stood anchored bymy own fury. If he thought I would wait for him to tell me something, he was wrong.
If there were answers, they would be buried in his study, where he never let anyone in.
I turned around, making sure Elena was busy cutting the vegetables. I had exactly three hours before the afternoon. If I was right, the guests would start coming by half past one. I had to get ready too. Give or take, two hours.
I jogged to his study barefoot and twisted the knob. It was open. Maybe it was his arrogance, or certainty, that I would never dare. I entered, took a deep breath, and avoided looking at the desk where he fucked me last time I was in here.
I rifled through drawers with my trembling hands. Rifling through sheaves of documents that gave me nothing but dust, transactions, letters to faceless names. In between the documents, my eyes landed on one with a very familiar name on it.
Celestine.
My heart raced as I pulled out the file with trembling hands. Swallowing hard, I flipped it open only to find several photos of me. In art exhibitions, with Adrian, and among my loved ones. There were several pictures of Grace, too, along with other colleagues. My heart stopped beating, and I read the words written over some pictures.
Mine.
Oh Lord….
How long had he been stalking me for? These pictures… I flipped one of them and my eyes widened. It was of me and Adrian, on a date, where he first gave me flowers. The white daisies. It was our first date.
Chills ran down my spine.
Four years. Four years ago, daisies clutched in my hands, Adrian smiling, my hair falling over my cheek, captured, frozen. Was he there that night? In the shadows of the street? In the crowd? Had he followed me home afterward?
Every memory I thought belonged to me suddenly felt poisoned.
How many times did I laugh, unguarded, thinking I was free?
How many times did I undress in my own room, believing the walls were mine alone?
The photos of Grace… why Grace? Was she collateral? A warning? Did he follow her too, the way he followed me? Was she in danger simply because she existed in my orbit?
My hands trembled so violently that the papers rattled, like bones clinking together. I wanted to drop them, burn them, rip them apart, but I couldn’t stop looking. My face. My smile. My vulnerability lay bare in glossy ink.
Did he keep count of my steps, the cadence of my breath, the way I tilted my head when listening? Did he watch me sleep?
I swallowed hard, bile rising in my throat. He had called me his. But what did that mean? Possession? Obsession? Protection twisted into something grotesque?
What else did he know? About Adrian? About my family? About every secret I thought was safely buried?
I hastily looked for more pictures. And to no surprise, I found my father’s. Aunt Brenda. And Adrian’s side of the family. Strangely, there were some bills attached to my father’s picture.
Ten thousand dollars.
Fifty thousand dollars.
And a hand-written note.
Moved to Bulgaria to a private hospital.
The room spun and the walls seemed to close in. The study wasn’t a room anymore, it was a shrine. A mausoleum of my life, dissected and catalogued by someone who had claimed me without my consent.
