Page 55 of Unwillingly His

I’d thought it was a thing of the past, too, until my mother’s friend Dorothy Howard’s husband had decided to leave her, trading her in for his secretary.

He’d wanted a divorce. She’d said okay. He forgot that the vast majority of his wealth came from her. When he saw how much of the estate she would get to keep, the house in the Hamptons, the jet, and even the vacation home in the Bahamas that his mistress loved so much, instead of divorcing her, he had her committed.

My mother and I visited her a few times. The grounds were beautiful, the staff was pleasant and attentive, but she was gone. They had her on so many medications the bright, funny woman I had called Aunt Dorothy had disappeared.

Lost somewhere in a haze of drugs and red Jell-O.

She died within the year.

The official diagnosis was suicide. They said that she had been storing her medications and then took them all at once, overdosing.

That was an interesting side effect they never told you about taking antidepressants. If you weren’t depressed, or if they gave you the wrong dosage or the wrong medication, it could make you depressed.

My mother cried for a week when she died, and my father had been by her side comforting her.

I promised myself that I would never forget what happened to Dorothy, but clearly, I had if I had let myself get into this situation.

I kept flipping through the pages, stopping only when I saw another name I recognized. Doctor Sylvia Roth, OB-GYN.

Lucian actually had the results from my last pap smear and vaginal exam. Not only that, but there were extra notes, things I did not ask her to look at. There were notes talking about my fertility. Saying that I was at the perfect age and in the perfect health to carry strong healthy fetuses. There were even notes saying how symmetrical my ovaries were.

Why would he have this information? Why would anyone have this information other than my doctor herself? For how long had this man been planning on taking me?

I tore out the pages from my OB-GYN, as well as the records from my psychiatrist. No one needed these. Ever.

I slid the leather portfolio back into the drawer.

I made sure it was in exactly the same place and that the drawer looked undisturbed before I moved it back in. I was about to reach for the next drawer when I heard more footsteps just outside the door.

Immediately, I dropped to my knees, crawled under the desk, and prayed it was just the butler dropping something off, or maybe he was walking past the office on his way to somewhere else.

I hid in the cramped footwell, my heart beating against my chest and a cold sweat breaking out on my brow.

Of course, it was cold.

Everything was cold.

Even the Persian rug’s thick fibers dug into my legs, scratching my delicate skin, and felt cold, but I did not move.

Not until I heard the footsteps make their way back down the marble hallway.

I hadn’t heard the door open, and I was pretty sure I was still alone, but I still gently peeked my head out and looked around the office.

It was still completely empty, completely silent.

I stared at the bookshelf, the one that he had pressed me against the other day, kissing me, touching me, and igniting a fire inside me. I looked away and ignored the bloom of warmth in my core.

Apparently, all I needed to do was think about him, and that fought off the ever-present chill.

I reached for the last drawer on his desk, the deepest one that in my experience usually held hanging file folders. I pulled and the drawer did not budge an inch. Just under the handle, I could feel the brass keyhole.

Of course the documents that I would need would be under lock and key. Unfortunately for Lucian, I really was a bad girl when I was a child.

My father had a very similar desk, and that drawer was where he’d hidden his stash of candy. I was fairly certain my father knew I snuck into his office when he wasn’t home to steal candy, so he’d locked the drawer. Then he pretended that he didn’t know when I picked it and stole candy anyway.

Older desks were larger than their modern counterparts. They were heavier and statelier. They were also not nearly as secure.

I slid the top drawer all the way out then, laying it on the floor next to me. Then I reached in and flipped the lock on the bottom drawer.

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