Page 24 of Cruel Romeo

I expect a marriage. Arealone.

A shiver rolls down my spine. I don’t know if it’s the cold or the terror or something else entirely.

All I know is that I still have no idea how the hell I’m going to escape this place.

Or survive it.

9

SIMA

Alone in Petyr’s giant Victorian nightmare of a fuckpad, I start pacing like a caged tiger. I can’t help it—every shadow looks ready to pounce on me; every corner feels like it’s equipped with eyes to watch me. Considering the owner of this room, I wouldn’t put it past him to have filled the place with cameras.

Or a livestream. You know, to show all his Bratva people that he’s working on that heir assignment.

Cold sweat breaks across my back. He said he expects a real marriage… but surely he doesn’t mean starting tonight?

That’s what you get for skipping on your Brazilian wax,Jemma would say if she were here.

But she isn’t here. And deflecting my impending doom with humor isn’t going to get me any closer to the city.

My eyes stray to the bed again. I could make a sheet-rope and try to rappel down the trellis—but no. It’s getting dark, I’m not James Bond, and even if I could somehow flee intothe wilderness, spring doesn’t exactly constitute camping weather on the East Coast.

Besides, for all I know, this guy has a pack of hounds on the premises that he feeds a diet of fresh escape artists, all barking and frothing at the mouth for the chance to chase me through the woods and drag me back screaming by my ankles.

On the other hand, Icouldstay the night. With how big the bed is, we wouldn’t even touch unless we purposefully swam across oceans of mattress to meet in the middle.

And yet…

I expect a marriage. A real one.

Goosebumps bloom on my arms. I hug myself, but it does nothing to chase away the chill. A real marriage means a lot of things. One of those is the wedding night.

“Fuck,” I mutter.

I go stand in front of the full-length mirror. My reflection stares angrily back at me. And how can I blame it? I failed myself. Broke the one promise I swore I’d always keep.

I got married. To the enemy.

And now, he expects me to have his babies.

I sink back into the mattress. I can feel the despair gnawing at my stomach, eating at me from the inside.

My mind drifts back to my mom.

I remember her hands first. Always busy, always wringing a dishrag or smoothing out a wrinkle in her apron, or covering a bruise she thought we didn’t notice. My father had plentyof money to staff the house, and he did, but he never hired a chef. Said a busy wife was a happy wife.

Back then, I thought he was joking. That the reason Mom was in the kitchen all day long was because she loved to cook. At first, she must have. She used to say it was her happy place when she was younger, a space to spend time with Grandma before she passed away. Before she got married and had a family of her own.

By the time I was born, it had already become her prison.

I remember her songs. She still used to hum while she cooked when I was little, but then the music stopped. By the time I grew older, it was dead silent.

I was seven when Dad brought home his third mistress.

The woman had walked into our house like she owned it. A sickening perfume, some expensive brand she’d doused herself in, trailed behind her like smoke. I have no doubt my father bought her that perfume. She must have wanted my mom to know it. To feel even more humiliated by her presence than she already would have.

Well, it worked.