you need to keep your hands off my face. No one will trust a woman with a black eye or a broken nose.” She bared her bloodied teeth in the kind of smile needed to charm women at luncheons and the men they married. “You want to be like us, Calvin? Here’s your first lesson: keep your brutality behind closed doors where it belongs. Keep it away from where people can actually see it.”
He looked like he wanted to hit her again. Like he wanted to break her nose for real, maybe knock out a few teeth too. But to her surprise, he nodded.
“Anything else?” he asked.
Nina sucked in a breath, forcing herself not to flinch at the sharp pain in her side that accompanied it. “Yes,” she said. “They also keep their children out of it. Olivia never sees any of this. And you keep your fucking hands off her. Forever.”
Calvin was quiet for another long moment. Then, eventually, he stuck out his hand, like a sick parody of the deal they had made together one year earlier. Feeling like she was about to vomit, Nina slowly returned the handshake, fighting a revulsive shudder at the feel of his sweaty palm pressed against hers.
“Done.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Nina stayed in her bedroom with the baby for over a week while the cuts and bruises on her face healed. The others on her back would be there much longer, and given how painful it was to breathe, she was fairly sure she had a few cracked ribs that might take even longer.
The staff left her food by the door—Calvin had told them she and the baby had some terrible virus and were contagious. No one argued, because no one argued in houses like theirs. All staff employed by de Vrieses signed NDAs, and even then, their generous salaries would have ensured their loyalty regardless.
Loyalty to whom, though?
She spent the days watching Olivia with a fascination that now bordered on obsession. She had never noticed, for instance, the exact length of the shadow cast by her daughter’s eyelashes when she slept. Or the perfect, tiny dimple at the end of her perfect nose.
She was still small for her age, and slightly behind developmentally, though the doctors assured her that was normal for a preemie. She still spent most of her time on her back and tummy, only just able to roll herself over and back.
She fed her formula, which she seemed to like, since what little milk Nina had left could not possibly sustain the child. It was just after each feeding, though, that Nina fell most in love with her daughter, when they would lie on the big bed together as the sun dipped beyond the New York City skyline, and Nina watched sweet baby dreams play across Olivia’s face as she drifted off to sleep.
And then, when Olivia slept, Nina would lie on her bed, cradling her face and arms as she stared up at the box beam ceiling of the hat box of a room. Once she’d had so many plans for the place, but now she couldn’t care less. A prison was a prison, whether it was covered in chintz or bars. She waited for the throbbing pain under her shoulder to subside a bit more. For the knot on the back of her head to ache a little less.
And while she waited, she forced herself to let go of the life she thought she might have. And another started to take shape in its place.
She saw that she would no longer dedicate her time to school, but to social events. That she would return to the fold of parties and luncheons with her husband on her arm, his ticket into navigating the world of New York high society.
She saw that she would have to hire round-the-clock help for Olivia until the time came when she could safely send the girl to boarding school, away from this madness. Away from the farce.
She saw that like her parents, she would barely know her daughter. And that it was in Olivia’s best interest for that to be the case.
She saw that she would never be free unless she could become as much of a monster as her husband was to get rid of him.
And where, really, was the freedom in that?
On the eighth day, sometime in the early morning hours, Nina rose from the bed and found her face was clear in the mirror over her vanity. In the mirror’s reflection, Olivia