by Stasia Black
“I burned your things. The second Paul told me what you tried to do after you didn’t come home last night. I threw them in the trash and set them on fire.”
Cora felt her mouth drop open. She’d burned— But that was all Cora had— All she owned in the whole world—
“But—” Cora broke off, biting back tears. Paul stalked into the room behind Diana. “Paul, tell her,” Cora appealed. “Tell her what happened. Please. I need the money for the work I did. I don’t have anything else. I need that money.”
But Paul was stone-faced and when he walked forward, he put an arm around his wife. “You need to go or we will call the police.”
“I’m already dialing,” Diana said, touching her phone and holding it to her ear. “Yes, hello. There’s a psycho intruder in our house. Our former nanny who’s stalking my husband.”
Cora stumbled backwards and pulled the front door shut behind her. It wasn’t fair! They shouldn’t be able to do that to her. She’d been depending on that money.
She heard sirens in the distance. They probably weren’t coming for her. Sirens were a normal part of city life but still, it had her running.
She didn’t have any ID or even a social security number thanks to her mom’s obsession with living off the grid. It was one of the reasons working for the Donahues was so perfect. They didn’t mind paying her under the table in cash.
But now there was no cash.
No job.
No nothing.
She didn’t even have her phone thanks to that bastard from last night.
She only slowed down when she turned the corner and ran down the steps to the subway.
She had twenty bucks on her from the night before and that was all. She spent five on a subway ticket and got on the first train that showed up.
Sitting on the grimy subway car, she looked around and the full weight of her situation finally hit her.
She had nowhere to sleep tonight.
Her eyes fell on a dirty, obviously homeless man sleeping in the corner of the train.
Well that was one option.
Her head dropped backwards against the window behind her and she closed her eyes. Gods, was she seriously contemplating sleeping on the subway car like the homeless bum? Was that how far she’d fallen?
Why are you being so sanctimonious? You are homeless.
She scrubbed her hand down her face.
She thought she was so brave, escaping the farm. She’d done it on the spur of the moment. She’d seen a chance and taken it. Cora was a terrible liar and no one could read her better than her controlling mother.
Controlling. Ha. Her mother was pathological.
Demi Vestian watched every single thing her daughter did. She monitored how much food Cora ate, how much she slept, if she’d done all her chores, if she did her schooling and did it perfectly. Most of the time Cora felt more like a science experiment or a prize show dog than a daughter.
Not that her mother ever showed her off.
No, that was the other singular rule of their lives. They never saw anyone. Ever.
If they had to have a vet out to look at the horses, Cora was locked in the cellar for the duration.
Her mom took the truck into town twice a month for food and supplies but Cora was always left behind. Cora only got to read about other kids in books. She never met any.
Until she was a teenager and got fed up with it.
One time when she was fifteen, she stole the truck and drove down the long road that led away from the farm.
It was stupid and reckless and she only knew the rudiments of how to drive. But the road was flat and straight and it was a bright, sunny afternoon. Within an hour, she’d made it to town.
She pulled the truck to a stop on the side of the road and parked it as soon as she came to a grouping of buildings. She got out and started walking.
She walked from one store to the next, delighted and amazed by everything she saw, but most of all by the people. They seemed as surprised to see her as she was to see them. Who was she? they wanted to know. She didn’t know how to answer their questions. She felt like it would be betraying her mom to say she lived down the road. No one was supposed to know she existed. She never knew why, but she knew that much.
But someone recognized her. The owner of the general store, a man so old his skin was papery with wrinkles and folds.
“You related to Demi? You’re the spittin’ image. The spittin’ image, as I live and breathe. You a cousin come to visit? Or her niece?”
Cora nodded, not daring to speak. She backed out of the general store. Right into a group of teenagers.
One of the boys said she was pretty and he invited her to a party they were all going to. A party! Like she’d read about in her Sweet Valley High books.
She got in the back of a truck with the two boys and three girls and they drove out to an empty field. Cora couldn’t stop smiling and laughing even though she started feeling self-conscious after one of the other girls whispered loudly about her, making fun of her worn overalls with the patches on the knees.
But not even that was enough to dampen Cora’s mood. She helped the guys build up the bonfire and she felt a warm glow that had nothing to do with the fire when the boy who’d first called her pretty touched her hair and said it was the color of moonlight.
Cora had never heard anything so pretty or poetic and when the boy invited her to sit on the hay bale beside him, she giggled but accepted.
They’d started breaking out the beer, which Cora politely declined, when suddenly the field was lit up by headlights and the blaring noise of sirens.
“Shit, cops!” the boy sitting beside Cora shouted.
Cora had jumped up and covered her ears, confused.
The boy who’d called her pretty ran away, along with all his friends, disappearing into the nearby cornfield. They all left her standing there alone as two police cars surrounded her.
Almost the second they came to a stop, Demi was jumping out of the first police car and running towards Cora.
Cora was both relieved and horrified to see her mother. She felt like crying, especially when her mother yanked her by her arm back toward the police car without a word.
She didn’t say a single word to her as the police drove them back to her mom’s truck where she’d abandoned it outside town.
