Page 216 of Marrying the Savage

“Leave.”

For a second, I think he will refuse. Then he steps back, opens the door, and walks out.

The lock turns again.

I don’t throw anything this time. I sit on the floor beside the bed and press both hands over my stomach.

The next days blur.

Marina brings food and calls me madame. Sometimes her hands shake when she pours tea. Sometimes she leaves extra honey because she knows I like it. Sometimes she looks at me like she wants to say something, then remembers whatever threat has been placed over her head and leaves before kindness becomes dangerous.

Damir comes every day. Sometimes morning. Sometimes night. He asks if I ate. He asks if I feel pain. He asks if I slept. He asks if I need the doctor.

He doesn’t answer my questions.

I stop asking on the third day. That seems to trouble him more than the arguments.

The doctor comes twice. She checks my blood pressure, asks about nausea, tells me I need food, water, rest, and less stress. I almost ask her if she has a prescription for not being imprisoned by a man who may or may not believe I’m part of some plot no one will explain to me.

I don’t. I let her do the tests. I let Marina bring soup.

I let Damir stand near the wall, looking at me like he wants to come closer and doesn’t trust either of us with the distance.

On the fourth day, Damir finds the lunch tray untouched. He stands over it for a long moment. Then he looks at me. “You must eat.”

I’m sitting by the window, wrapped in a shawl Marina brought and I refuse to admit I needed. “You said that already.”

“You are pregnant.”

“I noticed.”

“This is not only about you.”

I turn my head and look at him.

His face tightens immediately, as if he realizes the mistake, but it’s too late.

“No,” I say quietly. “Apparently nothing is about me.”

“Sofia,” he says.

“Get out,” I say.

He doesn’t. Instead, he takes the tray himself, brings it to the small table beside me, and sits opposite me. I stare at him. He picks up the bowl of soup, dips the spoon, and holds it out.

For a second, I genuinely don’t know whether to laugh or stab him with it.

“I’m not Maksim,” I say.

“No. Maksim eats when he is told.”

My mouth opens.

He looks at me. I look back. And for the first time in days, something almost alive moves between us. The memory of us. The part that used to argue before everything turned cold.

I hate that it hurts.

I take the spoon from him. “If you ever try to feed me soup like an invalid again, I will pour it into your lap.”