“Good girl,” he praises, running his fingers through my hair. “Now go. Get some rest.”
As I leave, an unexpected sense of relief loosens the tension in my shoulders I wasn’t aware of until now. For whatever reason, his ignorance comforts me. It makes it easier to breathe and think ahead as a woman in my position should. Donatello Vanici is dead to me. Tomorrow, I’ll be presented to the world as a Stepanova, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I exit the study with my head held high and nearly run into a slim figure lurking beyond the doorway. Ellen. Her golden-brown hair streams loose down her shoulders, and a white nightgown sets her apart from the darkness around her.
“Willow? What are you doing up?” She strokes my cheeks, her smile strained. “I forgot to tell Mischa about the final arrangements for tomorrow,” she says, slipping past me. “Goodnight.”
I don’t know what it is about her expression that makes me swallow in alarm.
Still, I start down the hall, but as murmuring voices catch my ear, I quietly circle back.
“You were eavesdropping,” Mischa scolds, his voice easily reaching me as I falter just beyond the doorway.
“And you were lying,” Ellen counters haughtily. “You lied to her. Why?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mischa says, but his tone gives him away. Ellen is the only one capable of wringing that gruff, raw baritone from him. Guilt.
“You’ve known the identity of the man who sold her for seven years,” she declares. “In fact, you’ve been waging a campaign to keep him away from this area—and don’t look at me like that. You aren’t as secretive as you think when it comes to your business arrangements. Why didn’t you tell her? I could understand if you thought she wasn’t ready, but we decided together to tell Eli about his—”
“Because he’s not dead,” Mischa growls. “Eli? He is like you, able to square the past and leave it buried. Mouse? She is like me. I’m sure she remembers him. His name. Everything he did to her—but if he is not acknowledged out loud, he doesn’t exist. She can go on living in peace. But if she knows he’s still alive? Still breathing, walking, existing in this world. She won’t ever let go. Ever. I don’t want that for her.” His voice breaks, hoarse and hollow. A sudden thump alludes to him striking his desk with a clenched fist, and I imagine Ellen approaching him, wrapping her slender arms around him from behind.
“Tell me what is on your mind,” she pleads.
“You once fantasized about a life of peace for us,” he says. “And we have it. The children who aren’t destined to be casualties in some senseless war. Children who can study music over hatred and fighting. So, if to maintain that peace, I have to lie, I will lie.”
“She’ll learn about him soon enough,” Ellen says softly. “God forbid she runs into him. She’s back until September. Don’t tell me you plan to lock her away in a tower until then.”
“I won’t have to,” Mischa snaps. “She’ll have her pretty party and be distracted until her schooling resumes. She’ll be safe. As for now? Donatello Vanici isn’t welcome in my territory, and I’ve made that clear. If the motherfucker didn’t own half the damn harbor, I could drive him from the city altogether. From the country. As it stands, I won’t let him near her.”
“I know you love her,” Ellen says, her voice soothing. “But one day, she’ll have to face her past.”
“Not alone,” Mischa declares. “Never alone. And only when she’s ready to finally leave it behind.”
They grow silent, though it could be the sound of my pulse drowning them out. It surges through my ears, deafening me as I return to my room. My thoughts are a maze of confusion.
Betrayal.
And grim resignation.
Mischa is right.
As long as my past lives, I can’t.
6
Willow
Morning comes far too soon, and I rise from my bed, having barely slept. My head throbs as snippets of a nightmare still taunt me.
I had been there again. In the home I lived in before ever meeting Mischa, a beautiful manor every bit as storied as this one. Smaller in size but no less comforting, I can remember every inch of it so clearly it hurts.
In that home, I grew so much.
And in that home, I lost everything.
My present should be so much brighter. As if to taunt me, golden daylight streams in through my windows, warming my cheeks. Inside, however, I feel so cold. It’s like my thoughts have turned to ice, jagged, and painful.
Maybe Mischa was right? Ignoring the past is the only way forward. As the faint smell of cooking food carries on the air, I’m willing to try.
I get dressed in a sweater and jeans for now, but my debutante dress awaits, hanging from the front of my wardrobe as a glaring reminder of what today signifies. For all intents and purposes, I am nineteen, finally a woman.
Supposedly, I should be freed from the bonds of my childhood…
But dangerous thoughts creep into the silence, countering that narrative. I can’t help the comparison—would Donatello have spent as much on his version of my debutante ball? Would he have slaved over every detail and gushed with pride about his planning?
It stings to even imagine it. His smiling face. His sloppily wrapped gifts. The dress he’d design for me…
I don’t know how long I’ve been lost in thought when my door opens and a kind face peeks from behind it.
“You’re awake,” Ellen says warily. Her blue eyes are unusually guarded, her gray day dress subdued. Is she aware of what I overheard last night? As her gaze fixates on the dress, I can’t tell. She crosses to it, fingering a corner of the massive skirt. “I just wanted you to know that today is your day, and
