“Wondering if you’ve given my proposal more thought.” He shrugged, as if asking me to marry him was no more exciting than asking me to lunch.
“I haven’t, and I won’t.”
He looked around my room. “We’d make a good pair, Angel.”
West was already dressed for Labor Day in a gingham suit that fit his tall, muscular frame perfectly, with no tie on his stark white shirt. It was refined. Southern. Charming like him.
Deceptive.
I scoffed. “You said I was naive for believing in happily ever after. That I could only be a mistress. I won’t be a mistress. I won’t move from one hell to…”
I think we’re both in the same hell, just different wallpaper.
“I won’t move to one with different wallpaper.”
He rolled his plump lips. “Not a mistress. My wife.”
“Everyone would disown you.”
“I’ve always thought it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.”
I winced at the implication.
“Angel, I—”
“It’s fine,” I said, trying to brush past it. “I have to go to your sister. Please leave.”
I pinned him, and again, surprisingly, he listened. He kicked off the wall. “I’m going. Gone. But…think about it, Angel.”
West shut the door, and I stared at it.
He was fucking with me.
They were always fucking with me.
I worked the fabric of my bedspread between my thumbs. I thought I could handle a couple of months of this. I’d been a servant for half my life, so what was a couple more if it meant getting to spend the last months with my only family?
I didn’t account for what would become of me during those months.
The stains it would leave on my soul.
I fell back flat onto the mattress, shame running cold through my veins.
Maybe Uncle would leave with me.
Maybe he would give up his home.
After all, is it really our home? If it was our home, I shouldn’t have to barter my dignity to stay.
I video-called my uncle from bed. He looked wan, weak, and my heart cracked.
“What if I came home and we left? We could go to Scotland like you suggested. We could go anywhere, Uncle.”
I had enough money, after all. What was the point of it if I still lived like this? If he was there, and I was here.
I knew his answer before he’d even spoken.
“I’ve spent my whole life here, Storybook. I can’t abandon it at the end.”