Chapter 2

My body ached from the surgery, a constant throb. My heart was a hollow drum. I lay on the cheap bed in my room in the villa’s servant quarters, staring at the ceiling. The phone rang. Ethan’s name flashed on the screen. I hadn’t told him about my father. He wouldn’t care. He hadn’t answered when the hospital called for consent for the hysterectomy. He hadn’t answered when I’d tried to tell him about the baby. Now he called. “Sarah Jenkins, it’s been a full day. Why aren’t you back in the main house?” His voice was cold, impatient. A sob escaped me. “Ethan, our baby… it’s gone. I can’t… I can’t have children anymore.” Maybe a sliver of the boy I once knew, the boy I loved before Vanderbilt money and Olivia’s poison twisted him, would hear me. Silence. Then, his voice, flat. “Good. Saves Olivia the distress.” A sharp pain shot through my chest. “Olivia’s upset. She can’t sleep. I’m giving you ten minutes. Get over here and calm her down.” He wasn’t finished. “And she wants cannoli. From Ferrara Bakery in Little Italy. Pick some up on your way.” I pressed my hand to my heart, struggling to breathe. “Ethan, I’m not coming back. Not ever.” “Sarah Jenkins!” He spat my name. His voice dropped, low and dangerous. “Your father’s care at that facility is three hundred thousand dollars in arrears. Think carefully before you defy me.” “It doesn’t matter anymore,” I whispered. I hung up. My father was dead. I was free of that chain. But I was penniless. Trapped for five years, I had nothing. How would I even bury him?