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“Mr. March sent me up to tell you he’d like to see you in his office before dinner,” she said. She stood there, obviously aware that Ryder was in the closet.

“Thank you. Tell him I’ll be there.”

“Everything all right?”

“Yes, I’m just . . . yes,” I said.

She nodded and then left.

“Who was that?”

“It was just Mrs. Duval. She’s sort of the house manager.”

“He had to send her up here? What’s he want? Does he always do that, send someone to fetch you, or is he doing it just because of me?”

“No, he’s done it before,” I said.

“I guess he likes ordering everyone around. I’d better get going.”

“I’ll walk you out.”

There was no one downstairs when we descended. I walked to his car with him.

“Call me later,” I said.

“You sure you want me to?”

“Of course I do. I don’t kiss just anyone in my closet,” I said. I kissed him quickly and turned to head back into the house.

“Hey,” he called.

“What?”

“Maybe we’ll both run away one of these days. You already know how to survive out there. We’ll do what Romeo and Juliet should have done.”

“There’s nothing to romanticize about it, Ryder. It’s better to stay and face your demons here.”

“You haven’t met mine yet,” he said, and got into his car. I stood there watching him drive off, and then I went inside and headed for Mr. March’s office.

I didn’t want to tell Ryder, but his sending for me through Mrs. Duval was exactly what he would do when he sent for Kiera to bawl her out or chastise her for something she had done. Maybe, like Jordan, he was going to question me about her, about what she might have told me. I didn’t want to become their little spy, reporting on their daughter. I thought I had seen too much betrayal in my life already to see or be a part of any more.

Little did I know that I had just begun.

8

A Strange Interest

Mr. March’s office door was open, but he didn’t hear me coming. He was bent over his oversized dark cherry-wood desk, his hands over his forehead and eyes. I immediately noticed that he had moved my calligraphy of the word Mother that I had made nearly three years ago. I had given it to the Marches, and he was very impressed with it. They had put it in their entertainment center, which annoyed Kiera at the time. Now he had taken it from the entertainment center to his office and hung it in a prominent place on the wall as well. I knocked on the door, and he sat up instantly.

“Come in, Sasha,” he said, and got up to come around his desk and lean back on the front of it. He nodded at the black leather settee on his left, and I sat. “Your friend gone?”

“Yes.”

He nodded slightly and kept his gaze so fixed on me that I felt a little uncomfortable. Usually, Mr. March didn’t stare at me like this. Many times during the past years, I had felt he was looking through me or past me. He didn’t seem to hear the things I said or the things Jordan said about me. Like Jordan, I always assumed he was too absorbed with his business.

“I don’t know where the time goes,” he said, relaxing his lips. His eyes became softer, gentler. “When you were first brought here, you were hardly any bigger than Alena, and now look at you. You’ve become a really beautiful young lady right under my nose.”

His unexpected, enthusiastic compliment took me by surprise. I felt myself blush. He looked up at my calligraphy.