by Sienna Blake
“I’ve got to—”
“That’s an order, Mrs Bates.” Emily’s voice is as firm as I’ve ever heard it, causing a small thread of pride to go through me. Usually she’s too passive and obliging.
Mrs Bates opens her mouth, probably to argue again. Thankfully she chooses not to. She snaps her mouth shut, grunting as she turns away. “I’ll be back to change the sheets.” The door clicks shut behind her.
“Leni?” Emily’s soft voice breaks through my haze. “Are you okay?”
Am I okay?
No.
I force a smile and try for a nod. I can’t let her see how broken I am.
“Did…did you know you were pregnant?” I can hear the real question underneath her words. Did I keep this a secret from her?
There are so many things she doesn’t have the strength to know. “I didn’t want to jinx it, you know?” I say, my voice scraping against the back of my throat. “The last time…” I trail off. The first two times I fell pregnant, I was so happy I couldn’t help but share the news. “Turns out I jinxed it anyway.”
The corners of Emily’s lips pull down. “Leni, you know that’s not true.” Her platitude sounds hollow and fake. The truth is, I am jinxed.
My prison bars thicken around me as the true weight of what has happened hits me like a fist to the stomach. I fall back onto my pillow, covering my aching eyes with my arm. My jaw stings. I refuse to cry.
I refuse.
“Leni—?”
“I just want to be alone. Please.”
There’s a small pause. “I’m sorry. So sorry.” The edge of the mattress shifts as she stands. Her soft footfalls sound across my room. My door is opened, shut. Then deafening silence.
I can’t help but think as I lie here in the dim, that I deserved this. The third miscarriage in five years. I thought three was a lucky number. Third time’s the charm, isn’t that what they say in English?
Perhaps this is God’s way of punishing me. Perhaps this is my body’s way of punishing me.
So be it. I deserve it.
A broken heart in exchange for the heart I broke…
9
____________
Alena
Five years ago…
Dimitri kicks open the door to our apartment, me still over his shoulder. He dumps me on the carpet where I immediately retreat a few steps, just to get some space from him. I am breathless, my throat raw from screaming at him, my hands bruised from beating at his back. He kicks the door shut behind him with a bang.
He stands there, glaring at me, a vein in his temple throbbing. His hands are tight fists at his side. He’s more furious than I’ve ever seen him. His eyes have become two whirlpools, anger and disbelief frothing in those dark blue depths. I suck in a breath, preparing myself to yell at him for the way he just manhandled me.
“You lied to me.” The pain in his voice slides under my skin like a splinter.
Guilt cuts a hole in the bottom of me and the fight drains out of me. It’s the first time I’ve ever lied to him.
I should have told him I had signed up with Isabelle’s agency. I should have told him I was going to their grooming and deportment classes. But I knew he wouldn’t have let me go. I just wanted to see what would happen. I just wanted to know what the possibilities were. I shift, uneasy on my feet. “I was going to tell you.”
“When?” he barks out, making me wince.
My stomach churns as a seed of doubt weaves through my mind. Am I doing the right thing?
Be brave, Alena, I tell myself. I did this because I want a better life for us. He’s angry because he doesn’t know how good this opportunity is. I just have to make him see. “I was going to tell you tonight. Isabelle made me an offer…”
Dimitri’s nostrils flare.
I barrel on before he can speak. “There’s a wealthy gentleman. He’s English. He picked me out. Me, specifically.”
His lip curls up. “Let me get this straight.” His voice is low and deadly. “You want to marry a man who picked you out of a fucking line-up?”
I wince at his curses. He hardly ever curses in front of me. He thinks it’s rude and disrespectful.
Do I want to marry this stranger? Of course not. I love Dimitri. I’ve loved Dimitri from the moment I set eyes on him two years ago. I don’t want to marry a stranger. I want what this marriage provides us.
I don’t want to starve anymore. I don’t want to freeze. I want a better life. More than anything. I want it so badly it hurts. I want it so badly I can taste it.
