“You don’t ask. You tell.”
“Then consider yourself told.”
A slight smile crosses his face. “I’ll be here.”
After he leaves, I return to the files on my desk, but my focus has shifted. I’m thinking about Anna arriving later today with two children who don’t know me. About a family dinner that will be awkward at best, hostile at worst. About a wife who agreed to this marriage but looks at me like she’s planning my funeral.
Variables I thought I had accounted for.
I’m starting to realize I miscalculated.
5
ANNA
The house feels smallerwhen I walk back inside.
My parents are in the living room waiting. My mother stands the moment she sees me. My father stays seated, glass of whiskey already in his hand, even though it’s barely nine in the morning.
“How did it go?” my mother asks.
“How do you think it went?” I walk past her toward the stairs. “I need to pack.”
“Anna, wait.”
I stop but don’t turn around.
“We know this is difficult,” she says. “But it’s for the best. For you and the twins.”
“Is it?” I finally look at her. “Or is it for the best for you and Dad?”
She flinches. My father takes another drink.
“That’s not fair,” my mother says quietly.
“Fair? You sold me to a stranger to save your company. Don’t talk to me about fair.”
“We didn’t sell you. We secured your future. The twins’ future.”
“By forcing me into a marriage I didn’t want.”
“You agreed to it.” My father’s voice is hard. “You could have said no.”
“And watch you lose everything? Watch Mila and Alexei grow up with nothing?” I cross my arms. “You knew I didn’t have a choice. You counted on it.”
Silence fills the room. My mother’s eyes are wet again. My father stares into his glass like it holds answers.
“Luca will take care of you,” my mother says finally. “He has resources, connections, security. The twins will have opportunities we could never give them.”
“The twins had me. That was enough.”
“Was it?” My father looks up. “Living here rent-free, working part-time jobs that barely cover expenses, relying on us for everything? That’s not a future, Anna. That’s survival.”
The words hit harder than I want to admit. Because he’s right. I’ve been surviving, not living. Working whatever jobs I could find that allowed me to be home for the twins. Stretching every dollar. Watching my children grow up in a house that wasn’t mine, dependent on parents who resented the burden even if they never said it out loud.
But I had my freedom. I had my choices. I had my secret.
And now I have none of those things.
