They Said I Had No Choice, So I Learned How to Take One novel · Chapter 1 of 3
Chapter 1: The Snowbound Kitchen
Yara fends off Pavel's coercive demand to sign away her inheritance, then finds herself alone with Bram in the kitchen, where his quiet attention and a single offered word make her feel seen for the first time in years, leading her to trust him with her secret sketchbook in the attic.
Pavel's hand closed around Yara's wrist before she could reach the kettle.
'You'll sign it tonight,' he said. 'Father's tired of waiting.'
His thumb pressed into the soft skin over her pulse, hard enough to leave a mark.
She didn't pull away. Pulling away made it worse.
'He can ask me himself,' she said quietly.
Pavel smiled. It never reached his eyes.
'He's not asking. And you know what happens when he has to repeat himself.'
She knew. The memory of it lived in the base of her spine, in the way she still flinched at raised voices.
The document sat on the breakfast table where Gregor had left it before driving into town. Her mother's name was on the first page, and below it, a line waiting for Yara's signature.
Her mother's property share. The last thing Yara owned that Gregor couldn't touch.
Unless she signed.
'I need to think,' she said.
'You've had three days.' His grip tightened. 'You think I don't see you, Yara? Hiding in corners. Drawing your little pictures.'
Her stomach dropped.
He knew about the sketchbook.
'Or maybe you'd rather I tell Father about the attic?' Pavel tilted his head, watching her face. 'He'd burn every page. You know he would.'
She went very still.
That was the thing about living in this house. They always found the one thing you couldn't bear to lose.
Pavel released her wrist and stepped back, satisfied. 'Tonight. After dinner. Sign it, and maybe I'll forget the attic.'
He left through the front hall, his boots heavy on the floorboards.
Yara stood at the counter, her wrist throbbing, and forced herself to breathe.
She had survived this long by being invisible. But invisibility was no longer enough.
The side door opened.
Cold air swept through the kitchen, carrying snow and the smell of woodsmoke. A man stepped inside, stamping snow from his boots onto the mat.
Bram.
The new handyman. The housekeeper's younger brother, hired to clear the paths and mend the gate before the next storm.
Yara had seen him twice since he arrived. Both times he had watched her the way a man reads a map, like she was something to be understood.
She didn't like it.
'Morning,' he said, shrugging off his coat.
His voice was low and even, unhurried. He hung the coat on the hook by the door and crossed to the stove.
'You're up early,' Yara said. Her voice came out steady. It always did, when it mattered.
'Storm's coming. Wanted to check the fuel store before it hits.' He poured himself coffee from the pot on the stove, then paused.
He looked at her.
At her wrist, where Pavel's fingers had left red marks.
He said nothing.
But his jaw tightened, just slightly, and he set down his cup.
Then he took a second mug from the shelf and filled it with coffee.
He added a spoon of sugar and a splash of milk.
He held it out to her.
'I don't drink coffee,' she said.
'You do,' he said. 'I've watched you. You drink it when you're cold.'
She stared at him.
He had watched her. Not the way Pavel watched her, with hunger and threat. Not the way Gregor watched her, with ownership.
He had noticed what she drank when she was cold.
She took the mug. Her fingers brushed his, and for a second the warmth of his skin was the only thing in the room.
'Thank you,' she said.
He nodded once and went back to his coffee.
They stood on opposite sides of the kitchen, and the silence between them was not the silence she was used to. It did not press on her.
'You don't have to stay,' she said. 'The paths are clear enough.'
'I'll stay until the storm passes.' He didn't look at her. 'If that's all right.'
She should have said no. She should have told him to leave, to keep his distance, to stop looking at her like he could see through the careful blankness she wore like a coat.
But she didn't.
'It's all right,' she said.
And for the first time in years, she meant it.
She set the mug down and looked toward the stairs.
The attic.
Pavel knew about her sketchbook. That meant it wasn't safe anymore. But the thought of burning it herself, of destroying the only thing that was still hers, made her chest ache.
She wanted someone to see it.
Someone who wouldn't use it against her.
'Come with me,' she said.
Bram looked at her, his dark eyes steady.
'Where?'
'Just come.'
She didn't wait for him to answer. She walked to the narrow staircase at the back of the house and climbed, hearing his quiet footsteps behind her.
The attic door stuck in the cold. She pushed it open with her shoulder.
Inside, the air was cold and still. Dust motes hung in the grey light from the single high window. Her sketchbook lay on a wooden crate, where she had left it the night before.
She picked it up and held it against her chest.
'They're just drawings,' she said. 'Landscapes. Places I remember from before.'
'Before you came here,' Bram said.
She nodded.
She opened the book and held it out to him.
He took it carefully, the way she imagined he would take something fragile. His fingers turned the pages slowly, pausing at each drawing.
A river valley in autumn. A road through bare trees. A hill with a single oak at the top.
He stopped at the hill.
'This one,' he said. 'Where is it?'
'My mother's house. The view from the back field.' Her voice came out quieter than she intended. 'I used to sit there with her. Before she got sick.'
Bram said nothing. He looked at the drawing for a long time.
Then he lifted his hand and touched the edge of the paper.
His finger traced the line of the hill, slow and deliberate, following the curve she had drawn from memory.
The touch was so light she almost didn't feel it.
But she felt it.
His gaze lifted to hers.
The attic was very quiet. The storm pressed against the roof, a low wind that made the old beams creak.
He was standing close enough that she could see the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, the way his chest rose and fell under his sweater.
The space between them was suddenly very small.
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