“We get five million pounds. Five million, Dimi, can you even imagine that?” Five million pounds. My head still spins with this number. It means good food. A proper place to live. A ticket out of Russia. We need this. We have a chance at a better life. I will take it for us even if he is not brave enough. I will hate myself forever if I give up this opportunity.
Dimitri’s face has turned to stone. He says nothing so I keep going. “I’ve had you written into the contract. You’ll come with us to England, live with us. You see, I told them you’re my brother.”
He doesn’t react. I think it’s sinking in. I think he’s coming around. There’s just one tiny bit that might be hard for him to swallow.
“All I have to do is…give birth to a son.” Dimitri’s eyes flare, his breath coming in short, hard bursts. He’s like a pot about to overboil. He’s trying not to explode. I move towards him, palms out, speaking fast. “I’ll make sure that he gets wild cotton in his food so his sperm count will drop. Don’t worry, the baby will be ours. Once we have the five million, we can disappear, you, me and our baby, to America like we always dreamed.” I slide my hands onto his arms, begging him with my eyes to see the vision dancing before us. A wonderful life. No more worries. No more suffering. He can start his own company. I can write. “We’ll be rich. We’ll never have to worry about anything again.” No more stealing. No more scams. No more desperation.
His jaw twitches. “And if you break the contract? If he finds out you’re fucking your ‘brother’ before you deliver him a boy?”
My hands drop from his arms. The one tiny snag, the tiny thing that makes me nervous, and he’s found it. The “conduct unbecoming of a good wife” clause, triggered if I leave him or if I’m unfaithful. “I’ll owe him the cost of what he paid for me,” I say in a whisper. “And forfeit the five million.”
Disbelief cracks through his mask. A deep sadness oozes out. The way he stares at me feels like acid under my skin. It burns and scars. “Do you love me, Alena?”
I gasp. “Of course I love you.”
“You know I love you.”
“Of course, I—”
“Then tell me, my love,” his voice begins to rise, “how can I be okay with you marrying a total stranger? How can you expect me to stand idly by while your new husband fucks you?”
I wince. It’s just my body. Dimitri will always have my heart and my soul. Doesn’t he know that? “How is it any different from when we run our scams? You’re the one who pretends to be interested in those stupid women so we can steal from them. How is this any different?”
“I’m not marrying them,” Dimitri explodes. “I’m not fucking them and I’m not getting them pregnant.”
My heart cracks as my future cracks apart. My charmed life blurs before my eyes. Why is he trying to take this away from me? From us?
Dimitri drops to his knees in front of me. His face cracks wide open, but it’s not anger showing through, raw and naked.
It’s desperation.
“Alena,” he grabs my hand, “I beg of you, don’t do this.”
“Dimi, I—”
“Don’t marry him, marry me.” His eyes glisten with tears. “I don’t have a ring now but I will get one. I will. I can give you everything you’ve ever wanted. I promise, just…”
I squeeze my eyes shut, tears spilling out. I have imagined this moment for so long, Dimi on his knees asking me to be his wife. But not like this. Not like this. He’s
only asking me to try to blackmail me into giving up my dream. Screw him, he’s spitting on our love by doing this.
I open my eyes, my heart turning to ice, and tug my hand from his. “Get up. You look ridiculous on the floor.”
He leaps to his feet, his eyes going wild and terrible. His finger shakes as he stabs it in my chest. “I took you in.” Stab. “I cared for you after you were abandoned by your mother.” Stab. “And this is how you repay me?”
“Repay you?” I slap his hand away from me. “I’m trying to make a life for us.”
“That is what I’m doing!”
“No, Dimitri, this isn’t a fucking life. This is death. We are dying, slowly. I am dying. And you. Are. Killing me.”
I see the moment when his heart breaks. I can almost hear when his pride snaps in two. Shit. I’ve gone too far. I regret everything I said. Everything. I take it back.
