Reborn to Ruin Him novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Atonement

Gabriel orders Camille to serve Rosalind in front of the household, and she records every word and overhears a phone call about fourteen weeks.

Three days after the banquet, Gabriel lined up the whole household in the front hall.

The butler, two maids, the cook and the driver stood in a row with their hands folded.

I stood at the end of it, in my robe, because he had called me down without letting me dress.

Rosalind sat on the velvet bench by the stairs with a cashmere blanket over her knees. Her suitcases were already inside the door.

Gabriel did not look at me. He looked at the staff.

"Miss Ellery will be my wife in a month," he said. "She is carrying my child. Whatever she asks for, she gets."

"Camille will serve her."

Nobody moved.

"She will cook Rosalind's meals, wash her clothes and carry whatever she needs," he said. "She does it until she repents."

"Repents of what?" I asked.

"You know exactly what."

He still thought I had drugged him.

"All right," I said.

The cook stared at the floor. The old butler, who had carried me on his shoulders when I was two, looked at the ceiling and swallowed.

Gabriel frowned. He had come ready for a fight, and I had given him nothing to hit.

He picked up his briefcase and walked out. The car started in the drive, and the staff went back to their work without a word.

Rosalind patted the bench beside her.

"Camille," she said sweetly, "I'm sorry for the trouble."

My phone sat in the pocket of my robe, and I had started the voice recorder in the hall.

I wanted her words, saved, with the date on them.

By noon she had sent me for crackers, then for a different cracker. She wanted the curtains drawn, then open. She wanted ginger tea at exactly the heat of her wrist.

At two, she said she felt sick.

I brought the wastebasket and stood next to her while she gagged.

She missed it on purpose. I watched her aim.

Sour vomit splashed over the back of my hand.

"Oh, your poor hand," Rosalind said, and she was smiling into the pillow.

I wiped it with a tissue. My face stayed blank.

"Her feet are swollen," she told the empty room. "Gabe says someone should rub them."

I knelt on the rug and took her ankle in both hands.

An hour passed. Then another. My forearms shook and went numb.

Rosalind lay back with her eyes half shut, and her voice dropped low.

"You know what's funny?" she said. "He cried over me last night. Do you know what he said about you?"

"No."

"That he feels sorry for you. A grown woman throwing herself at her own brother."

She opened her blue eyes and held mine.

"He is mine, Camille. He was always going to be mine."

"Say it again," I said. "A little slower."

Her smile slipped. "What?"

"Sorry, I lost my place." I moved my thumbs up her ankle. "Is that better?"

She closed her eyes again, satisfied.

Behind me, a floorboard creaked.

Gabriel was standing in the doorway with his coat still on.

He had come back for a file. I could see it in his hand.

I did not know how long he had been there.

He was staring at my knees on the rug and my hands on her ankle.

Then his eyes went up to my mouth and stayed there, and his jaw worked.

It was disgust, I told myself. It had to be disgust.

"Get up," he said, hoarse. "You're done."

"She isn't done," Rosalind whispered.

"I said done."

He turned around and left, and I heard the front door shut a second time.

Rosalind sat up, furious, and went out to the balcony with her phone.

I carried the tea tray down to the kitchen, where the old butler was waiting with a bowl of warm water and a clean towel.

"Miss Cami," he said quietly, "say the word, and half of this house walks out with you."

"Not yet," I said. "Keep the doors open for me."

I emailed the recording to myself and to the lawyer in Zurich, then dried my hands.

On the way back with the tray, I passed the balcony. She had not noticed the door hadn't latched.

"I know," she said. "The doctor says fourteen weeks."

A pause.

"He'll never count. I told you, he never counts anything."

Then she stepped through the door and pulled it shut. I heard nothing more.

I stood in the hall with the tray against my chest.

Then I took out my phone and wrote it in my notes, under the day's date.

Fourteen weeks. He'll never count.

I did not know what it meant.

But she had been talking about Gabriel to someone who was not Gabriel.

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