Chapter 4
Serafina
“If you’ll excuse me,” I say, voice barely controlled, “I need to move my things.”
“Of course,” Viviana waves me away. “Run along. We have important things to discuss.”
I walk toward the door, feeling their eyes on my back like knives.
“Oh, Serafina?” Anastasia calls sweetly.
I stop, don’t turn around.
“Welcome to the new family dynamic. I think you’re going to love it here.”
Anastasia’s words hit me like a punch to the gut. Literally. My stomach lurches, bile rising in my throat like my body’s rejecting the reality of what she just said.
“Excuse me,” I manage, stumbling toward the hallway.
“Oh dear,” Viviana’s voice follows me, dripping with fake concern. “I hope you’re not coming down with something.”
Yeah. I’m coming down with the realization that my life is a fucking nightmare.
I barely make it to the guest bathroom before everything comes up. Three years of swallowed pride, bitter disappointment, and now this—the image of Anastasia in my bed, with my husband, making the heir I apparently can’t.
My knees hit the cold marble as my body rebels against everything. The wine, the humiliation, the casual cruelty of it all. I’m retching like my soul’s trying to escape through my throat.
“Serafina?” Matteo’s voice outside the door. “Are you alright?”
Alright? I’m throwing up while your fiancée announces she’s going to fuck you tonight in my bed. I’m fucking peachy.
“Food poisoning,” I croak.
“Do you need—”
“Just go away.”
Silence. Then footsteps retreating.
Perfect. Even when I’m literally sick, he can’t be bothered to actually care.
I splash cold water on my face, avoiding my reflection. I look like death, and honestly? That’s appropriate.
When I finally emerge, the house has gone quiet. Too quiet. I pad down the hallway toward the stairs, and that’s when I hear it.
Laughter. Coming from upstairs. From the master bedroom.
My bedroom.
Anastasia’s voice, low and sultry: “You’re terrible, Matteo.”
His response is muffled, but I hear enough. The intimate tone. The way he’s talking to her—soft, playful. The way he used to talk to me, back when I was stupid enough to think this marriage might become real.
I should go to my new room. The blue room. The servant’s quarters. I should pretend I don’t hear them, pretend it doesn’t matter.
Instead, I stand there like a masochist, listening to my replacement seduce my husband twenty feet above my head.
“Are you sure about this?” His voice carries down the stairs.
“About what? Making you happy? Giving you what you need?”
What you need. Like I’m some broken appliance that couldn’t perform its function.
The bedroom door closes with a soft click, and I know exactly what’s happening up there. What’s going to happen. What should have been happening with me for the last two years if my husband had actually wanted me.
I turn to go, and that’s when it hits me.
When was my last period?
The thought stops me cold on the stairs. When was it? I’ve been so stressed, so focused on the family drama, so crushed by Matteo’s indifference that I haven’t been tracking…
Oh, fuck.
I’m in the blue room—my new prison cell—rummaging through boxes of my hastily moved belongings. Somewhere in here is the emergency stash I keep because you never know when you might need…
There. A pregnancy test from the pharmacy, bought months ago during a scare that turned out to be nothing.
My hands shake as I read the instructions. As if I don’t know how this works. As if I haven’t hoped and feared and wondered about this moment for three years.
In the tiny en-suite bathroom—God, this room is pathetic—I take the test and set it on the counter.
Three minutes. The longest three minutes of my life.
From upstairs, I hear movement. Voices. The sound of my marriage being officially ended by someone else’s moans.
I stare at the test, willing it to stay negative. Because a baby now? A baby when I’m about to become the family’s live-in charity case? When my husband is upstairs with his new wife?
The timer on my phone goes off.
Two lines.
Two goddamn lines.
I’m pregnant.
