It almost brings me to tears again as I pull the blanket up around me and try to let the anger drain from my body.
Around dusk, Sara slips through my door with a plate of bread and a glass of water balanced in one hand, closing it behind her with the other, quiet enough that the latch barely clicks. She's gotten good at this over the past week. Every night at the same time, she appears with exactly what I've asked for—plain bread, room temperature water, nothing that'll make the nausea worse.
"How are you feeling tonight?" she whispers, setting the plate on the nightstand and perching on the edge of the bed with her legs tucked under her. She's just a kid, really, though legally, she's an adult. But her innocence has helped us bond more than I feel comfortable bonding with the others. Sara knows how to keep a secret, even from Roman.
"The same." I sit up against the headboard and tear off a corner of bread and put it in my mouth, chewing slowly. "Better once I eat."
"That's good, though, right? If eating helps, that means the baby is?—"
"Please, don't say that word out loud." I wince at how horrible I sound, but if anyone were to find out… I don't know how I'm going to keep this secret, but I am. Roman will never know I'm having his baby, and neither will Vera. She'd find some way to use it against me, and he might just take it away.
She presses her lips together and nods and folds her hands in her lap. Sara is young and eager and she sits with wide-eyed fascination every time I talk to her. When I told her about the test and why nobody could know, she understood and agreed. She hasn't breathed a word to anyone, and I trust that she won't.
Sorin would've gone to Roman within the hour, torn between guilt and duty, and Roman would've figured out the rest on his own. But Sara's younger and more impressionable and she doesn't see telling Roman as her responsibility. She sees keeping my secret as a privilege.
It helps that she thinks the father is some man from my life before I came here. I haven't corrected her.
"Okay, well I can see that you're upset," she says as she curls her knees into her chest and hugs them. "Do you want to tell me more about your life before you came here?" The poor thing had such an awful life of her own, hearing my boring life details seems to entertain her like hearing fairy tales.
I chew another piece of bread and wash it down with water and lean my head back against the headboard. "I've told you about my father."
"Tell me about when Vera first came."
"You want the ugly version or the polite version?" I chuckle, well aware that my hatred for that woman can color everything I say.
"The ugly one." Sara grins and grabs the extra blanket from the foot of my bed to wrap around her shoulders. The air conditioning is extra cold tonight.
I close my eyes and let the memory surface. "I was almost eleven. My father brought her to the house for dinner and she wore this cream-colored dress and pearls and she smiled so widely, I could count every tooth in her head. She kept touching my father's arm and laughing at things that weren't funny and calling me sweetheart in this voice that was so sugary, it made my teeth ache."
"And your stepsisters?"
"Oh, well, Vera told my father they were shy angels, but when Sofi yanked my hair less than ten minutes in and mocked my pink bedspread, I learned really fast that Vera is a liar and her daughters are spoiled." The memory is still a bad one. Papa should've known immediately how it would never work out. Sometimes, I wonder if Vera blackmailed him or something. He changed so quickly.
"That's horrible."
"That's Vera. She could watch one of her daughters set the house on fire and still think they're perfect." I tear off another piece of bread and eat it slowly. "Papa believed her because he was lonely, I think, and Vera's very good at making lonely men believe what she wants them to believe." I feel sad as I think of how she's completely snowballed Roman. He doesn't deserve what she's doing to him, but I can’t stop it. He believes what he wants to believe.
Sara shakes her head and rolls her eyes. "All three of them sound horrid."
"They are," I mumble softly as I think about how right now across town, they're probably giddy over the gala. Roman wants me to show up and participate, but I have no interest in going. Now that I've made it clear that I'm not interested in marrying him to form some business arrangement, he'll go back to choosing one of them.
The tears in my eyes spill over before I can blink them back and Sara pats my foot under the covers. "You deserve better than all of them," she says.
I smile at her though I'm sad. But being sad won't change what's happening. It's my own fault I'm in this mess. I let Roman have his way with me and I liked it while it was happening. But choices have consequences, which I should've learned by now, but I haven't.
"Go on," I tell her, nodding toward the door. "It's late and if they catch you in here, we'll both be in trouble."
Sara unfolds herself from the bed and squeezes my hand before she leaves, pulling the door closed behind her. I lie back againstthe pillows and stare at the ceiling. The bread has settled my stomach enough that the nausea has faded, which is the best I can hope for these days.
I can't believe he actually expected me to want to marry him. And since I refused him, it'll be Sofi or Sabine, and whichever one it is will say yes before he finishes the sentence. And Vera will get exactly what she wants, and my inheritance will slip through my fingers the way she's always planned.
Maybe they'll marry fast and the wedding will happen before I'm showing. Then by the time Roman finds out about the baby, it'll be too late for him to force my hand. He'd never annul a marriage to claim a pregnant servant, and I'd be free of any responsibility to him.
Or maybe I can still slip away when no one's looking and disappear.
One thing I know for sure is, when he says "I do" to someone else, I can't stay here. I won't watch a man I've fallen for take another woman to his bed every night.
My heart wouldn’t survive that.
