Page 25 of Vicious Temptation
My mouth waters as we walk in. There’s a platter of pancakes in the center of the table, a bowl of fruit salad next to it, and three different types of syrup alongside a dish of whipped butter. Agnes is setting the butter down when we walk in, and she straightens, glancing over at me.
“Do you like coffee, Bella? I can make you some. And there’s creamer, too—I think we have hazelnut from the last time I went shopping.”
“Coffee sounds good,” I tell her gratefully, reaching for a plate to start fixing one for Danny. Cecelia is already serving herself, and I help Danny butter and add syrup to his pancakes before putting one and a scoop of fruit salad on a plate for myself, sinking down into a chair opposite them. Cecelia pours herself and Danny glasses of orange juice from a large pitcher—it looks fresh-squeezed, a darker orange than anything I’ve seen before with pulp floating on top—and Agnes brings me the coffee a minute later.
“Thank you,” I tell her gratefully. “Are you going to sit down and eat? Is Gabriel still here?”
Agnes blinks at me, pausing, and I have a moment’s panic that I stepped out of line by calling him Gabriel rather than Mr. Esposito. But he didn’t tell me to call him one or the other, and it’s hard to think of a man who took me on a speeding car ride down an abandoned road after a dinner out by anything other than his first name. We didn’t exactly have the most traditional beginning to our acquaintance as employer and employee.
“Gabriel leaves early in the morning,” Agnes says, the familiarity of his first name as easy on her tongue as if they were actually family. “He’s only here for breakfast on the weekends. And I’ve eaten already. I’m going to get a headstart on the chores, I think. Since you’re here now, I’m able to do that.” She gives me a smile, the lines on her face creasing. “I’ll have a bit more time now all around, I think.”
She leaves, and I pick at my breakfast while Danny and Cecelia eat, trying to eat as much as I can with the nerves tangling in my stomach. It’s strange having a job for the first time in my life, but it feels good, too—like my hours are more purposeful. For a long time, I’ve felt like I was rattling around in my home, with so much empty, pointless time. I could only fill so many hours with photography or reading, and I wanted something to give me a purpose. My father thought that would be marriage, but I wanted something else. There wouldn’t have been anything more fulfilling, to me, about going from being a daughter to a wife. All that would have changed is that I would have had a household and staff to oversee, parties to arrange, but nothing that really mattered. Nothing that made me feel like there was a reason for me to keep going.
Now, I do feel like there’s a reason for me to get up, rather than sleep in until I finally drag myself out of bed, something for me to apply myself to. The day is still just as long and in need of things to fill the hours as it ever has been, but now I get to do that with the two children I’m in charge of.
After we finish eating, I have them help me clear the table and take the dishes into the kitchen, remembering what Gabriel told me last night. I have a feeling that Agnes usually takes care of the dishes themselves, but I suggest that maybe we can give her one less thing to do, and Cecelia agrees. We rinse the dishes off and put them in the dishwasher, and then I turn to the two of them.
“Is there anything you’re supposed to do specifically during the day?” Gabriel gave me some idea of what their days should look like, but I want to give them both the opportunity to tell me themselves.
“Just some of my reading,” Cecelia says. “Danny doesn’t really have anything to do until baseball tryouts, but we can practice with him if you like.”
“Okay. Let’s go curl up in the living room and read for an hour, and then we’ll go toss the baseball around.” I’m not a particularly athletic person—I run, but I never did sports at the private school I went to, and I don’t lift weights or anything like that—but I think I can manage tossing a baseball back and forth with a nine-year-old and an eleven-year-old.
Cecelia goes to get her assigned book for summer reading, and I get the novel I’ve been working my way through out of my room. Danny comes running down the hall a few minutes later with his own book that he picked out of the library—not wanting to be left out—and the three of us go and settle into the living room. I set the alarm on my phone, and we sit there in relaxing silence for an hour. The only sounds are the birds outside the window and the crisp, brushing sound of pages turning.
It’s remarkably one of the best afternoons I’ve had in a while. I feel peaceful, sitting there on the soft sofa and working my way through the thriller that I bought a couple of months ago; the dark, twisty roads in the book are a sharp contrast to the cozy, warm space that I’m sitting in. The hour goes by before I know it, and my alarm goes off.
