* * *

As recently as the family’s departure, Faith had thought she just wanted to live and stay safe. But as the other women began to show up, the pain and fear had crept up on her—the fear that he would turn that look of pleasure and approval on another woman, and Faith would become like lonely furniture sitting forgotten in a corner of the room.

But now that she’d attained his undivided attention, the idea of being forgotten furniture felt so much safer.

She watched the clock above the fireplace as it moved far too fast to the moment she would see Leo again. She dreaded whatever business he had to discuss with her. But as long as he was talking, he wasn’t hitting.

When she couldn’t wait any longer without being late, she got up and made her way to the office. An imaginary, disembodied voice echoed off the walls: “Dead woman walking.”

She stood in the door, her arms wrapped around her. Leo glanced up from his desk and put his pen down, closing the black book she’d seen him writing in before. He motioned for her to come to him.

He rubbed her arms when she got closer. “You look white as a ghost. Are you cold? Do you need a sweater?”

“No.”

“No, Master,” he corrected.

“No, Master,” she whispered, her gaze cast down.

“We’re just going to talk.”

She nodded and sat in the offered chair on the other side of his desk. She clasped her hands in her lap, staring down at the ring on her finger. “A-are we really getting married?” It was still too impossible and bizarre to be true.

“Yes. I told you already, it’s either that or stay in the dungeon during Christmas every year. Is that what you want?”

The dungeon actually wasn’t horrible, if you took out all the scary stuff. It was surprisingly well insulated and heated. Someone could easily live down there, but still, she didn’t want to be tied up and left alone for a week, not that he wouldn’t slip down there and visit her. But that might be more terrifying than being left alone. The travesty was that Leo was the one person with the power to scare and hurt her more than anyone else, but he’d also become like oxygen.

“No, Master.”

“Then yes, we’re getting married.”

“But you don’t love me.” She couldn’t say she didn’t love him because she wasn’t sure anymore. If all this were real and normal and without all the layers of strangeness on top of it, she would have accepted a proposal from Leo without hesitation. But this wasn’t her fantasy, this was the real Leo, and she knew the engagement wasn’t real to him, even if the end result would be legal.

“Marrying for love is a new idea. For centuries men and women married for many reasons that had nothing to do with their feelings. Grammie and Papi had an arranged marriage, and they love each other now. Feelings grow over time. We are attracted, and that’s more than what most had. Do you think I would keep you here if I didn’t at least want you?”