as the crisp ocean air wafts through the open windows. And we’d just come in through the back door, the servants’ entrance.
Servants.
This place is too large for Michael to keep up himself. Will there be people cleaning up after us, cooking our meals, and caring for the landscaping? Never in a million years would I have dreamed I could have anyone seeing to my needs, let alone the staff of a grand house.
To think, if I hadn’t gotten a job at Harris Financial, Michael’s company in the city, we would never have met. Under different circumstances, I might have visited the cypress grove one Sunday afternoon and walked right past this place. I would have wondered what kind of people could afford to live this way, so close to California’s coastline, and fantasized about what went on inside these walls.
“This way,” Michael says, leading the way past two powder rooms. “I’ve been wanting to show you this since the first time I saw you burying your face in a mystery novel.”
We enter the library through a set of heavy double doors. The air is staler in here, as though the windows looking out on the lawn haven’t been open in some time. A Persian rug in rich shades of brown and red stretches out beneath our feet, worn in the center from years of padding across the knotted silk and wool. Shelves crowded with books cover three walls, and on the fourth, a marble fireplace promises to radiate warmth through the room. Plump chairs face the hearth, and I wonder if this is Michael’s personal space. Will I sit beside him here, reading one of my favorite novels? Or will we spend our time in the living room with its breathtaking view overlooking the grove?
“It’s grand,” I say, because I’m feeling smaller by the minute. “Is this where you unwind at the end of the day?”
“Sometimes.”
But he doesn’t offer any more than that.
If I want to belong here, I’ll have to learn the routines Michael already has in place. I’ll need to fit seamlessly into the day-to-day.
It’ll take a long time to adjust.
“So?” Michael asks, when we’ve returned to the sun-flooded brilliance of the living room. “You love it, right?”
“It’s…” Intimidating. “…beautiful.”
“We call it Ravenwood.”
We.
The word stings, burrowing deep in me with a poison that makes me ashamed of myself. He doesn’t mean him and me, and we both know it. This is the home he occupied with his wife—his missing wife. Joanna isn’t missing in the sense that someone kidnapped her, only that she moved back to Los Angeles to live with her sister, and hasn’t been heard from since last July. Six months without a single word.
At least that’s what Michael tells me.
He hasn’t filed for divorce yet, and the thought bothers me more than I’ll ever admit aloud. He doesn’t say much about their marriage or its demise, and I don’t ask about either. Don’t want him to think I’m meddling. Adding my two cents where they don’t belong. The last thing I want is to push him away or have him close down completely. So I’ve given him time and space to figure things out on his own. Eventually though, we’ll have to address it, and I assume the time is coming soon.
They were married five years, Michael and Joanna, and before she vanished Ravenwood was their home. When my heart starts to ache with the fear that he didn’t truly want to invite me here, I remind myself Joanna is his past. I am his future. Michael wouldn’t have invited me to move into this gorgeous estate, he wouldn’t be starting a family with me, if he didn’t believe we have what it takes to make a relationship last.
All that matters is the health of our baby.
Last month, after I awoke to find spots of blood on my sheets, I was terrified of hearing the worst, of losing the baby. Rest, the doctor insisted. He