For dinner. 8 pm. —A
I held the note for a long time. The paper was thick, monogrammed, the kind of stationery that came in boxes of a hundred. His handwriting was small and precise, the letters slanting slightly to the right.
He'd bought me a dress. He'd bought me shoes. He'd put them in my room, on my bed, without asking.
This is what it means to be his, I thought. This is what it means to belong to Aleksander Mire.
I put on the dress. I put on the shoes. I looked at myself in the gilded mirror and didn't recognize my own face.
Dinner was different now that I lived here.
We ate in the same room—the long table, the candles, the shadows—but the seating had shifted. I sat at Aleksander's right hand, the place reserved for the person he trusted most. Gabriel sat across from me, his eyes soft, his hand brushing mine under the table whenever he thought no one was looking. Nathan sat at the far end, watching us all with an expression I couldn't read.
"This is weird," Gabriel said, spearing a piece of asparagus. "Having you here. Good weird. But weird."
"I know." I looked around the table—at the crystal glasses, the silverware, the centerpiece of fresh flowers that must have cost more than my monthly rent. "I keep waiting for someone to wake me up."
"Maybe this is the dream," Nathan said. "Maybe the diner was real, and this is the fantasy."
"If this is a fantasy, it's a boring one."
Nathan smiled. It was a sharp smile, dangerous at the edges. "Give it time."
Aleksander cleared his throat. "Monika will be starting school in the fall. Veterinary school. I've made the arrangements."
Gabriel's fork stopped halfway to his mouth. "You... you got her into vet school?"
"Not into. I've paid for it. She still has to be admitted on her own merits." He turned to me. "Which you will be. Your grades are exceptional. Your experience is more than sufficient. The only thing standing between you and your degree was money."
I stared at him. "You paid for vet school."
"I paid for your application fees. For your tuition. For your books and your supplies and whatever else you need." He said it like it was nothing. Like he hadn't just handed me the future I'd been mourning for six years.
"Why?"
"Because you deserve it. Because you're wasting your hands in that diner. Because I want you to have everything you've ever wanted."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have."
Gabriel was looking at me with something like wonder. Nathan was looking at his father with something like calculation. And I—I was looking at Aleksander, at the grey of his eyes, at the small, soft curve of his mouth, at the way he'd just changed my life without asking for permission.
"Thank you," I said. The words felt small. Inadequate. "I don't know how to—"
"You don't have to know how. You just have to accept."
I nodded. I picked up my fork. I ate my dinner without tasting it.
And when Gabriel reached for my hand under the table, I held on like he was the only thing keeping me grounded.
After dinner, I walked through the house alone.
It was a maze—hallways that led to other hallways, rooms that opened into other rooms. I passed the library where Nathan had cornered me, the ballroom where we'd eaten our first meal,the greenhouse where Gabriel had touched me for the first time. The house was quiet now, the servants gone to bed, the family scattered to their own spaces.
I found a door I hadn't noticed before. It was at the end of a long corridor, tucked behind a tapestry, easy to miss. I pushed it open and stepped inside.
It was a nursery.