But I can’t. My words have done their damage. Like lightning cleaving a tree in half.
“Get out,” he spits out between his teeth.
I reach out for him. “Dimi—”
“Don’t fucking touch me, you whore.”
His words slap me across my face. “Don’t you dare call me that. I’m not—”
“Marrying a man for money? Fucking a stranger for money? Don’t kid yourself about what you will become if you do this.”
My vision blurs through tears. I’m not a whore. I’m desperate. We’re desperate. Why can’t he see that this is our way out of this bitter hell.
“Go,” he says, shoving me towards the door. “Go and marry your rich husband. Hopefully you won’t disgust him the way you disgust me.”
My heart shatters. Every broken piece of me withers. How can he say these things to me? How?
I can’t be here. I can’t be near him right now. I shove past him and grab for the door handle, scrambling for open space. For air.
“Alena…” His voice is pained and swollen behind me.
It’s too late. It’s too fucking late. He said those horrible things. Now he can’t take them back. The door slams against the wall. I fling myself out through the doorway.
“Alena. Wait!”
I aim for the stairwell. I can hear Dimitri trying to reassure our neighbours that everything is fine. Just a little misunderstanding.
A misunderstanding? The man I love thinks I’m a whore. I disgust him.
I’m sobbing. My breathing has gone hard and jagged as I run down the grey concrete stairs, my hand on the balustrade because I can barely see where I’m going.
“I’m serious, Alena. You stop right now.” His voice echoes from above me.
I won’t. I can’t.
“If you leave…you…you can’t fucking come back,” he roars.
Fuck him. I won’t come back. See how he likes it. I push the exit, stumbling out into the street. Space. I need air. The wind is sharp against the rivers on my cheeks as I try to outrun my pain.
“Fine. Leave!” he screams after me. I sprint towards the dying sun, my legs numb as they carry me. “You’ll be nothing without me. You hear me? Nothing!”
10
____________
Dimitri
The second that Alena slips from my view, my fury drains from me.
What have I done?
I let the anger take over again. I let it bleed into my veins like a poison. I let it control me like a ghostly possession. She’s still such a child, barely a woman. She didn’t deserve it. But, God, the thought of some strange man touching her…
I know Alena, I know her. She wouldn’t have considered Isabelle’s offer if she didn’t think it was the best thing for us. As much as I want to, I can’t hate her for lying to me. I can’t hate her for clawing onto Isabelle’s glittering offer. I understand her desperation. I feel it too. I feel it curling in the pit of my stomach, poisoning my blood. I feel it late at night when she’s asleep, the helplessness tearing through me so roughly I want to scream. Instead I grip my hands into fists and make bloody crescents in my palms. Then I get up the next morning and try a little harder, even though it gets a little harder to try every day.
I blame her father, the worthless piece of shit who didn’t even stick around long enough for her to be born. For making her fear deep down that all men are destined to leave her. For making her desperate for a Plan B of her own. If he had only gotten one look at her sweet, innocent face, one touch of her soft, generous hands, one glimpse of her dreamer’s heart, he would have fallen in love with her like I had.
I blame her mother for never being there for her. For abandoning her when it got too hard. For making her crave the approval of an older woman, a motherly figure she can look up to. Isabelle is preying on that. Isabelle is preying on her. She’s just fifteen, for fuck’s sake.
Mostly, I blame myself. If only I could take care of my lamb properly. If only I could give her everything she needed, everything she wanted, everything she dreamed.
I understand, Alena. We’re on a cliff. I’m the one you’re hanging on to. I’m hanging on by my fingers. I have to keep us from falling but I keep slipping no matter what I do.
I’m trying, Alena. But it’s not good enough. Inadequacy slices me from the inside, letting my failures dribble out.
She thinks that signing up with the GW Agency means that she can be the one to pull us up. At what cost?
The horrible words I hurdled at her come back to punch me in the gut. The air whooshes out of me. You stupid man. You could lose her. You may have already lost her. The thought stabs my heart and twists. I gasp from the pain.
