Page 40 of The Brutal Arrangement

I got up and explored the bedroom, just to ground myself with my surroundings. I didn’t venture out of the bedroom, partly afraid that if I opened the door, Damon would be there.

This privacy was… nice. I needed this solitude to recalibrate. To ready myself for whatever other surprises would come.

After finding the bathroom, I noticed the signs of someone else having used it and I imagined that Damon had come in here after he’d fucked me last night.

That’s probably why that towel was on the bed.He probably dropped it there before leaving.

In the shower, I debated between lingering because the steam felt so good and the water pressure was heavenly on my tense muscles and getting out as quickly as possible. If anyone—Damon or any of these Mafia men—came in here when I was vulnerable in the shower, I’d be at a disadvantage.

Once I got out and dried myself on the plushest towel I’d ever had the pleasure of touching, nothing threadbare or musty like what I was used to, I snooped in the walk-in closet for something to wear.

No women’s garments were on offer, so I took a button-up shirt and hoped that it would trick my mind into thinking I was covered and somehow less vulnerable.

Katerina had implied that I’d be welcomed and just as quickly dismissed. She’d given me the impression that I’d be in the house and just shoved to the side while they waited to see what this arrangement meant.

Maybe I’ll just stay in here?

They’ll let me be now that the deed is done?

I was under no illusion that I’d been brought here for the sake of love or romance.

I was a thing. A transaction. So… was it now time for me to sit on a shelf like a possession?

Before I could wonder and worry, a soft knock sounded on the door. I didn’t know how, but I could just tell that it was a woman. It didn’t sound like the rough, demanding slam of a man’s fist on a door, but I was still wary of whoever was coming here.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, keeping the long shirt over my thighs and ensuring I was covered, I raised my brows as a woman entered.

She was dressed in a navy-blue dress and apron. The attire was similar to what I was used to. Finally, something familiar.

Only a maid or member of a housekeeping staff would wear something like that. With a funky pang of homesickness, I admitted that this was what I was supposed to look like. That was what I was intended to be and do.

To blend in as a staff member. To keep my head down and mind my own business.

In a bizarre polar opposite, I was now the one being waited on? Dressed in a monster’s shirt and stuck in his room without a clue of what else to expect in my supposedly contract-only marriage, I wasnotthe maid.

For so long, I’d wanted to feel like I belonged somewhere. With someone. All these years when I wasn’t in college or meeting and having friends like any other twentysomething, I’d deluded myself into thinking I belonged in the capacity of my job. That I was always the maid, always the hard worker, one who “belonged” in the house of wherever I was currently employed.

At this moment, I had nothing. I was nothing and no one, just a thing for my new husband.

“Good morning,” the maid said as she entered. Perhaps a few years older than me, she was well-trained to avoid eye contact. Keeping her chin lowered, she brought me a pile of folded clothes, shoes too.

“I was asked to deliver these for you.” With a slight curtsy, she avoided making any direct contact. It unnerved me, convincing me that I would never get used to this idea that I wasn’t in her shoes, that I wasn’t doing what she was doing.

I wasn’t a maid here, but I didn’t feel like awife, either.

God, I need some coffee to make my brain stop spinning. Food and coffee.

“Thank you,” I muttered, meaning it but feeling too out of it to reply any stronger.

She turned to leave.

As I dressed, my nerves grew again. I wanted to explore. At the very least, I wanted to find a way to ask for food or coffee. Brave enough to only pace in this bedroom, I found my phone dead on the floor. Embarrassed at the shreds of my dress that Damon had ripped with his huge hands, I collected it. After gathering it in a bundle and taking it to the bathroom in search of a laundry container, I frowned at my reflection in the massive mirrors of the gold-and-black theme of the bathroom that had to have been larger than any apartment I’d ever called home.

Seeing myself should’ve grounded me. A nod of acknowledgment that I was still Lucy, stillme, despite losing my virginity the way I had last night. Staring into my eyes, all I observed was the anxiety. I looked like prey, caught and snared and with no hope to escape.

What now?

WhatcanI do now?

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