Page 6 of Gilded Shackles
"No."
I open my mouth to press him further, but the roof door opens. One of the maids appears. "Ms. Donovan, your mother says dinner is ready. She's already in the dining room."
I nod, and she disappears back inside.
"We'll continue this conversation later," I tell Jeffrey.
He watches me with that steady, complicated look. The one that saysI'm rooting for you, kid, but God, I'm terrified of what comes next.
"Sure thing, kid."
Dinner is a cold affair,with a table for two, a view for a hundred, and conversation for none.
I let my gaze drift around the dining room, same as always: sleek walls, cold art, a fortune in minimalism. Not a single family photo in this entire penthouse. Never has been. No baby pictures of me, no shot of my father, no faded snapshot of anyone, anywhere, ever. I asked about it once when I was twelve. Mother said she wasn't the sentimental type. I stopped asking.
My mother sits at the head of the table, and I sit at her right. A staff member ghosts in with plates: arctic char, shaved fennel, a smear of something green and artsy. The char isperfect. It always is. Perfection is the only standard Gayle permits.
The silence is stifling.
"How was your day?" I ask because I am not a monster and speaking to my mother seems like the right thing to do.
"Productive," she says.
Her gaze lifts. Something like a blade gleams between us, invisible and very present. I am the first to look away; I always am.
I want to ask if her productive day has anything to do with marrying me off. But I don’t. I’ve already taken one hit. I’m not trying to look like a raccoon on my birthday.
"I will be out later," she says. "A late meeting."
"Sure," I say, disappointment crashing down. Slightly hating myself for even caring. Looks like another night in, alone.
"Don't sulk," she says, cutting her fish with surgical precision. "It's unbecoming."
I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth to keep from saying something that will cost me. She watches me do it. Enjoys the effort, I think.
"You know," she says, without looking up, "everything I do is for your benefit, Raphaella. One day you'll understand that."
"I understand plenty," I say quietly.
Her knife pauses. She studies me. Then she smiles, and there is no love in it at all. Just the quiet satisfaction of a woman who has already won.
"No," she says. "You don't. But you will."
And just like that, the silence swallows us again.
After dinner,I head to bed. Maybe I'll read a book or something.
My bedroom is a suite the size of a small apartment. Plush carpet, cream walls, a bed built for a princess. The windows run floor to ceiling, showing me the dazzling city, taunting me.
Thank God for Sir Isaac Mewton, my Siamese tyrant, rubbing against my leg. I lift him up and hold him close, walking to the wall-to-wall windows to stare out at the city I've always called home but never really lived in.
Tomorrow I am twenty-six.
I have never ridden the subway. I have never eaten a pretzel from a cart at midnight, thrown shoes in a pile at a stranger's party, gotten lost on purpose. I've never kissed a man in a doorway where the whole city could walk by and not care.
I press my palm flat against the glass. The city pulses beneath it, alive, unreachable, and completely indifferent to the girl watching from the thirty-fifth floor.
All I want is out.
