My Lovely Headmaster

Chapter 49

That night, I return to the room Vlad and I share—shared—needing clothes for tomorrow. He's there, sitting on the bed we bought together, holding the ultrasound photo from my first prenatal appointment.

"It's a girl," he says quietly. "Richard did a new scan today, a safe one. We're having a daughter."

A daughter. Another girl to potentially have her mind violated by Dickenson secrets.

"We can't protect her," I say. "We couldn't even protect ourselves from the people closest to us."

"We can try."

"Trying isn't enough. Your father tried to protect you from Henry's violence and look how that turned out."

"I'm not Theodore."

"No, you're just the man he molded. Clara was literally trained to be your perfect woman. What does that say about your preferences, your choices?"

"It says my father was a monster who started manipulating me before I could walk." He sets down the ultrasound, facing me fully. "But Jasmine, you weren't his choice. That night at the party, you were chaos he couldn't predict. You were real."

"Was I? Or was Jessica supposed to bring me there? Was our meeting orchestrated too?"

"Jessica brought you to hurt you, according to Julia. To see what happened when you got close to Dickensons. She didn't expect—"

"Didn't expect me to fuck you. Great. Our relationship is based on Jessica's miscalculation."

"Our relationship is based on two broken people finding each other in the dark."

"Poetic."

"True."

We stare at each other across the room that suddenly feels too small and too large simultaneously.

"I miss you," he admits. "I know you need space, but Devon asks every night why you don't sleep with us anymore. What am I supposed to tell him?"

"The truth. That Mommy needs to figure out what's real."

"We're real. Whatever else was fake, we're real."

"Are we? Your patterns were shaped by Clara, who was shaped by Theodore. My memories were edited, my responses programmed. We're like two computers running corrupted software, trying to connect."

"That's the most unromantic thing you've ever said."

"Romance is what got us into this mess."

He stands, moving closer but stopping just out of reach, respecting my boundaries even as I can see it's killing him.

"Do you remember our wedding? Our real wedding, in the hospital?"

"Of course."

"I said I'd love you through sickness and health. This is sickness, Jasmine. Theodore's poison, infecting everything. But we can heal from it. Together."

"Or we can keep infecting each other."

"Is that what you want? To end this?"

The question hangs between us like a blade. Do I want to end this? This marriage built on lies and trauma and impossible love?

"I don't know what I want anymore."

"Then let me tell you what I want," he says, voice stronger. "I want to wake up next to you for the rest of my life. I want to raise Devon and this new baby together. I want to rebuild Blackwood into something good. I want to choose you every day, not because Theodore programmed me to, but despite his programming."

"Vlad—"

"I want to fuck you right now," he continues, voice dropping. "Not because Clara trained me to want certain things, but because you're you. Complicated, difficult, beautiful you."

"Sex won't fix this."

"No, but it might remind us what's real between us."

The hunger in his eyes is familiar and foreign—how much of his desire is real versus programmed? How much of mine?

"I can't," I whisper. "Not until I know what's me and what's Theodore's manipulation."

He nods, stepping back, and the loss of his proximity hurts more than I expected.

"Julia called," I say, changing the subject. "She's coming back tomorrow. She says she found something about Mom—our biological mom, not Helen."

"What about her?"

"She might be alive."