Deceitful Vows (Marital Privileges #2)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

ANDRIK

Almost five years old…

“ T wik. She’s coming.”

Cold air makes crazy bumps on my arms when Mommy runs past me so fast you’d swear Anoushka, my nanny, was chasing her down with a scratchy, sodden washcloth.

“Quick, Andrik.” Mommy’s smile when she spins to face me makes my heart thump. I love it when she’s happy. It makes me happy too.

I run faster than my feet ever thought possible and then leap into her arms as we reach my bedroom. You’d never know my face is covered with chocolate icing for how tightly she pulls me into her chest. I’m making a mess, even more than I did when I snuck a big bite of my birthday cake just as the baker finished icing it.

It was delicious, and I can’t wait to share it with my friends tomorrow.

“Where should we hide, Andrik?”

I laugh like my mommy is as silly as she is pretty when she throws up the covers on my bed and points to the floor underneath. We’d never fit. There are too many monster trucks under my bed to squeeze in two whole people. It is also the first place Anoushka would look.

I always hide there.

Not anymore. I’m a big boy now.

Well, I will be tomorrow.

I’m turning five and about to have the best birthday party in the world. I’m not the only one who thinks so. All the kids from my hometown want to come to my party—even the ones who made Mommy cry when she found out about them.

I have three brothers, but I am the only one who grew inside my mommy’s tummy. She said Daddy has a condition that makes it hard for him to be faithful. I don’t know what faithful means. It seems important to Mommy. Anytime she talks about it, she gets wet eyes. She also makes me promise at least once a month that when I find someone I want to love more than I love her—which will never happen—that I’ll be faithful to them.

Maybe being faithful means that when I want to have babies, I will only have them with one person. I could be wrong, but that’s very unlikely. My mommy says I’m very smart. Only when I make steam come out of Anoushka’s ears do I take after my daddy.

I don’t like when my mommy cries, so anytime we talk about my brothers, I tell her she has nothing to worry about. I’ll never love anyone more than I love her, but if that ever changes, I will be faithful.

Life is too short to think about ifs and buts.

My mommy says that all the time.

You make a plan and you stick to it.

That’s her second favorite saying, so I do exactly that. I snatch up Mommy’s hand and race for the closet I had planned to hide in when I dashed out of the kitchen with sticky hands and a mouth full of cake.

We almost make it, but my legs are too tired from all the running I did earlier. My grandfather’s house is ginormous. It would have been quicker to run home than to the room I always use when we visit Grandpa. The last time I tried to do that, the secret service agents who follow Grandpa everywhere he goes got mad at me.

I promised them I wouldn’t do it again, and I like to keep my promises. They make my mommy happy, and that feels like my job lately.

I giggle, squirm, and squeal when Anoushka wraps her arms around my waist and pulls me back. My screams are loud enough to wake my grandpa, who went to bed ages ago, until Anoushka’s washcloth takes care of the mess Mommy’s shirt missed. She attacks me with the washcloth like she did in the bath, and I laugh so much I almost pee my pants.

I would have if Mommy hadn’t saved me.

She scoops me into her arms and blows raspberries onto my tummy until the thump I mentioned earlier makes me deaf. I feel warm and fuzzy when she places me in bed. I don’t think it has anything to do with the thick covers. It’s how she looks at me when our eyes lock and the pretty sparkles that dance through her eyes when she tells me she loves me.

“I love you too, Mommy,” I reply, yawning.

I’ve been waking up too early. It isn’t my fault. Party preparation takes time, and I overheard someone telling Daddy that Mommy did not have much time left, so I had to help.

After fixing my hair into place, Mommy twists to face Anoushka. “We will save the Big Angry Bear for tomorrow night.” Her eyes are back on me, happy and glistening. “Someone seems a little tired. I doubt he will make it through story time.”

I yawn again, proving Mommy right. I’m not surprised. She is smarter than me. I’m so tired she only rakes her fingers through my messy dark locks a handful of times before my eyelids grow heavy.

“Go to sleep, Andrik,” Mommy whispers. “It’s your big day tomorrow, and I can’t wait to share it with you.”

Her hands are so gentle that not even the excitement that I’m about to turn five stops my eyelids from closing. They flutter shut just as a big booming voice asks to speak to Mommy.

“In a minute,” she replies, her voice as soft as her hands. “I promised Andrik that I would put him to bed.” She sounds distant even with her hands still in my hair. She must have turned to face the person. “When you make a promise, you keep it.” Her breaths tickle my ear more than the dark hairs curled around it. “Don’t you, Andrik?”

I nod for half a second before falling asleep.

I shouldn’t have skipped story time. I badly need to go to the bathroom. My tummy is making noises like the Angry Bear in my favorite bedtime story. I don’t think it liked my cake as much as my tastebuds did.

Mommy said I shouldn’t eat sweets before bed or they’ll give me a tummy ache.

Mommy was right.

After crawling out of bed, I go to the bathroom in the hallway. I don’t have a bathroom next to my desk like in my bedroom at home. Mommy said Grandpa’s houses are massive but old. She said when they were built, they had a stinky pan under all the beds for guests to do their business.

That’s another reason I’ll no longer hide under a bed.

People once put their poop down there.

That’s gross.

I’m about to enter the bathroom a few doors down from my room when I hear shouting. That happens a lot at Grandpa’s house, especially between my mommy and daddy. The mean voice doesn’t sound like Daddy this time. It is deeper and weird, like one of my brothers’ moms. She’s from another country, so she doesn’t talk like us.

I race for the stairwell when Mommy shouts, “No. I can’t leave him. He needs me. And you promised. You said if I married him, I could stay.”

Whatever the man with a big round tummy tells her makes her mad. She doesn’t keep her hands balled at her sides like she does when she shouts at Daddy. She slaps him hard across the face.

I can’t see his face since he’s so tall, but the crack sound makes it obvious that she hit him—as does the way he grabs my mommy’s arms. He digs his fat fingers in deep, and tears burst into my eyes.

He’s hurting my mommy, and it makes my chest ache so much that I forget I need to poop. I race down the stairwell with an angry roar and barge away the man with a hairy top lip from my mommy.

He doesn’t budge an inch.

I’m not so lucky. He hits me so hard that the red ring on his pinkie finger cracks my cheek and sends me sprawling backward.

I’m not exactly sure what happens next. A weird click sounds through my ears a second before my vision is blocked by the shirt Anoushka wears anytime we stay at Grandpa’s place. She has to wear it to make sure the secret service knows she is the help.

She isn’t the help to me.

She is family.

“It’s okay, Andrik,” Anoushka assures me when I try to check on my mommy.

Anoushka must have raced us up the stairwell, as the man who hit me is below me again, surrounded by people in black suits and shiny shoes. Only one pair of shoes look like my mommy’s.

“Mommy!” I shout when she walks away with the man who hurt me.

She wouldn’t do that.

She would never go with a person who hit me.

She once told Daddy she would kill him if he ever hurt me.

“Mommy! Don’t go with him. Come back!”

I fight and fight to get out of Anoushka’s hold. She never lets me go. She holds on tight until the wetness on my cheeks makes me so tired that I don’t care if I wake up with pajama pants just as messy.