bow.”
The cleanup crew stopped, watching with
pity.
My fingertips dug into my palms. I bowed until
my forehead bled, before he stopped me.
“Can I go now?”
I stumbled towards the fireplace.
But before I could reach it, someone tossed
the medicine into the flames.
“You-”
My eyes burned, my face pale.
Ethan embraced Willow, ignoring me.
“Willow can’t stand the smell of medicine. It’s
better to get rid of all the contaminated
things in this room.”
“It was just a few bags of medicine. No big
deal.”
<
Just a few bags of medicine. So easy for him.
to say.
Ethan never took me to the hospital, he didn’t know how much I’d already spent.
I collapsed from anger and exhaustion.
I woke up in the garden greenhouse.
“Madam, Mr. Reed said he didn’t want your illness to affect Miss Hayes, so you can’t stay in the main house.”
I loved climbing roses; Ethan had a
greenhouse built for me.
It was filled with roses.
I thought he couldn’t tell the difference
between roses and climbing roses, but then I
saw Willow’s arrival–a path of roses, a room
filled with their scent.
He knew the difference.
F
<
The roses in that greenhouse were for her.
- 2.
The greenhouse, tended for three years, was
my only refuge.
I tried to go to the main house to get my
things and leave.
Willow stopped me.
In the struggle, she pushed me down. But
when Ethan arrived, it looked like she’d fallen
into a table, bleeding.
He slapped me.
“If anything happens to Willow, you’ll pay the price!”
I laughed bitterly. I was dying, what did it matter?
Willow was rushed to the hospital. Ethan forced me to go with them.
<
I never saw him so anxious.
That anxiety, he never felt for me.
The doctor said Willow was pregnant, and the
fight had threatened a miscarriage. She
