I avoided looking at myself in the mirror for three days straight.
Every time I caught my reflection — pregnant belly, rose-gold collar gleaming against my skin, the faint marks Alexander left on my thighs — I felt sick. The woman staring back wasn’t the innocent girl who had moved into his mansion. She was something Alexander had carefully shaped and broken.
He noticed my silence, of course. He always noticed everything.
On the fourth evening, he found me sitting on the edge of the private dock, legs dangling over the water, staring at the horizon like it could save me.
Alexander sat beside me without speaking at first. The sunset painted everything in blood-red and gold.
“You’re pulling away,” he said finally, voice low. “I can feel it.”
I didn’t answer.
He reached over and gently
