Bound to Mr. BLACKWOOD

Chapter 2

My mother was in the kitchen when I got home.

Marianne Hartwell treated cooking the way some people treated therapy, with complete dedication and absolutely no interruptions. The smell of steak hit me before I even got the door fully open, and on any other evening I would have dropped my bag, kicked off my heels and declared myself saved. Tonight I stood in the doorway and just watched her for a moment.

She was humming. Something low and old, a song she'd been humming my entire life without ever telling me the name of it. Her back was to me, one hand stirring, the other braced against the counter, and she looked so completely unbothered by the universe that something in my chest tightened.

"You're early," she said without turning around.

"Mark covered for me."

"That boy." She smiled at the pot. "You should be nicer to him."

"I'm plenty nice to him, Mum."

She turned, took one look at my face, and put the spoon down.

"Elene."

"Where's Dad?"

She sighed. "Living room."

I turned around, my mother following close behind. He was in the sitting room with the television on and the volume low, which was his version of pretending to relax. Daniel Hartwell hadn't truly relaxed in years. I just hadn't understood why until very recently.

"Dad."

He looked up, and something moved across his face when he saw my expression.

"Sit down, both of you," I said. "Please."

My mother perched on the arm of the sofa. My father sat very still.

I told them everything. The car pulling up, the ride, the top floor, every word Blackwood had said, because those words had been rattling around in my skull all day and I needed them out. When I finished, the kitchen timer went off.

Nobody moved.

"He said your situation will be handled," my father said slowly. "Those were his exact words?"

"Those were his exact words." I looked at him. "Dad, how does John Blackwood know about our finances?"

He opened his mouth but the front door opened first.

…………

Rachel walked in like she lived there, one hand already unwinding her scarf, the other pushing the door shut behind her. She'd texted me on my way home, something about returning the earrings she'd borrowed, and I'd replied without thinking because that was just Rachel. She was always just there.

"Okay, I brought wine because I could tell from your text that you needed it..." She stopped, reading the room in one sweep. "What happened?"

"Sit down," my mother said quietly. "Food is almost ready."

Rachel settled beside me on the sofa, tucked her legs underneath her, and listened while I told the story a second time. She was good at listening, Rachel. She always had been. She'd tilt her head slightly, eyes wide and warm, making you feel like you were the only person in the world worth paying attention to.

I used to find it comforting. Tonight I didn't know what to make of it.

"He just said marry me," she repeated. "Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"That's insane." She shook her head, a small laugh escaping. "That's actually insane, Elene. Who does that?"

"Apparently John Blackwood."

"But why you?" She caught herself quickly and touched my arm. "I don't mean it like that. I just mean, out of everyone, why specifically you?"

It was a reasonable question. In fact it was the only question, and I looked at my father.

He was looking at his hands.

"Dad."

"Daniel." My mother's voice was soft but there was an edge underneath it I didn't entirely understand, like she already knew what shape the answer was going to take and was bracing for it.

"It's complicated," he said finally.

"Then uncomplicate it."

He looked up at me, and for the first time in my life my father looked old. Not tired or stressed the way he usually did. This time he looked genuinely, heavily old, like something had been sitting on him for years and was only now showing its full weight on his face.

"There are things," he started, "between the Blackwood family and ours that go back further than you know."

"What kind of things?"

"Business things."

"Dad."

"Elene." He said my name like a full sentence. "Not tonight. Please."

The way he said please got me. My father didn't say please often. I closed my mouth, sat back, and felt the unease settle into my bones like it planned to stay a while.

Rachel squeezed my hand. "Hey. Whatever it is, you don't have to decide anything tonight, okay? Blackwood gave you time. Use it."

"I already didn't go back to him by close of day."

"So you rebelled a little." She smiled. "Valid."

I laughed despite myself, and she laughed too, and for a moment the room felt almost normal.

I almost missed it. The way her eyes cut briefly to my father across the room before sliding back to me, smooth and quick, like it never happened.

I almost.

…………

Later, after the food had been eaten and Rachel had gone home and my parents had retreated to their room in that particular silence that meant they were going to talk about something they'd never tell me, I sat on my bed with my shoes still on and stared at the ceiling.

The deadline had passed. Blackwood hadn't called, which somehow felt more unsettling than if he had.

My phone buzzed a number I didn't have saved popped up.

You have some audacity but I will spare you. Have you decided yet?

I didn't have to ask who it was. I locked the screen, set the phone face down on the mattress, and lay back and stared at the ceiling for a long time.

The answer was no. Obviously the answer was no. I was twenty-five years old with a career I had built myself, a life I was still assembling piece by piece, and absolutely no interest in being anyone's contractual anything.

So the answer was no.

I picked the phone back up and stared at his words for another ten minutes without typing a single thing.

Then I needed something familiar to hold, something that had nothing to do with any of this, so I reached for the old photo album on the shelf above my desk, the one with the cracked spine that nobody had touched in years.

It fell open near the middle.

Tucked between a photograph of my parents on their wedding day and one of me at age seven missing both front teeth was an envelope.

D. Blackwood Enterprises.

It was cream-colored, slightly yellowed at the edges and surprisingly still sealed.

I sat there holding it for a long time. Then I put it back, closed the album, set it carefully on the shelf, and told myself it was nothing.

But I had looked through that album a hundred times growing up, and I had never seen it before tonight.