He is dismissing me. I can tell in the flat tone he is using. I try not to let it bother me.
“Vitamins,” I say and he nods before looking around the room.
Silence falls over us, and I expect it to turn awkward, but it doesn’t. Never the less, I can’t stay perched on his desk all day so I lower one foot to the ground tentatively.
“Are you in pain?” he asks, watching me carefully.
“No so much, just seems silly to let it leak out of me.”
His eyes flash with something dangerous that I can’t quite place.
“Rest today, Charlotte. We will work on your Russian later…” he helps me to standing and pauses, holding me there but not looking at me. “When you’re dressed.”
“And the other thing,” I say as I begin to walk from the office on shaky legs.
He looks at me, raising an eyebrow quizzically.
“We have four days left in my ovulation window. So you need to be read to go again by tonight.”
He clenches his jaw at my words. I’m not sure if my demand is pissing him off, or if he is trying to hold himself in check. But a deal is a deal. Besides, if I’d have known how amazing sex is, I wouldn’t have waited so long to have it.
I’m lying on the bed practicing my Russian when I hear the familiar click of of her shoes.
Janine French. Head Housekeeper. Judge, jury, and executioner of staff morale.
It’s like a warning and I’m just about to spring up off the bed when I remember that I don’t work for her anymore.
She doesn’t knock when she comes in carrying a stack of folded clothing and a small basket with vitamin bottles and fancy soaps and several pregnancy tests. Supplies for the Pakhan’s new niece-in-law… though the look on her face suggests she’s delivering poison.
“Thank you,” I say with a polite smile, holding out my hands to receive the basket from her.
She stops in front of me, eyes sweeping over my bare legs, then up again with slow disdain.
“Mrs. Dubovich,” she says, the title hitting my skin like frostbite. “I see you’ve settled into your new position quickly.”
My cheeks burn. I lift my chin anyway.
She doesn’t hand them over.
Instead, she leans in, voice low and cutting. “I’ve seen plenty like you. Whores who think flashing their cunts will buy them a better life.”
The word hits like a slap. Whores are disposable. Forgettable. Replaceable.
I am trying not to be any of those. But I suppose she is right. Once I’ve had his baby and it’s weaned, I’ll be gone.
“I didn’t flash anything,” I say, voice shaking. “I married him.”
Her nostrils flare. She steps closer, so close I can smell stale coffee on her breath.
“Do not presume you belong here,” she hisses. “Women like you get used. And then they disappear.”
My stomach twists. Fear, shame, rage, everything at once. But I remember last night. His hands. His voice. The way he held me afterward like he didn’t want to let me go. Then this morning in his office. He said I was his, whether he meant it or it was just the sex talking… it must mean something on some level.
I straighten my shoulders. “I belong here for the next fifteen months,” I whisper. “Whatever you think of me.”
Her lips curl. “Then you’ll be out on your hind and all spent up.”
I snatch the basket from her hands, and it knocks her off balance just enough that something ugly flashes in her eyes.
