Chapter 6

My mother, Rosalind, once told me that when she discovered the first betrayal, she also thought it was only an accident.

Theodore had already been alive for more than two hundred years.

The woman was a nineteen-year-old human maid on the estate.

Rosalind fought with him and smashed everything in the bedroom that could be smashed, and she meant to leave the next morning.

But one sentence from my father was enough to keep her there.

"She'll be dead in a few decades, and I'll be with you forever."

Back then, my mother believed him.

She decided eternity mattered more than a few decades, and that she was the one who had ultimately been chosen.

Later the maid grew old and went away, and my father did come back to her.

But a second woman appeared soon after, and then a third.

Every one of them was young and vivid, full of a warmth my mother had lost long ago.

Every time, my father said they weren't important.

The relatives took turns comforting her too.

"He only wants something new."

"He's never once thought of letting anyone replace you."

"You two are the ones who'll be living together for centuries."

"Is it worth wrecking a family over a human who'll be gone in no time?"

My mother stayed, again and again.

A hundred years on, she no longer smashed anything, and she no longer asked where he had been.

She became calm and gentle, as if nothing touched her.

Only I knew she hadn't forgiven him.

She had simply turned herself into a house with nobody living in it.

When I was small I asked her why she didn't leave.

Rosalind sat by the window, looking out at the roses my father had planted for his newest mistress.

"Because I kept thinking he would turn back into the man he used to be."

"And by the time I'd waited too long, I no longer knew where I could go."

Before my mother died, my father sat with her for three straight months.

He looked wretched and hollowed out, and he held her hand and told her that she had always been the one he loved most.

I believe that was true.

And her whole life was destroyed by his true love anyway.

On the day of her funeral, I made myself a promise.

I would not walk her road.

Even after I met Adrian, even after he spent twenty years wearing down my guard, I never forgot it.

Before he proposed, I told him my parents' story from beginning to end.

I didn't hide my fear, and I certainly didn't pretend I could live with the unspoken rules that noble vampires keep among themselves.

Adrian knew everything.

Which is why it never occurred to me that the same thing could happen with him.

I stayed at Hartwell Manor for three nights.

Nora assumed I was going over the wine list for the anniversary dinner, and she didn't ask questions. She helped me take stock of the cellar and the guest rooms, then brought me the past year's financial reports.

This estate belongs to me.

I was born here, and my mother is buried here.

After I married I spent most of my time at Blackwood Manor, but I never folded the Hartwell title into my husband's name.

It had been the last piece of security my mother left me.

Now it was also the reason I could leave whenever I chose.

On the third night, Helen brought the prenuptial agreement to the manor.

The original from seventy years ago had been kept in a bank, and the paper had yellowed while the writing stayed clear.

Property, inheritance, management of the estates, and on the final page, set apart on its own, the fidelity clause.

For the duration of the marriage, neither party shall establish a sexual relationship, a mate-style feeding relationship, or a long-term emotional relationship with a third person.

If either party violates this agreement, the other has the right to file for divorce immediately.

That clause hadn't been added by a lawyer.

Adrian had written it himself.

Beside his signature, in the handwriting he had then, he had left one more line.

Evelyn will never have to become her mother.

I looked at that line for a long time without turning the page.

Helen asked quietly, "Do you want to keep confirming?"

I closed the file.

"Yes."

I wanted to see with my own eyes exactly when Adrian had decided to make me into my mother.