Page 34 of Claimed By the Silver Fox

“I know, it was the wedding.”

“After Andreo left,” she finishes up, her voice taking on a sad edge. “God, Julia, I’m so sorry, I should have—I don’t know, I should have gone after him, I should have stopped you…” She trails off, and the aching guilt in her tone makes my heart sink.

I hate the idea that she has been holding herself responsible all this time for what happened, when it has nothing to do with her. She has already shown in every way that she’s willing to go to great lengths to make sure I’m okay, and I would never hold it against her that she couldn’t drag my unwilling groom back to the altar.

“Is it true?” she asks, lowering her voice slightly. “About…about you and his father?”

Something cold and clammy creeps up the back of my neck, hearing that it has been put out into the world like that. It’s not as though it comes as a complete shock—I mean, people talk, they always have. But with such little connection to the outside world, it’s been possible for me to convince myself that I’m existing in a tiny bubble where none of this is happening for anyone else.

“Yes.” There’s no point lying to her, not if it has already gotten that far.

She sucks in a sharp breath, and I can almost picture the ways her eyes widen with that confirmation. “You’re kidding, right?” she demands. “You’re kidding. You married his father? What were you thinking?”

I take a deep breath. To make sense of this, I think I need to tell her everything, as crazy as it’s going to sound. She’s been there for me through so much, and the least I owe her in return is proof that I trust her enough to tell her everything.

And so, I spill it. Every detail, every one I can remember, in the chaos that is my mind right now, at least.

And she listens, interjecting every now and then with a question or a gasp or an exclamation. There’s so much she didn’t know about my relationship with Andreo, and that was by design. Even back then, when I was entirely in denial about the way he treated me, some subconscious part of me had wanted to keep her from seeing it in too much detail. She had already given me so much, and it seemed unfair to burden her with that too.

I finish up by telling her about the pregnancy, the way that Antonio turned and walked out as though he could barely stand to look at me when he discovered the news. And she sits there on the other end of the phone, completely quiet for a long moment before she finally speaks again.

“Holy hell, Julia.”

“Yeah,” I reply, with a slightly shaky laugh. “Yeah, I know, I know…”

“Are you okay?”

I pause for a moment. It’s a question I haven’t really asked myself, and for good reason. I don’t want to deal with the answer to it, not if I can avoid it, and I wish I could just lie and tell her that I’m fine, that nothing’s wrong, that as messy as this is, I will figure out a way to get through it one way or another.

“No,” I confess. “No, I’m really, really not.”

And with that, I break down again before I can stop myself, the tears dripping onto my lap as Anna does her best to soothe me from the other end of the line.

I wish she was here with me—I wish anyone was here with me, honestly, anyone who could lift some of the weight from my shoulders, anyone who didn’t work for Antonio. Irina was kind enough in getting me the pregnancy test, but it’s different when I know everyone in this place reports back to him. How could I trust any of them with anything, when I’m all too aware of that fact?

“What do you want to do? About the baby, I mean?”

“I…I want to keep it,” I reply. It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud, but I’m more sure of it now than ever. “I know it sounds crazy, but⁠—”

“Julia, if that’s what you need, you know I’m with you,” she tells me firmly. “Are you going to have him in their life? Antonio, I mean?”

I part my lips. I wish I had an answer to that question, but it fails me.

I glance toward the door, almost willing him to appear so that he can tell me, one way or another, what he wants, what’s going on inside his head. But I’m honestly not sure if it would be good for me to hear something like that right now. Maybe I’m better off living in this in-between, in this fantasy, where I can convince myself that things might turn out just how I want them.

“I don’t know,” I confess, voice thick with tears. “I think he wants me to—” I stop myself in my tracks.

I don’t know what he wants from me. And whatever it is, I’m not sure that I’m willing to go through with it.

I just need to get out of here, to find a new start somewhere else. His reaction has only underlined that for me, once and for all. I might have tried to convince myself that there was really something between us, that he really cared about me, but the longer this silence goes on, the harder it is to trust that. I feel like he’s only keeping me here because he can, not because he has any real feelings for me, and if I remain with my child, then I’ll be condemning them to the same fate.

“Come here, Julia,” Anna pleads with me. “Just…come move in for a little while. We can figure out what we’re going to do later, but you need to get out of there. Away from those men. Away from that family.”

My heart swells at the sound of those words. I don’t know how to tell her this, but they’re everything I’ve been hoping to hear. God, I wish I could reach through the phone, just give her a giant hug right then and there to thank her for how far she’s willing to go for me. I’m not sure if I deserve it, but I will take whatever I can get, at least for now.

“I don’t know if I can even get out of this place,” I admit, and she makes an odd noise of shock.

“Wait, what?” she replies. “What do you mean?”