And her mom didn’t say a word after she’d hauled Cora into the passenger seat of the truck and slammed the side door shut after she was in. Or for the entire forty-five-minute drive back to the farm.
As soon as the farm came back into sight, Cora finally ventured, “Mom, I’m sorry. I just wanted to see how—”
“Do you know what could have happened to you?” her mom yelled, slamming her foot on the breaks and jamming the truck into park. “How could you be so selfish?”
Cora hunched down in her seat.
“After all I do for you.” Mom shook her head. “After the years I have sacrificed for you, slaved for you, out here in the middle of nowhere. You think I like it out here with no one but you for company? But I do it. For you. To protect you. And you go and throw it back in my face like this.”
“Why?” Cora sat up, slamming her hands on the seat beside her. “Why do we have to live like this? Why can’t we live in town? Or a city? Why can’t I have friends or go to a normal school?”
But Mom shook her head like Cora was being ridiculous. “How many times do I have to tell you how dangerous it is out there?”
“It wasn’t dangerous today,” Cora disagreed. “Those kids were nice. We were having a nice time.”
Mom scoffed. “You’re so stupid you don’t even know what you don’t know. You think those boys were being nice to you because they liked you? They wanted what’s between your legs. If I hadn’t shown up you would have turned out to be a statistic in the morning paper.”
Cora shoved open her door and got out of the truck. “You’re wrong.” And she’d slammed the door behind her.
A
ll of which was the wrong thing to do.
Because her mother got out of the truck just as quickly and before Cora could blink, she was around the truck and had Cora’s arm in her iron grip.
She dragged Cora into the house, ignoring her cries.
“No. No, Mom!” Cora screeched as soon as she realized where Mom was taking her. “Not the cellar. Please. I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry!”
But once Mom had made her mind up about something, there was no changing it. And though Cora was fifteen, she’d always been small for her age and she was no match for her mom’s wiry, compactly muscled body.
Mom had her down the stairs to the damp, chilly cellar before she could even get another plea out. She shoved Cora to the floor and jogged back up the steps.
“Mom,” Cora called, getting up and jumping to her feet. “Mama!” She ran up the stairs right as her mother slammed the cellar door on her.
And no matter how much she banged on the door or begged and pleaded and swore she’d do better, her mom wouldn’t open up.
She didn’t open the doors for three days and three nights. Not that Cora knew that until later. At the time, all Cora knew was that she was in the cold and the dark and that it was never ending. There was a gallon of water and a bucket for her to use the bathroom, and Cora finally got hungry enough that she opened some of the jam they had stored down there and ate it straight.
And when her mother finally opened the door and Cora had squinted up at the rectangle of light, things were never the same between them again.
Cora opened her eyes and looked around the subway car.
She couldn’t go home. She’d sworn once she finally escaped that farm, and her mother, that she’d never ever go back.
Which meant there was really only one option, no matter how mortifying it might be. Cora pulled the card Sharo had given her out of her skirt pocket.
The subway car was almost empty. A weary-looking woman in business attire sat in the front, the seat furthest away from the homeless man. Cora stood up, holding onto the poles as she made her way over to the woman.
“Hi, ma’am, I’m sorry to bother you, but could I borrow your phone?”
Four
“We have to stop meeting like this,” Cora joked nervously as Marcus opened the door to his penthouse hotel suite and gestured for her to come in.
The edge of his mouth quirked up in a half smile. Was he laughing at her joke or at her? Not that it mattered either way. He was doing her a huge favor.
“I really appreciate this,” she said. “It’ll just be for the night.” She cringed. “Or maybe a couple of nights? As soon as I get another nannying gig, I’ll be out of your hair, I swear.”
Marcus didn’t say anything, he just watched her with that inscrutable look on his face. He tilted his head, indicating she should come in. Well, further in than the foyer where she was babbling like an idiot.
“Sharo mentioned you hadn’t eaten yet.”
“Oh,” Cora said, surprised to see an elaborate table set up in a small dining area. The windows were still not darkened.
She took several more steps forward, awed by the glittering tableau. She’d seen it earlier, but been too distracted to take it in properly. Now, she swayed as she faced rows and rows of skyscrapers, the entire city laid at her feet.
“I’ve never been so high up,” she whispered. She wanted to go right up to the window but kept back. Looking down on the skyscrapers made her dizzy. “I mean, I knew we must be up this high from how long the elevator ride took but…” she trailed off, shaking her head.
When she looked back at Marcus, his head was tilted, his eyes narrowed at her like she was a particularly peculiar species of zoo animal.
She felt her cheeks heat and lifted her hands to them. Gods, why couldn’t she keep her mouth shut? And not let every single thing she was feeling and thinking show on her face?
She moved abruptly to go sit down at the table. “Thank you, I am famished.”
Marcus moved as she did, getting there right before her and holding her chair for her as she sat down.
His scent enveloped her, his arm brushing hers, and like earlier when he’d escorted her downstairs, the merest touch sent a jolt of electricity through her entire body.