Cecelia sits up and shuts her book. “I’m going to go change,” she announces. “Can we go out to the pool after we play ball with Danny?”
“Sure,” I tell her, even though the thought of putting on a bathing suit makes me feel shivery and anxious all over again. But I don’t have to get in to oversee them swimming.
We go out to the backyard, where we form a sort of triangle. Danny brings a baseball with him, and we take turns tossing it and catching it out in the sunshine. On the other side of the house, I can see a couple of guys working on landscaping, and it makes me shrink back into the lightweight hoodie I’m wearing, tugging the sleeves down over my hands as I catch the ball again and toss it back to Danny.
“You dress weird,” Danny observes, tossing the ball to Cecelia, who gasps a little.
“Danny. You can’t just say things like that!” she exclaims, tossing it back to him.
“Why not? It’s true.” He throws it back to me. “It’s hot out.”
“I get cold easily.” I throw the ball to Cecelia, feeling guilty for essentially lying to them. But I guess I do feel cold, even though it’s not exactly the kind of cold that would make sense to them.
Danny gives me a look that says he doesn’t entirely believe me, but he’s nine, so he lets it go. We toss the ball back and forth for a little while longer before Danny throws it to me, and then bounces up and down on his toes, looking at me pleadingly. “Can we go to the pool now?”
It’s after noon, and getting hotter by the minute, the perfect time to go out and swim. I nod, and both of them tear towards the pool house, running inside to retrieve and change into swimsuits. I manage to corral them long enough to make sure they put on sunscreen before they both go cannonballing into the water. I retreat to one of the lounge chairs, sitting under the umbrella in my jeans and long-sleeved shirt as I watch them swim.
I would love to be in the water, too. It’s hot out, and the clear blue water shimmers like crystal, bright in the sunlight. The air smells of chlorine, and I know the water would feel good, cool, and refreshing. But the landscapers have moved around to the back of the house, and I tug the edge of my hoodie up closer around my neck, feeling anxious. None of them have turned around and looked at me, but I still want to edge further out of view, to make sure that they don’t. That none of those men have a reason to look.
The last time men like that looked at me—big, muscled men with dark hair and stubble, broad, calloused hands, they slid those hands all over me. They tore at my wedding dress and laughed, saying I didn’t have any use for it any longer, as they shoved me into a room. They took bets on whether or not Pyotr would still fuck me, even though it had been established by that point that he wasn’t really going to marry me. Then they took bets on whether or not he would let them fuck me, once he was done with me.
Nausea rises up in my throat, hot and thick, and I clench my hands into fists, letting the bite of my nails in my palms bring me back into the here and now. Back to the present, where the men trimming the hedges around the house are just normal, innocuous men who have no interest in me, where my focus needs to be on paying attention to the two children chasing each other around the shallow end of the pool and splashing.
Several deep breaths, and I manage to push the memories down, the panic subsiding. I tuck my legs under me and lean back against the lounge chair, enjoying the sun despite how overheated I am as I watch Danny and Cecelia play in the water.
After a little while, Agnes comes out to tell us lunch is ready. I get the two of them to dry off and get back into their normal clothes, and then we head inside, where Agnes has tuna melts and potato chips with onion dip and lemonade waiting. All four of us sit down for lunch, eating in amicable silence until we’re finished, and I help Agnes clean up.
I know they’re supposed to take a nap after that, so I get the two of them upstairs, tucked in for an hour. I have nothing to do for a little while, so I take the opportunity to wander the house, going to the library to look through the bookshelves.
The selection is endless, enough for me to spend the next year or more working my way through them, without ever having to buy anything else. It occurs to me then to wonder if my father is still putting my allowance on the card that I have—Gabriel hadn’t said anything about my getting paid directly for this job. I assume the money is going to my father, to put into a trust for me. I feel a small twist of anxiety, wondering if my father might just decide that I have no need for an allowance any longer, since everything is provided for me here. But I still want to be able to go out and see Clara, to shop or have lunch, or do any of the things I used to do. It occurs to me that I’m not certain if I have access to a driver any longer either—and I can’t exactly drive myself.