she could.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I know what that’s like.”
She sighs and then seems to brighten. “Speaking of, how are things going with your sugar daddy?”
Hannah doesn’t know the half of it with Viktor, but she knows that my one free night in a hotel turned into a free apartment. She assumes Viktor is taking care of me because I’m his mistress, and crazily enough, that story is more palatable than the truth, so I let her think what she wants.
“I’m in an interior design class now,” I say. “Only one and it’s online, but it’s a start. I wouldn’t have even been able to afford the textbooks before.”
“That’s amazing. Damn. What do I need to do to find me someone like that?”
Get raped by the brother of a crime boss, have his secret baby, and then go into hiding at his brother’s apartment to keep him from killing you and stealing your son.
I laugh and change the subject. “How are you?”
“It’s the same old story,” she says. “Except now, it’s the same old story without Matt.”
Matt is Hannah’s son. He is almost six. She had him when she was even younger than I was when I had Theo.
“Why? What happened to Matt?”
“He is living with his dad for a while.” She says it casually, but I can hear the hurt in her voice. “I just … couldn’t swing it. I was working too much to pay for this shitty apartment, and then I couldn’t afford day care. Everything was kind of falling apart.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask. “We’ve been talking a few times a week for weeks now. You could have said something.”
“Would it have made a difference?” The question isn’t meant to be biting, but I feel the sting of it regardless. Hannah helped me after Theo was born. She was most of the reason we made it through the first year at all, and in her time of need, I let her deal with everything on her own.
“Maybe not before, but it would have now. I have help, Han.” The words are out of my mouth before I can really consider their meaning.
“What does that mean?” she asks. “Is your sugar daddy a pimp or something? Why would he do anything to help me?”
“Ew. No. I’m not a prostitute. Viktor just … values me,” I say, wincing at the words. Loves me certainly isn’t right, but values me makes it sound like I’m a prized hog. Both options suck. “If I tell him my friend needs help, he might help.”
I don’t know if any of this is true. I never would have guessed Viktor would trap me in a bedroom rather than let me leave his apartment, so clearly I don’t have a full grasp of what he will and won’t do. But I can’t sit by and let Hannah suffer. Not when there is something I could do to help.
“I’ll talk to him,” I say. “Give me some time, and I’ll ask him.”
Hannah is in the middle of thanking me when her phone really does drop the call. And not a moment too soon, either. The second the phone beeps in my ear, telling me we’ve been disconnected, my stomach roils.
I sit up and press a palm to my belly, trying to understand the feeling, but a second later I know exactly what is happening.
I jump out of bed, wrench open the bathroom door, and barely make it to the toilet before my lunch comes pouring out into the bowl. I heave until there is nothing left and then fall back against the wall.
Immediately, I feel better. Though, I wish I didn’t. If I still felt terrible, there could be a possibility I was sick. That maybe I’d contracted food poisoning or caught the stomach flu. But I feel amazing.
I curse under my breath and close my eyes.
Viktor and I haven’t had sex since he locked me in my bedroom. There were a few times where things got close. The day he moved me into the penthouse, he refused to let his men do all the work and pitched in himself. He carried boxes up the stairs and inside, and when he started getting hot, he took off his sweater and finished the job in a tight white undershirt. The way it clung to his muscled chest was obscene, and when the house was empty save for the two of us, I nearly forgave him just so I could run my fingers across his