She gasped and sat down, grabbing the seat of the chair and scooting herself in. “Thank you.” She ran a hand nervously through her hair as she smiled up at him.
Her plate was covered with a fancy silver plate topper. She lifted it off and steam wafted up. “Oh!” she said, surprised again. Marcus chuckled as he sat down across from her.
“I hope you don’t mind but I took the liberty of ordering for us. Roasted lamb shank, corn and leek grits, ruby chard, roasted rutabaga, topped with goat cheese.”
“Oh,” Cora said, yet again, nodding and looking down at her plate, eyes wide. She didn’t think she’d ever seen such a large piece of meat. At least not on a plate set in front of her.
“You aren’t a vegetarian, are you?”
“No,” she said quickly. She and Mom did mostly eat vegetarian, but it hadn’t been due to any choice on Cora’s part. That was the point of leaving, wasn’t it? So that she could finally have choices in her life?
Cora smiled and reached for her fork…only to find there were several forks. She grabbed the one nearest the plate and smiled wider. “Cheers,” she said, lifting the fork like it was a wine glass she was toasting with.
Marcus chuckled again and she averted her eyes to her plate, digging into the lamb shank. It was so well-cooked and tender, it melted off the big bone. Tentatively, she lifted it to her mouth.
And almost embarrassed herself even more by moaning out loud. She stopped herself at the last second but holy crap.
Her eyes flew to Marcus and as soon as she finished chewing and swallowing the bite, she couldn’t help saying, “Oh my gods, that’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten in my entire life.”
He sat back in his chair, brow wrinkled like he’d never seen anything like her before. He hadn’t touched his food yet.
“Aren’t you going to have yours? It’s delicious. Trust me.”
“Oh I don’t doubt it,” he said. “I’ll give your compliments to the chef.”
She nodded as she eagerly forked another big bite. “Please do,” she said before shoving the forkful into her mouth. Dear gods, this was what she’d been missing out on the last nineteen years of her life? Now she had even more to begrudge her mother. It was a crime to have never encountered food this good before.
Her mom was a fan of boiled vegetables. And rice. Plain white rice. Food was fuel, that’s what her mom always said. Just fuel.
“Wait till we get to dessert,” Marcus said, finally taking a bite of his food, his eyes never leaving her.
“What’s dessert?”
“Chocolate mousse.”
Cora fought against licking her lips. She adored chocolate.
“So tell me. What made you change your mind and come back?”
“Oh.” Obviously her favorite word for the evening. “Well I went by my former employers to pick up my, um, paycheck and my belongings but there was, um…”
Cora looked towards the window. “…a little bit of an issue.” She glanced back Marcus’s way and then down at her plate. “Anyway, I wasn’t able to get my paycheck or any of my things. They’d already thrown them out. And I lost my phone last night when that man… So I didn’t have anyone’s phone number because they were all in the phone and I didn’t know where to go without any money…”
She shoved another bite of lamb shank into her mouth if only to cut herself off from saying anything else. She hazarded another glance at Marcus. He had his glass of wine in his hand but he set it abruptly down on the table, frowning. “They didn’t give you the money they owed you?”
Cora swallowed the meat and reached for her cup of water. All the sudden she felt hot. She fanned herself with her other hand. Did he feel like it was hot in here?
Marcus was still
staring at her, obviously expecting an answer, so she shook her head, three quick shakes back and forth.
It was embarrassing enough experiencing it the first time around, but now having to tell Marcus seemed like adding insult to injury. She didn’t know what was worse, him knowing all the details of her pathetic situation or thinking she was a mooch, eager to eat his fancy food and sleep in his fancy penthouse hotel suite.
“That’s not acceptable.”
The dark look that crossed his face on her behalf both pleased and scared her a little.
She quickly waved a hand. “It’s one of those things that happens, I guess. I’ll be more careful in the future.”
“But surely you have some money in the bank?”
Gods, could she die of embarrassment?
“I don’t have a bank account. I kept it all in cash.”
She could feel his eyes on her even without looking up. “And, well, I don’t exactly have an ID either. Or a social security number. My mom’s kind of…intense, I guess is one way to put it. I grew up way out in the middle of nowhere on a farm and my mom homeschooled me and everything. Mom wanted to be off the grid.”
Cora fiddled with her fork in her grits. “Like, really off the grid. Apparently she even gave birth to me at home and never, you know, got a birth certificate or social security card or anything for me.”
Cora braced herself and finally looked up at Marcus. But she couldn’t read a single thing from his features. It wasn’t that his face was blank—his eyes were lit with interest, but he didn’t look as shocked or appalled as she’d expected. It gave her the courage to go on.
“So when I left home and came to the city, I didn’t have any paperwork. I didn’t even think about it. I didn’t know you needed that kind of thing to get a job. But it turns out it’s really important.”
“But you still got the nannying job.”
She shrugged. “They were fine with paying me cash.”
“And they didn’t require references?”
“They told me they’d have a nanny cam on me at all times and I got along really well with Timmy during our trial play date. Plus I wasn’t asking for as much money as other nannies, I learned later.”