Page 48 of Cruel Submission

I grab a rag from the supply closet and start wiping down the console table near the entrance. My movements are mechanical, efficient. I’ve done this a hundred times. Polish the wood. Straighten the decorative bowl. Adjust the flowers.

Why does he keep doing this to me? Why? Close one minute, a stranger the next. And not just a stranger… he’s fucking rude to me. Why would he do that if he cares?

Because he doesn’t care, you idiot.

He probably has someone else.

A mistress. Hidden away because he can’t be seen with her publicly.

A wife. Someone he married before me, someone he never divorced.

The mother of his child.

The nausea rises fast and sharp. I barely make it to the bathroom down the hall before I’m bent over the toilet, retching up the tea I had at breakfast. My stomach clenches, empty now, but my body keeps heaving anyway. When it finally stops, I sink back on my heels and press my forehead against the cool tile wall.

Get it together, Mirabel.

But I can’t.

Because the pieces are all there, scattered across the last few weeks like breadcrumbs I refused to see. The constant phone calls he takes in Russian. The way he disappears for hours without explanation. The east wing I’m forbidden to enter. Dr. Harrison’s message. The nurses.

And now the woman I saw in the window.

He’s keeping someone in his house. Someone who needs medical care. Someone with a baby.

The realization hits me so hard I have to grip the sink to stay upright.

He has another family.

Hidden. Secret. Probably the reason he’s so careful about what he tells me, why he keeps me at arm’s length even when he’s inside me.

“What am I doing here?” I whisper.

The question echoes in the empty bathroom.

I came to this house because I needed the money for Dad’s treatment. That was the deal. Housekeeper. Good pay. Mind my own business.

But then Arkady happened. His hands. His mouth. The way he looks at me like I’m the only person in the world who matters—right up until the moment his phone rings or someone knocks on the door or he remembers I’m just the help.

I rinse my mouth, splash cold water on my face, and head back to work.

The rest of the morning passes in a blur of tasks I complete on autopilot. Polish the banister. Vacuum the library. Change the linens in the guest rooms on the west wing. I move through the house like a ghost, avoiding the east wing entirely because I don’t trust myself not to do something reckless.

Like try to open that door.

Like demand answers Arkady clearly doesn’t want to give.

The words Arkady used this morning come back to me: I need privacy for this call.

Privacy. From me. Because I don’t matter enough to be included in whatever crisis was unfolding on the other end of that phone.

The anger starts low in my belly and spreads like wildfire.

I spend the afternoon reorganizing the linen closet on the third floor, a task that requires zero thought and keeps me physically as far from the east wing as possible. My hands fold sheets while my mind churns through scenarios I don’t want to imagine. Him with another woman. Him holding a baby that isn’t mine. Him building a whole separate life I’m not part of.

By the time I hear his footsteps in the corridor outside—that distinctive, measured pace I’d recognize anywhere—the sun is already setting, and I’m ready to explode.

I abandon the half-folded sheets and head for his office. The door is open. He’s standing at the window, hands in his pockets, staring out at the garden. The dying light cuts harsh angles across his face, throwing shadows that make him look like the predator he is.