Reparation of Sin: A Sovereign Sons Novel, Zavarelli, A. [easy books to read in english txt] 📗

life, I am grateful for the vertigo, for the dizziness, because when I stumble into his arms, he catches me and I hear the curse he mutters as he easily lifts me off my feet.

For a moment, just one moment, I close my eyes and lean against him and just let him hold me, cradle me, give in to this illusion of safety. I can give myself that, can’t I? I can have just this little stitch in time.

He lays me down on his bed, on the bed in which we just made love. It still smells like us.

“Let me clarify then, if there’s nothing you have to tell me. If there is no baby, their sentence will stand. They will not accept mine.”

“What happens to you if they find out you lied?”

He’s quiet for a moment. “There will be a reckoning, I’m certain, but I will live.”

“And I won’t.” I can't think about that part. “And you’ll be punished because of me. If I can’t get pregnant, I mean.”

He doesn’t reply but I don’t need him to.

“And the tattoo…my face, it still happens. You’re still going to do it.” It’s not a question. The pregnancy, this non-existent, impossible pregnancy, it doesn’t get me or him out of this. Me to take the punishment. Him to deal it.

“Why did you do it?” he asks, looking wretched, sounding even more so.

I can’t control the emotion, the tears that come. I don’t even try. Because I’m doomed. We both are.

17 Ivy

Back in my room I study my face by the dim light in the bathroom mirror. The stencil is smeared but not completely gone. It matches his but is somehow more feminine.

In a grotesque way, it’s beautiful. Like his.

Like him.

I turn away, fingers tightening around the counter. I can't think that. I am his enemy even if he was never mine. He hates me.

But he also lied to The Tribunal to save me no matter his simple excuse of selfishness. It’s not for the reason of having me birth his babies or torturing me himself. I just don’t believe that’s true. Because just as ugly and beautiful are both too simple concepts for him, so is this. We are bound to one another. There is something here. And he’s human no matter how much he tries to prove himself a demon.

I turn my gaze back up to the mirror, brush the hair back from the stenciled side of my face and touch the single dot of black ink high on my cheekbone. I won’t be able to wash that off. And I’m glad.

But there are other, more pressing matters to consider now. I don’t have the luxury of time to ruminate. To romanticize. Maybe that’s a gift. A smack to the back of my head to remind me where I am. Who I am dealing with. And I don’t only mean my husband.

I scrub my face and return to my bedroom, to the window. The boards have been removed. Doctor’s orders. I need sunlight. I push the curtain back and look out into the distance, to the still dark night. I don’t have much time.

My bedroom door isn’t locked but I’ve been waiting until I’m sure Antonia and the others have gone to bed.

Mercedes is gone. I overheard Antonia telling Santiago that Mercedes would be spending the night with a friend. Santiago seemed less than pleased when he found out which friend even though Antonia made a point of the fact that it’s a female friend. I guess the same rules apply to Mercedes even considering her rank. She needs to remain a virgin until marriage.

Santiago has been gone since walking me back to my room hours ago. Whatever called him away seemed somewhat urgent or at least important enough to distract him. I wonder if it has to do with the calls he kept dismissing when we were talking in his bedroom.

But now that I’m sure I’m alone, I walk out into the hallway and down the stairs. I need to find a phone. I need to call Abel. Because when that doctor examines me tomorrow—today—if he were to take a blood test or look for any abnormality in my hormone levels, he will figure out why I’m not getting pregnant.

I can’t think about what Santiago will do then.

Could I tell him the truth? He wouldn’t be angry with me then. He couldn’t be. Well, he could. I knew even if it was after the fact. But what would he do to Abel?

I’m barefoot and dressed in a bikini with a plush robe on top. My closet has been unlocked. If anyone happens to come upon me, I will let them know I am going to use the pool. Again, doctor’s orders.

The first place I go to search is the kitchen hoping one of the housekeepers left their cell phone there. I’ve seen them use their phones around the house, both the ones who live on-site and the others.

The lamp over the stove is on and between that and the filtered light coming in through the large window from the garden I go through each of the drawers, check every possible place but find nothing. I go into the living room. Check there. I never searched for one before, so it’s possible there’s a landline I just haven’t come across. I look in the armoire, the drawers of the antique side tables, pause to take in the ornate gilded piano that I’ve never heard anyone play.

I leave that room behind, my gaze moving toward the corridor that leads to the library, to his study. I hadn’t seen a phone there and if he catches me in there again, he’ll kill me. I search the other downstairs rooms and the dining room, the smaller sitting room and the large one I had been in with the doctor but find nothing.

I walk back into the center of the large hall and turn a circle to see if there is any place