I Left the Masquerade Pregnant

Chapter 11

The knock comes three days after Caspian's ambush, and I already know it isn't the grocery delivery.

Grocery deliveries don't rap on doors with the crisp, imperious rhythm of someone who expects the world to open for them.

I shift Milo to my hip, wincing at the wet patch spreading across my shoulder where he's been drooling for the past hour, and peer through the peephole.

Rowena Voss stands in the hallway, immaculate in head-to-toe Chanel.

My stomach drops to somewhere around my ankles.

"I know you're home, Elara. I can hear the baby fussing. Open the door before I make a scene your neighbors will remember for years."

I unlock the door.

"Rowena. What a surprise. I don't remember giving you Tessa's address."

"You didn't."

She sweeps past me without waiting for an invitation, Chanel No. 5 trailing in her wake like a weapon.

"But I have resources you couldn't begin to imagine, and when my son tells me he's discovered his wife has been hiding a potential grandchild ten blocks from our home, I find ways to educate myself."

Her glacier-blue eyes scan the apartment with undisguised disdain.

The dishes in the sink. The laundry basket overflowing in the corner. The faint smell of formula and something sour that I've stopped noticing because I've been living in it for weeks.

"Charming," she says.

Milo chooses this exact moment to demonstrate his timing.

A wet burp, a gurgle, and then warm spit-up cascades down my shoulder, soaking through my last clean blouse—the only one without visible stains that I'd been saving for emergencies.

I'm standing in front of my mother-in-law with baby vomit dripping toward my elbow, dark circles carved under my eyes like bruises, hair unwashed for three days, apartment reeking of desperation and defeat.

Rowena's lip curls.

"I see motherhood suits you."

"What do you want, Rowena? If you came here to critique my housekeeping, you could have saved yourself the trip and sent a card instead."

"I came to see my grandchild." She moves toward the bassinet in the corner where Milo was sleeping before the knock woke him. "Assuming he is my grandchild. Caspian mentioned there's some question about that."

"Caspian shouldn't have mentioned anything to you at all. This is between him and me."

"Nothing involving the Voss family is ever just between two people, dear. You should have learned that by now."

She peers down at Milo, who has settled against my shoulder, his storm-gray eyes blinking at this stranger with the same wariness I feel coiling in my gut.

Rowena studies my son for a long moment. His dark hair. The curve of his nose. The shape of his tiny ears.

"Good bone structure," she says finally. "He looks like a Voss."

She straightens, smoothing an invisible wrinkle from her jacket.

"Which means we have a problem, don't we? Because according to my son, you've admitted this child might belong to someone else."

"I said the timing was complicated. That's not the same thing."

"It's exactly the same thing, Elara. You spent ten months hiding this baby from his family, and now you're telling us you don't even know whose child you were carrying." Her smile is a knife dressed in lipstick. "I have to say, I'm impressed. I always thought you were too soft to surprise me, but this level of deception requires a backbone I didn't know you possessed."

"I'm not discussing this with you. If Caspian wants answers, he can get them through proper legal channels like everyone else."

"Legal channels." She laughs, a sound like crystal breaking. "How delightfully naive. Do you think courts and judges and custody hearings are anything more than inconveniences to a family with our resources?"

"Is that a threat?"

"Not yet."

She settles onto Tessa's cream-colored sofa without asking permission, crossing her legs at the ankle like she's posing for a portrait.

"Here's what's going to happen, Elara. You're going to agree to a paternity test. You're going to let qualified professionals determine whether that child carries Caspian's DNA or belongs to whatever masked stranger you spread your legs for."

"Get out of my apartment."

"It's not your apartment, is it? It belongs to Tessa Harrison, whose father's law firm has been struggling quite badly lately."

She examines her manicure with practiced disinterest.

"Did you know Harrison and Associates lost three major clients last quarter? Something about conflicts of interest, I believe. Such a shame when a respected firm falls on hard times."

The implication lands like a punch to the chest.

"You wouldn't dare."

"I wouldn't dare what, exactly? Mention to a few friends at the country club that perhaps Michael Harrison's firm isn't quite as reliable as it used to be? Suggest to certain board members that their legal business might be better served elsewhere?"

She rises, smoothing her skirt.

"I'm not threatening anyone, dear. I'm simply observing that reputation is a fragile thing, and people who make enemies of powerful families often find their lives becoming unexpectedly difficult."

"Why are you doing this? You spent two years making it clear I wasn't good enough for your son. You reminded me at every opportunity that I couldn't give him an heir. Now there's a child, and suddenly you want to claim him?"

"He's a Voss."

Her composure cracks for just a moment, something fierce and hungry flickering behind those ice-chip eyes.

"Whether the father is Caspian or Rhys, that child carries our blood. Our legacy. Do you understand what that means to a family like ours?"

"Rhys?" The name falls out of me before I can stop it. "You know about Rhys?"

"I know my nephew has been circling you like a shark for years. I know he attended that masquerade ball, though he denies any involvement in your little indiscretion." Her smile sharpens. "I also know that boy has wanted everything Caspian has since they were children. Why should you be any different?"

I can't breathe.

"You couldn't give my son an heir when it mattered." She moves toward the door, victory settled into every line of her posture. "Now you've managed to produce one you can't even claim is his. The irony would be amusing if it weren't so pathetically sad."

"Leave. Now."

"I'll expect to hear from your lawyers within the week regarding the paternity test. And Elara?"

She pauses at the threshold, looking back with something that might almost be pity if it weren't so cold.

"Get some sleep, dear. You look absolutely dreadful."

The door clicks shut behind her.

I stand frozen in the middle of Tessa's living room, baby vomit drying on my shoulder, my son's heartbeat thrumming against my chest, and realize that threats are coming from every direction now.

I carry Milo to the bathroom, set him in his bouncer, and step on the scale because I can't remember the last time I ate a full meal.

The number blinks up at me like an accusation.

Eleven pounds. I've lost eleven pounds I didn't have to lose.

In the mirror, a stranger stares back—hollow cheeks, shadowed eyes, bones pressing too close to the surface of her skin.

Milo makes a soft sound from his bouncer, reaching for me with tiny fingers, and I sink to the bathroom floor beside him.

"I don't know how to protect you," I whisper against his dark hair. "I don't know how to protect either of us."