Chapter 2

It was already the small hours when Rolf came home.

I had been waiting in the living room the whole time.

When the driver walked him in, drunk and unsteady, I rushed forward with everything I had and begged him to let me go to the hospital.

"Leonora, you get more thoughtless by the day. Carrying a belly that big, up all night instead of sleeping, and now you want to go out in the middle of the night?"

When he heard Chad's condition had turned, Rolf pulled out his phone and called the man in charge at the hospital.

It was, after all, a private hospital owned by Harding Group.

The other end agreed at once to draw up a whole new treatment plan.

"One call. That's all it takes. And you had to phone me dozens of times over it? Go to bed."

The strength drained out of my body all at once.

A thing Rolf could settle with a single phone call.

And every last one of them had dragged me through more than ten hours over it.

I wiped my tears dry and asked again.

"Rolf, can I go see Chad tomorrow?"

He ignored me and called for Mrs. Dickerson, asking how I had behaved these past few days.

She reported how much I had eaten, how long I had slept, right down to the number of times I had used the bathroom.

Rolf was very displeased with how little I had eaten.

All these days I had been sick with worry over Chad, and in the last stretch of pregnancy the cold, greasy platters of meat and rich food were more than I could get down.

"You're carrying my child, and you can't eat because of someone else? If you can't see the bigger picture, then I don't see any reason for you to go to the hospital at all."

"When you've got an appetite and can eat again, come and report to me!"

"Mrs. Dickerson, take Miss Pruitt back to her room to rest. Watch her until she's asleep."

Rolf staggered up the stairs to the master bedroom, held up by Assistant Dickerson and the driver.

Mrs. Dickerson threw me a grudging look.

"Miss Pruitt, this way, please!"

Stumbling back into the bedroom, I heard movement in the walk-in closet.

Assistant Dickerson was trying on my clothes and jewelry, showing off her curves in front of the mirror.

"Mr. Harding has an important reception tomorrow. He says your belly's too big and too ugly now, so he wants me to go with him."

"Besides, you used to pour drinks at a KTV, and Mr. Harding is worried you might run into an old client."

She wore the grin of a winner.

I waved a weak hand and told her to try on whatever she liked.

Mrs. Dickerson leaned in and started picking out gowns for her daughter.

"This one's lovely, it really suits you. Elegant, refined…"

"Which one doesn't look good on me?"

"Yes, yes, my girl looks good in anything. If a bar hostess can climb her way into a house like this, then my daughter, a brand-name university graduate, is a hundred times better than her!"

"Mom, there you go again. She's just a caged bird Mr. Harding keeps, a belly that big and still no title to her name. As if I'd ever compare myself to her!"

The two of them stood there running me down to my face, and I couldn't have cared less.

That sordid past of mine was true, after all.

Back then, with no way out and my brother Chad's crushing medical bills to pay, I had gone to a KTV to pour drinks.

The very first time I stepped into a private room, I met Rolf.

The first glass of my life had barely gone down when Rolf seized my wrist and led me away.

For the seven years after that, I was the bird Rolf kept in a cage.

I lived quietly in the old estate, kept to every rule he laid down.

The housekeeper watched my every move; I had to file for approval to go out, and someone shadowed me the whole time I was gone.

What I traded my freedom for was this: Rolf paying every one of my brother's medical bills for seven years.

All of it was true.

Mrs. Dickerson and her daughter weren't wrong.

I really was a kept bar hostess.

I closed my eyes, the tears sliding down into my hair, and rested my hand on the high curve of my belly.

But all I could see was Chad lying in that hospital bed with an oxygen mask over his face.