Page 128 of Cashmere Cruelty

I expect her to leap at the chance to clock out, but she doesn’t. Instead, she prowls around the room like a lioness staking out uncharted territory.

And then, out of the blue, she says, “Your mom must be a real piece of work.”

I blink. “Beg your pardon?”

It’s not like she’s wrong, but still. Would it kill her to use a little tact once in a while?

On second thought… it might.

Petra purses her perfect lips. “Matvey isn’t known for going nuclear on women,” she muses. “Believe me, I’ve pushed every button there is.”

“Ew! I did not want to know what!”

“Pot, kettle, whatever.”

I’m tempted to slam my palms over my ears and gola-la-launtil my unwanted babysitter finally gets the memo. Unfortunately, that stops being an option the second you turn twelve. Being twice that age, I really can’t indulge. So instead, I say, “Isn’t that the case with most moms?”

Petra’s silent for a while. “I wouldn’t know,” she admits eventually. “I never had one. She died in childbirth.”

The words are an ice bucket on my head.

I must have gone pale, because the next words out of Petra’s mouth are, “Oh, don’t worry. Medical science has improved by leaps and bounds since then.” She waves it off like it’s nothing. “And if I’m the reason you’re making that face, don’t. I don’t need anyone’s pity.”

I’m sorry for your loss.The words are already in my throat. But I force myself to swallow them back. Instead, I say something else. A question. “Your father… He never remarried?”

I don’t know where it came from. Maybe I was just thinking about mine: how he was married again before his divorce’s first anniversary.

Hopefully, Petra’s father didn’t find another Nora, but someone else. Someone who actually wanted to take care of her.

But all Petra does is shake her head. “He’s much too hung up on honor,” she explains. “To a traditional man like him, marriage is for life. Though that does mean he didn’t get any male heirs,” she adds with a bitter smile. “He’s stuck with a princess instead. That’s why he’s looking to put his crown on Matvey’s head. He’s traditional that way, too.”

Traditional.I never knew Petra to mince words, but for her father, she makes an exception. Otherwise, she’d be calling it like it is: sexism, pure and simple.

This is ridiculous. IhatePetra’s guts. If nothing else, she certainly hates mine.

So why am I feeling bad for her?

Then she walks up to me. Her eyes find my belly, for once without the vitriol she usually reserves for it. “For your sake, April, I hope your little one is a boy,” she murmurs. “In this world, boys get everything.”

Her gaze is intense. I find myself squirming under it, huddling on myself as if fighting cold winds. This must be the cold she grew up with—the ice she learned to make into a weapon.

“I wouldn’t know,” I reply in the end. “I asked Dr. Allan not to tell me.”

Petra’s eyebrow rises. “A romantic. Color me surprised.”

For some reason, that drags a laugh out of me. “Not exactly. I just… There’s so many expectations, you know? Once you’re born, everybody expects something from you. Especially your parents. So, even if it’s just for a bit… I wanted this baby to be free.”

I brace myself for Petra’s sarcasm, but it doesn’t come. “Maybe that’s why it doesn’t want out, then,” she says softly. “Freedom’s nice. Gotta enjoy it while it lasts.”

I must be wrong. That can’t be a smile, can it? A genuine one? OnPetra?

“Anyway,” she exhales, “it’s not a problem I’m ever gonna have. Kids, expectations, any of it.”

“You don’t want kids?” I ask, forgetting that there’s another possibility out there. That maybe, aside from not being able tohavea mother?—

She might not be able tobeone, either.

But Petra just laughs. “I can’t even makevorlike this. How’s a pregnant candidate gonna go over?”

---