“Alejandra!” Alice shouts as she knocks on my bedroom door.

I think I’m just going to ignore her, pretend that I’m asleep or something.

Ever since I got here last night, I’ve just been lying here in my old bed, wallowing in my misery. Not even the happy squeals of Seth and Alice’s baby could entice me to go outside—that’s just going to remind me of everything I want that I can’t have.

I should be happy. I’ve gotten everything I set out to get when I left this mansion a few months ago.

I have a big stash of money in the bank because Zeke paid me a portion of the money right after we got married. I have more than enough to start my own life.

I can go back to university and get my law degree. I can live wherever I want—I can rent the biggest, swankiest apartment in any city. Hell, if I feel like taking a whole year off to live in a Tibetan monastery to seek enlightenment, I can do that too.

I mean, it turns out I’m not pregnant, so I can start over. I can just forget about the whole fake marriage thing. Just consider the whole thing a false start. A mistake.

But when I think about the negative result on the pregnancy test, it makes me feel kind of sad. I took another one last night as soon as I got here, not knowing what to expect.

For my own good, I probably shouldn’t see Zeke again. He makes me lose my mind. I’m not rational when it concerns him.

I keep thinking that if I were pregnant with his baby, at least I’d still have something of him. Something that links us together. An actual human being whose genes are half mine and half his.

I imagine our baby would have our dark eyes and hair. The child would grow up bilingual, and he or she would do well at school, just like I always have. I’d let the kid off the hook too many times, because he or she would have inherited Zeke’s easy charm and knows exactly what to say to get out of trouble.

I take a deep breath and let it all out in a big sigh. None of that is going to happen now. Not ever.

But no baby is a good thing. I should learn to take care of myself before I take on such a big responsibility.

“Alejandra!” Alice knocks again, more urgently this time.

I heave another sigh. I was hoping everyone would leave me alone.

They actually have not bothered me at all since last night, except for when Alice asked me if I wanted to join them for dinner last night, and then for lunch a couple of hours ago.

Maybe she really wants me to have that lunch? I don’t think an invitation to lunch warrants the kind of urgency with which she’s pounding on the door right now. But then both Seth and Alice are weird when it comes to food.

I swing my feet down over the edge of the bed and let the momentum help bring the rest of my body up.

“Alejandra!” Alice yells out again from outside, her voice becoming more and more urgent by the second.

“Yeah!” I shout back as I pad toward the door, the marble floor cold under my bare feet.

When I open the door, Alice looks like she has seen a ghost. Her blue eyes are bigger than I’ve ever seen them. I know I’m usually made up and wearing nicer clothes, but I don’t look as ghastly as her expression would suggest…do I?

“Hey, uh, there’s a man downstairs looking for you.” Alice stumbles all over her words, like she can’t get them out fast enough.

Immediately, my whole body wakes up. This is unusual. Alarmingly unusual.

“Downstairs?” I ask with a frown. “You mean at the front door? Not at the gate?”

Seth has heavy security all around the mansion, and he doesn’t let many people get past the gate.

Whoever this man is, Seth has probably let him through. But why would he do that? And why is Alice panicking?

Faintly, I hear voices from down the hall. Male voices. Loud, angry voices.

What is going on?

I turn toward at Alice again, waiting for some kind of an explanation. But she’s just looking at me, wide-eyed and impatient.

“You’d better come,” she says.

“I should probably change my cloth—”

“Now,” she cuts me off. “There’s no time.”

Alice grabs my hand and pulls me down the long hallway, toward where the voices are coming from. Her blonde hair floats in the air with every step from how fast she’s walking.

“What’s going on, Alice? Who’s looking for me?” I ask as I try to keep up.

As the voices grow louder, I recognize the louder, angrier voice as Seth’s. But who is he angry at? And why?

“I don’t know. He has an unusual name. It starts with a Z, I think.”

My heart skips a beat. When it starts working again, it pounds against my rib cage, hammering so hard it feels like my whole body is shaking.

“Zeke?” I ask.