I can’t get Mercedes’s words out of my head. Can’t stop seeing her face, the hate in it. What she said, what she suggested, it’s what I’ve been thinking. It’s the thought that’s been in the back of my mind since Santiago rescued me from the doctor who would abort our baby and brought me home. But it’s not that alone that’s bothering me. Before coming into this house, before having the De La Rosa siblings in my life, I never felt hated. And being hated is different than being ignored or even disliked. It’s almost a palpable thing, a weighted thing.
And the fact that Mercedes hates me shouldn’t bother me. I know that. And I can live with it, but it’s what she said and how it just confirms what I’ve been worrying about. That this new Santiago, this kinder, better man, the doting husband, it’s a ruse. Not real.
And she saw right through me.
I am in love with Santiago De La Rosa. I am in love with my husband which in a normal world would be a wonderful thing. But in our world, it’s dangerous. It’s a weakness. Does he see it too? Does he see it and is using it to manipulate me? To have an obedient wife who will accept his wishes, submit to them without an opinion of her own? A wife who carries and births his heir?
His.
“Ivy?” I blink, look up at Antonia who asks me again if I want something else to eat.
I glance down at my plate, see the eggs are still there. Cold now. My toast is untouched. I don’t remember buttering it but I haven’t eaten a single bite.
And Santiago is sitting at the head of the table, tired eyes locked on me.
“No, thanks. I’m just a little nauseous this morning,” I lie. Although I’m sure if I keep going down this road it will be the truth. “I’ll just have some tea.” I pick up my now tepid tea and realize I haven’t sipped that either.
“Let me get you a fresh cup,” Antonia starts but Santiago puts a hand on her arm.
“No.”
“It’s cold—”
“Leave us.”
“It’ll just take a minute, sir.”
But he shifts his gaze up to hers and what she must see in his eyes sends her hurrying away.
“You should be nicer to her. To all your staff. Master,” I say.
The line of his jaw hardens.
“You don’t deserve her as it—”
His fist comes down on the table so hard it rattles the silverware and dishes, making me jump. “What the hell has gotten into you?”
I put my tea cup down and set my hands on my lap. I don’t want him to see they’re trembling.
“You’re still wearing the clothes from last night,” I say.
“And?”
“You didn’t come to bed at all. At least not our bed.”
His eyebrows rise. “Whose bed do you think I’d have gone to if not my own?”
“I don’t know, Santiago. Ever since you moved me into your room it’s not like you’ve ever actually slept beside me. Did you think I wouldn’t notice? Did you just do it to shut me up? Stop my whining, I think you’d said before.”
“Of course not. What is going on with you?”
He looks taken aback. I pick up my toast and pile scrambled eggs on top but when I take a bite, the now hard toast breaks apart and the eggs slip off onto the table, my lap and floor. “Shit.” I drop what’s left of the toast onto my plate and begin to scoop up the mess on the table but Santiago’s hand closes over mine.
“Stop.”
I try to shove it away. “Let go. I don’t want Antonia to have to clean it up.”
“She has staff for that.”
“No.” I push my chair back, sliding my hand out from under his to gather the mess on the floor.
“Ivy, stop.”
Mercedes’s words come back to me and I hate that they have the power to hurt me. She’s right. I am in love with him. And she knows her brother better than me. He can never love me.
“Ivy. Goddammit!” His chair scrapes back loudly and he’s behind me, hands on my arms, lifting me out of my seat.
“You’re making it worse,” I say, my voice breaking a little as I step on a piece of toast.
“It doesn’t matter.” He turns me, shifts his hands to my face to make me look at him. “What is it? What the hell has happened between yesterday and today?”
I look up at him and all I can hear is her. I have to think about what’s important now. Whether I love him or not and whether he is capable of loving me back or not can’t matter.
“Are you going to take the baby away from me?” I ask outright, my throat feeling tight to say the words.
“What?”
“Are you? Just tell me. I’m not going to run away. You said yourself I wouldn’t get past the front gates.” I remember when he’d said it. How it had stood out. “I just need to know.”
He exhales, shakes his head like he’s disgusted. He pulls his hands away and wraps one around the back of his neck, shaking his head, lips in a tight line.
“I just want to know. So I’m ready.” Can someone be ready for something like that?
“Is that what she told you? What’s turned you against me?” When I look away from him, he cups my face again to tilt it up, brushes a strand of hair behind my ear. He sighs deeply like he’s very tired. “No, Ivy. I am not going to take our baby away from you. Can we lay this to rest once and for all? Can you trust me and let this go? Because that’s what it comes down to. Trust.”
Before coming down to breakfast I’d walked past my old room. It’s cleaned up, more of a guest room now, the dark panels still there but open. The bed made to welcome someone new. The mask in its glass case gone. The rosary he’d made me wear since our wedding night not on the nightstand where I’d last left it but gone. I’d stood outside the door and thought about how much time I’d spent in there. How easy it would be for him to just put me back in, lock the door and forget all about me.
Trust.
He wants me to trust him.
I blink, my eyes focusing on his, something in my stomach fluttering when he smiles as if trying to draw the same from me, and I remember something else about last night. Something else she said.
That he could never love me because of what my father had done to him. To their family.
“I want to see my father,” I say.
His expression changes. Darkens.
“You want me to trust you, but all I seem to do is give, and all you seem to do is take.”
“That’s neither right nor fair, and you know it.” His voice is harder.
“Yes, you’ve come through on my sister. And I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful that we, you and I together, will have guardianship of her.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“That’s right, isn’t it? You and me together will have guardianship. Not just you.”
“No, not just me. That’s correct. Would you like to see the paperwork so you believe me?” His words are clipped.
I shake my head. “I understand about Hazel. About it being dangerous for her and maybe even for you to be keeping her location a secret from The Society. I don’t understand why I can’t have a cell phone or access to a phone and at least call her, though.”
He doesn’t say anything at that.
“And I’m willing to let that go. For now. But you have to give me something, too. In addition to Evangeline. I want to see my father. I want to see him today.” I don’t ask it. I don’t say please. Because what I want is not extraordinary. It’s not some ridiculous request. He’s in a Society hospital. He’ll be guarded. I will be too. No chance of Abel or anyone else getting to me. No risk to my safety. “You can take me, Santiago. I want you to take me.”
He studies me for a very long moment, and I watch how his left eye narrows, see the tic in his jaw, and I’m sure he’s going to say no, and then I won’t know what to do. What my next move will be. But he surprises me when he nods.
“You eat something, and I’ll take you to see your father.”
I almost don’t believe him, and he must see that because he turns me around puts a hand on the back of my chair, and gestures for me to sit back down. So, I sit, and I let him make a fresh plate of eggs and toast from the sideboard, and he sits down too and watches me eat.
“My sister is jealous,” he says once I’ve finished and set my napkin down after wiping my mouth. “It’s ugly on her. On anyone. But she’ll come around.”
“No, she won’t, Santiago. And you’ll have to keep choosing, and I’m just afraid the day will come when you choose her, and I’m back in my room or banished to wherever, and I don’t think I can survive that. Especially now that there’s more at stake than just me and you.” My throat tightens as I say the words, but I swallow them down.
“Ivy—”
I stand. “I’m ready.”