Page 54 of Cruel Heir

I’m so startled that I’m frozen beneath him, staring up into theface of a man who Iknowdesires me, and yet there’s no evidence of it pressed against me. His expression is twisted into something almost pained, frustration written across his features, and I don’t know what to say.

I don’t know what to do.

Something has changed between us. I can feel it in the air, hanging thickly there as Andre stares down at me, his hands flexing around my wrists. Something has shifted irreparably. His gaze is locked on mine, dark and full of an emotion I can’t name, and for a moment, fear sweeps through me. I expect violence, for him to take this moment of what he’ll surely only see as weakness out on me.

But instead, he looks down at me with an expression that’s almost pleading—desire and need and something pained in his face all at once.

I don’t know why, but he can’t seem to continue doing what he’s been doing all this time—making my body compliant with his desires, driving us both into a frenzy of need until I forget why I hate him. He can’t seem to do anything with me at all.

It makes me wonder if this might have affected him in ways that I hadn’t realized. If those moments where he seemed to care for me weren’t fleeting, as I feared.

He pulls back suddenly, releasing me, pushing himself off of the bed. He runs a hand through his hair, still as silent as he’s been since he crawled onto the bed with me. And I feel a sudden, hollow ache at the loss of him pressed against me.

I almost reach for him. I almost ask him to come back to bed, to try again. I think of his skin pressed against mine, bare and warm, the feeling of him filling me up, solid inside of me—and I feel a longing that I can’t fully put into words. A need that is entirely outside of everything he’s made me feel before.

Andre stares at me for a long, silent moment. And then, without speaking so much as another word, he turns and walks away, locking the door behind him again as he goes.

—

In the morning, one of the maids comes to get me, following me to the bathroom the way the others did yesterday. “Is Celeste alright?” I ask her, hoping to get some kind of answer, but she says nothing. I imagine Andre has frightened all of the staff out of speaking to me, in order to ensure that no one else helps me the way Celeste did.

“Don Leone wants you downstairs this morning,” she says when I emerge from the bathroom. “As soon as you’re dressed.”

Of course, he does.It’s on the tip of my tongue to say no, to insist that if Andre wants to see me, he can come upstairs himself. But the words die on my lips as I walk back to the bedroom. I’m exhausted. I’m tired of fighting him. Whatever happens next, it isn’t going to come about because we keep playing games with each other. It isn’t going to be fixed by anything other than trying totalk—reallytalk. I’ve shouted and I’ve yelled and I’ve pleaded and I’ve argued, but I’m not sure I’ve ever tried to talk to Andre as if we were equals. As if I’m truly his wife and deserve an equal say in what our lives will be.

Or, failing that—since I’m not sure it’s a belief any of the men in my world have—tried other means of convincing him.

I get dressed without argument, slipping on a light blue cashmere wrap dress. It cuts down attractively in the front, showing off the slight curves of my breasts, something that I hope will put Andre in a listening mood. I run a brush through my hair, slipping on the rose gold jewelry that he gave me. I feel my stomach knot, wondering if there’s any possibility of things changing between us. If there’s some common ground that we can both find to make this marriage something else besides what it’s been so far.

If there’s no way out, what if I could convince him to find a different path?? It would mean something, if he would compromise for me.

I go downstairs to find Andre in the smaller dining room, surprisingly. It’s on the same side of the house as the larger one, so it still overlooks the gardens, only the seating is built into the wall in a curved nook that feels cozier than the formal room. There’s another longer table in the room as well with bench seating, but Andre is sitting in the nook, a cup of coffee in front of him.

“Lucia.” He looks up as I walk in. To my surprise, his gaze doesn’t drop to my cleavage immediately. He doesn’t comment on how tired I look, or say anything else at all, until after he motions to the other side of the nook. “I can ask someone to bring you coffee, too. Or tea, if you like, when they bring breakfast.”

“Tea would be nice.” I knot my fingers together in my lap, feeling my throat tighten as I look at him. He still looks tired, shadows beneath his eyes as he observes me from across the table. I look at him in silence for a long moment. “Aren’t you going to say anything?” I ask, the words crowding past all of the other questions that I don’t want to ask.Why did you stop yesterday? Why didn’t you come to my bed this morning? Why haven’t you touched me? Why has everything seemed to change since you found the pills?This quiet exhaustion is unsettling me. I had expected rage and punishment and for him to all but kill me, to demand my utter submission and obedience, to tear down the walls of the house around me and bury me alive in this marriage. I hadn’t expected him to look so—defeated.

“What is there left to say, Lucia?” Andre looks at me, his handsome face taut. “You despise me. You would rather die than give me a child. You put your own maid in danger—you would rather risk someone else than give me what I need. You would rather believe me a monster than understand that I have only played by the rules that I was taught. You don’t want to believe the things I’ve told you. You don’t want to understand. So what’s the point of even bothering to try?”

The raw honesty that I think I hear in his voice startles me. I’d come down here intending to try to talk to him, and it seems as if Andre had the same thought. My chest tightens, wondering what happens now. What happens when we both decide to simply be honest with each other?

I swallow hard, looking at Andre across the table—this man whoismy husband, whether I like it or not.For better or worse.I have no idea if there is any possibility of making it better. But as I sit there, looking at him like two generals trying to make peace across a war table, I wonder if I shouldn’t at least try.

“Is there any chance of you making peace with my father? Of trying totalkto him?” I ask the question as simply as I can, and I see the visceral emotion in Andre’s face the moment I say it, too raw for him to hide. The anger that tightens his jaw and burns in his eyes.

I see, then, how deeply my father has hurt him.

“No.” The word comes out hard, clipped. There’s a finality in it that I feel like I can’t ignore, but Ihaveto. If the conversation ends here, then everything is lost.

“Please.” I almost whisper it, the word catching in my throat. “Andre,pleasereconsider. I know I don’t—understand everything. I know I can’t understand what you’ve lost. But we’ve both lost something. What if we could make something new together?” The words come out in a rush once I’ve started speaking, piling on top of each other. I don’t even realize how much I mean them until I’ve said it. “I know—I know this isn’t you.”

I’m not entirely sure if that’s true. But a part of me believes it. That the man who I saw ever so briefly is someone who, before so much was taken from him, wouldn’t have done something like this. That he doesn’t really want to be this person.

I see something falter in Andre’s expression, ever so slightly, and I grab onto it with both hands, hoping that I can get through to him. “When we fought after—after the first time you realized I wasn’t pregnant. You sent me flowers and that note. Youapologized. You knew that wasn’t the person you wanted to be. You planned that dinner. The way that night went—you were different. I saw that there was something different in you—and a part of me wanted things to stay that way. That’s why I don’t think this—this person who kidnaps a wife and frightens her and forces her into living a life she doesn’t want—I don’t think that’s you.”

There’s a long moment of silence. Andre looks at me finally, and I see that his gaze has softened. Just a little—but it’s there. I’m sure that it is. “Things could have stayed that way,” he says after another pause, his voice low and quiet. “You pulled away from me. You didn’t want to try.”

“I did. But—Andre, the things you want to do—you understandloyalty to your family! You must. You’re doing all of this because of what happened to your father. Can’t you understand how I could be torn between going back to my family and feeling something for you—”

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