Why did Mom make me collateral? I don’t understand what I ever did wrong. All I’ve ever wanted was to be loved and accepted. Is that too much to ask? I guess it is since the only person who’s ever kissed or touched me is also my captor.
And… why is Raffaeleaskingme to marry him rather than telling me to do it? As I ponder this, I realize something very important. In the time I’ve been here, he hasn’t forced me to do anything.
Has he?
The sunlight strengthens, illuminating my reflection more clearly in the window. My cheeks are flushed, my eyes bright with unshed tears. But my skin is pale, like I’m a specter. I look more like someone haunting the place than someone haunted.
Maybe that’s why no one’s looking for me. I’ve been a ghost for so long my absence is hardly noticeable. The bakery customers might wonder where I’ve gone, but they’ll adapt. And… that’s it.
I don’t have any friends. And I don’t mean I only have one or two. No, I have none. Zero. The few I had in school all fizzled out when we went our separate ways. While they were eager for college, I wasn’t going anywhere.
My highest education is high school because there wasn’t money for anything else. And I didn’t need a fancy degree to work in the bakery where Mom taught me everything.
I press my palm against the glass, covering my reflection’s face. Behind it, the world continues to wake. Birds flit between bare branches. The sun climbs higher.
And somewhere out there is my bakery, waiting. The only place where I’ve ever felt truly seen, truly myself. The place Raffaele is offering to return to me—for a price.
Onyx meows sleepily and abandons the bed to jump onto the windowsill. I bend down so I can kiss his small, furry head.
“You’ll always be the most important man in my life.” I smile as I scratch behind his ears until he purrs. “But what if… what if I stopped making myself small? What if I took up all the space I’m meant to?” I ask him softly.
He has no answer, but for once, I think maybe I do.
Three gentle knocks on my door startle me from my thoughts. I don’t answer, but I already have a pretty good idea of what waits on the other side.
Breakfast.
I wait until the hallway falls silent before cracking open the door. The tray sits on the floor—a simple breakfast of toast, eggs, and fruit. Nothing elaborate, but more than enough. I carry it to my bed and sit cross-legged, balancing it on my lap as Onyx watches with hopeful eyes.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I tell him, breaking off a tiny piece of toast. “You have your own food.”
He ignores this fact, as cats do, and eagerly accepts the small piece of toast I offer him. It’s not the bread he wants. Oh, no. The mischievous little fur ball wants to lick off the melted butter.
I eat mechanically, tasting nothing. My mind is elsewhere, circling the same question. Marriage to Raffaele. Freedom to return to the bakery. What does hereallywant from me? What am I willing to give?
When I’ve eaten all that I can stomach, I set the half-empty tray on the nightstand and reach for one of Susan’s romance novels. She’s given me more, and I’ve been alternating between them, dipping in and out of different worlds where women find themselves at the mercy of powerful men. With each passing page, I find myself drawn deeper into the story.
In this one, a young woman is given to a desert sheikh who claims her as payment for her dad’s failure to pay his dues. The premise makes me wince, but I keep reading, turning pages as the heroine’s initial fear transforms into fascination, then desire, then love.
‘You belong to me now,’ Karim whispered against her heated skin. ‘But I find I am equally enslaved by my need for you.’
Could that happen to me? No, no. I shouldn’t even think like that.
The day passes in this strange haze of reading and thinking and trying not to think. Meal times come and go, and I eat what I can. It isn’t a lot, though. With how anxious I am, there’s barely any room for food in my stomach.
It’s dark outside when I finally admit to myself that I need to make a decision. I can’t hide in this room forever, reading romance novels and pretending the real world isn’t waiting outside my door.
I decide on a shower, hoping the hot water will clear my head. Steam fills the bathroom, fogging the mirror and wrapping around me like a blanket as I step under the scalding spray. The heat seeps into my muscles, relaxing knots I didn’t know I was carrying.
What do I really want? The question floats in my mind as I lean my head back, letting the water cascade down my body.
I want to go back to the bakery. That much is simple. I want to feel flour between my fingers again, to smell bread rising in the ovens, to hear the bell over the door as customers come and go.
I want my life back—not as it was, with Sabrina’s cruelty and my mom’s expectations, but as it could be.Mine.On my terms. And what would I give for that? The answer comes with surprising clarity—anything.
Including marriage to Raffaele Russo. Even if it means stepping willingly into something that could swallow me whole.
Chapter 17
