Page 17 of Wicked Vow

Ruby looks a little startled. “Are you thinking you will?”

I have the sudden, strange urge to wrap my arms around myself. “I don’t know,” I tell them both honestly. “Like I said–I haven’t known for long, and today is the first day I’ve felt like I could fully breathe in a long time, let alone make decisions like that.”

“Do you want children?” Ruby looks at me curiously.

I glance at her. “Honestly? I don’t know. I never particularly liked or wanted them, I don’t think–but it was always going to be expected of me when I married. It was one of the many reasons I wanted to delay my father’s plans to marry me off as long as possible. And now–” I bite my lip. “I don’t know. I haven’t really been around children, to tell you the truth. I never pictured myself as a mother–I avoided it. It felt like a duty, not something I could choose for myself.”

“Well, now you have a choice,” Caterina says gently. “But I have four children,” she adds with a laugh, “and all varying ages, since two of them are my stepdaughters. So you’ll get a chance to spend some time with them, for sure. Maybe it will help you decide how you feel.”

I manage a smile, feeling a wave of anxiety wash over me. “I think I’m just really tired,” I confess. “I’m sorry–but can I find where my room is? I really want a bath and to sleep for a long time. I might not even make it down for dinner, if that’s alright?” I glance at Ruby. “I’m sorry–I know this is even stranger for you. But I’m just–”

“It’s fine,” Ruby says quickly. “I’m tired too–and I’m good at making friends.” She smiles at Caterina. “I’m sure we can find plenty to talk about over dinner once I’ve had a shower and a nap, too.”

“Just come down when you’re ready,” Caterina agrees. “Get some rest, Natalia. I’ll show you both upstairs to your rooms.”

She takes us upstairs then, up the winding staircase just off the living room to the third floor and down the hall to the guest rooms. “You each have a suite with your own bathroom,” she says, smiling. “They’re already all made up for you. I’ll see you when you decide to come down.”

“Are you sure you’ll be alright?” I ask Ruby, and she nods.

“I’ve dealt with people much less welcoming and been fine,” she says with a small laugh. “This is a vacation for me. Just do what you need to in order to feel better.”

She squeezes my hand and then disappears into her own room, leaving me to go into mine.

It’s a huge bedroom, furnished in blues and whites with a massive bed and the same soft-looking textiles and furniture as downstairs, all in warm woods and soft fabrics. I shed my clothes quickly, walking into the bathroom on the opposite side of the room, where I find a huge tub and a separate shower.

I waste absolutely no time getting into the tub, filling it with the hottest water I can stand. As I sink into it, adding vanilla bath oil that I find in the cupboard, I let out a soft moan as the water envelops me.

It feels as if it’s been ages since I’ve soaked in a tub like this. I lean my head back against the edge of it, letting out a sigh as I sink deeper, considering whether or not I might just stay here forever.

I tell myself not to think of Mikhail, of where he might be, of what might have happened to him after I left that room. Viktor had said he wasn’t going to torture or kill him, and now more than ever, I believe that Viktor is a man of his word. But I have no idea where he’s gone.

Would Viktor have made him go back to Moscow?The thought instantly makes my heart drop, although I know anyone around me would say I should feel comforted by the idea that an ocean could be between the two of us.

Why do I feel like I miss him?I don’t miss the game he’d played with me, the back and forth of feeling aroused and afraid, the confusion of what he wanted with me. But I miss the other ways that he’d made me feel. I’ve been treated as something lesser my whole life by men, as someone weak, as if everything that made upmewas worthless. Mikhail had wanted to use me for his own purposes, too, that’s true. But he’d also seen me and wantedme, so much so that his obsession with me had undone his own plans.

All the things that other men–my father, my suitors–had seen as a barrier to what they wanted from me, my stubbornness and strength, my talent as a dancer, my passions, Mikhail had become obsessed with. To his detriment, and mine–but I can’t shake the feeling that, in some ways, we’d brought out parts of each other that others never could.

I should be looking ahead to a life without him, but I find myself wanting desperately to know where he is, at the very least. To know what he’s going to do next as I prepare to figure out a future that I’ve barely had time to imagine.

I reach down, touching my still-flat belly.I don’t know what to do about this, either.

I can’t imagine myself with a baby. I’ve actively avoided imagining it my whole life. A baby would mean that my ballet career had ended, that I was married to a man I didn’t choose, that everything I’d worked so hard for was over, reducing me to nothing but a broodmare, a trophy, a vessel for some unwanted man’s pleasure.

But now, it’s different. My ballet career is effectually ended–I could dance here, but likely not in the same capacity. I’m not married. And I might not have chosen the man who put me in this position, exactly–but in some ways, I had. I had, at the very least, wanted it.

The choice is mine, like Caterina had said. And whatever choice I make, Mikhail won’t be a part of it.

I could teach dance the way I’d imagined before.I sink down further into the bath, trying to picture a life here in New York or in Boston where Sasha is, with a dance studio of my own, teaching children ballet lessons. I imagine a room full of them, and in my head, I can see a little girl with my honey-blonde hair and Mikhail’s pale blue eyes, awkwardly moving her way through her first dance steps.

The thought fills me with a warmth I hadn’t expected. It brings other images along with it–thoughts of a home full of dance bags and small leotards and soft shoes, of badly drawn art and homework at the table, of hurrying to dance recitals and quick dinners in between school and practice. A life that my mother tried to give me, but could only ever halfway manage, because she was trapped in the same world of opulent rules and protocol that I was.

My father had expected her to raise me to be a Bratva heiress, not their daughter. But I can give my child something different–a life without any of that. A life where they would simply be loved, a life without all of the trappings and luxuries that I had had, but in the end, I can’t see that it did all that much for me.

It’s easy to say now, I suppose, when I’ve likely lost it all. I don’t know if my fortune will ever be recoverable. But I think it would have been worth having none of that in order to have my parents’ love.

I can’t say for sure that I’ve made my decision. But as I lay my hand against the flat of my belly underneath the warm water, I feel a sense of peace that I haven’t felt in a long time. A feeling that this might be a new future I could embrace, a different way to find happiness.

That flicker of sadness ripples through me again at the thought that Mikhail won’t be a part of it. I dismiss it instantly, trying to force it away.I’m hormonal,I tell myself, leaning my head back and closing my eyes.I’m adjusting to all of these changes. I’ll be fine soon.

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