I can’t lose her.
I can’t.
I run after her.
11
____________
Alena
The present…
I’m roused from sleep by the sound of tyres crunching over gravel. Ghostly light peers through my curtains, so I know it’s early, the morning chill seeping through my partly open window. Too early. In a half-dream state, I wonder who has arrived.
I snap up to sitting as a realisation dawns on me. I fling my bedcovers off and run to the window. I catch a glimpse of a familiar figure in a black overcoat sliding out of the Bentley below. Shit. My husband’s home. He wasn’t supposed to be here until later this morning. I must speak to him before Mrs Bates does. I grab the dressing gown hanging over one of my chairs and rush out of my room, wrapping it around me as I run down the corridor. He’ll hate that I’m not dressed properly. It’ll be even worse if he hears about my miscarriage from her. My lower belly still cramps. I ignore it as I sprint through the corridor, my breath growing heavy.
I race down the stairs, the cold marble biting at my bare feet. Midway down, the stark, cavernous foyer comes into view. I come to a halt.
There is my husband. Mrs Bates huddled at his side like a conspirator.
I am too late.
My husband looks up and catches my eye, his brows drawing over his strong nose, his deep-set eyes turning dark, his thin lips pinching. He lifts a finger and curls it slowly, once, ordering me to come.
My heart hammers in my chest as I descend. Mrs Bates has added a smug look to her usual scowl.
“That’ll be all, Mrs Bates,” my husband says.
I can feel the disappointment rolling off her. She wanted to bear witness to my punishment. Bitch.
She bobs her head. “Of course, Mr Worthington.” She shoots one last smug look at me before she leaves the foyer.
I barely notice. My feet are unsteady as I approach him. He says nothing, merely turns on his heel and marches into the small room to the side of the foyer, a wood panelled den he often uses to entertain male guests.
I follow him into the room.
“Close the door.”
I do. I take a deep breath and turn around to face him once more. “Edgar—”
“Five years,” he spits out. “Five years and you still haven’t delivered me an heir.”
“I’m sorry.” Unwanted tears begin to roll down my chee
ks. I swipe at them, begging them to stop. He hates it when I cry.
“You’re sorry? You lose another baby and all you can say is I’m sorry?” He shoves me back, hard. I bang my head against the door.
Before I can move his palm lashes out, striking me on my cheek with a crack. Pain explodes across my face. I can’t help the cry that rips from me. If only I had gotten to him earlier, perhaps I could have framed it in a way that I could have avoided his anger.
I hear him sigh. His face screws up before it partly disappears behind the hand he uses to rub his forehead. “Get out.” His voice is hollow.
I don’t hesitate. I flee from the den and run to my room, where I slam the door behind me and burrow deep into my blankets. Only then do I let the tears come freely.
What I wouldn’t give to disappear far, far away.
I have no money, no friends except for Emily. I wouldn’t get five miles before he found me and hauled me back. I know, because I tried that once during the first year I was here. I was punished for that too.
As always when I start to fall apart, Dimitri appears in my mind. He smiles at me, the way he used to, touches my cheek. “You can do anything, Alena.” Even when he’s no longer physically here, he’s here for me. I nurse this tiny flame of hope inside me. I can’t let it go out. If it goes out, I’m as good as dead.
I will have a baby. I will get the money owed to me. When I do, I will take my child and Emily, if she wants—I can’t leave her here alone. She is as much a prisoner as I am—and we’ll run away together across the sea. To America. To find the man who still holds my heart and beg his forgiveness.
My husband might have my body, but he’ll never have my heart or my soul. Those I gave to one man a long time ago.
12
____________
Dimitri
Five years ago…
I turn the corner Alena disappeared around. I can’t see her. I spin, searching the streets that branch off for a sign of where she’s gone. She has a few friends at school, but she’s not close enough to any of them to turn to them. I am the only one she has. Except…
