Emily stared at the closed door, the weight of her decision pressing down like a suffocating blanket. She had agreed to sell herself—not her body, exactly, but something far more precious. Her freedom.
A knock startled her from her spiraling thoughts. "Miss Chen?" A woman's voice—crisp, professional. "I'm Victoria Ashworth, your stylist. Mr. Drake sent me."
When Emily opened the door, she found an elegant woman in her forties, silver hair pinned into a flawless chignon. Behind her, a small army wheeled in racks of gowns, shoes, and glittering accessories.
"We have much to do and very little time," Victoria said briskly, scanning Emily with a hawk's eye. "Mr. Drake has very specific requirements for tonight's… debut."
The next hour blurred into a storm of fabric, fittings, and clipped phone calls. Emily quickly realized her "preferences" barely mattered.
"Yes, Mr. Drake," Victoria said into her phone. "The emerald green brings out her eyes beautifully. No, nothing too revealing—not for the first appearance. Understood. Elegant, but unmistakably claimed."
Claimed. The word made Emily's stomach turn.
Bit by bit, she watched her reflection shift in the mirror. The loose curls cascading over one shoulder. The flawless, subtle makeup. The emerald silk gown hugging her curves like liquid fire. By the time Victoria stepped back in satisfaction, Emily barely recognized herself.
"Perfect," the stylist pronounced. "You look exactly as you should—a woman who belongs to Alexander Drake."
The words cut deeper than any headline. Emily didn't look like herself anymore. She looked… owned.
"Mr. Drake will see you now."
Her hands trembled as she smoothed the silk over her hips. This was it. Her first step into the gilded cage.
Alexander was waiting in his suite, framed by the city skyline. He wore a black tuxedo tailored so precisely it looked carved onto his body. When he turned, his gaze swept over her like a brand.
"Exquisite," he murmured. Satisfaction darkened his eyes. "Victoria has outdone herself."
"Thank you," Emily said softly, though the words tasted wrong.
He moved closer, circling her with slow precision. A predator appraising his prize.
"Before we leave, we need to establish some ground rules. Consider this your orientation."
Her stomach knotted. "What kind of rules?"
"The kind that keep you safe." His tone made it clear he meant under his control.
"Rule number one: you will be watched at all times."
Her eyes widened. "Watched?"
"My security will track you. Every room you enter, every word you speak. You're far too valuable to leave unprotected."
"You mean you don't trust me."
"Trust is earned," he said smoothly, stepping so close she could smell the steel and spice of his cologne. "And you, my dear, are a flight risk. Cameras in your suite. Men outside your door. My eyes on you in public."
Her breath caught. "Cameras? In my bedroom?"
"Everywhere." His voice carried not the slightest hesitation. "I protect what's mine. And for thirty days, Emily, you are mine."
The word mine sent an involuntary shiver down her spine. She hated herself for it.
"Rule number two," Alexander went on, pacing around her like a wolf. "You will not speak to another man without my explicit permission. Not Vincent. Not the waitstaff. Not even my business associates, unless I direct it."
Emily's jaw dropped. "That's ridiculous—"
"That's non-negotiable." His tone turned lethal. "My mistress would never embarrass me by chatting with men who might… misinterpret her attention. Understand?"
She realized then that this wasn't just about maintaining a charade. It was about control.
He watched her when she asked the question, not with the flat cruelty she'd grown used to expecting, but with a kind of quiet curiosity — as if he were measuring how much of her remained. "You smile politely and steer the conversation back to me," Alexander said. "Make it unmistakable: your world begins and ends with Alexander Drake." His eyes flashed, something like hunger and something like fear. "Fail to follow this rule and there will be consequences."
"What kind of consequences?" Emily's voice came out thinner than she intended.
Alexander reached into his jacket without a flourish, like this was all part of an ordinary routine, and produced a small black velvet box. He didn't answer; he opened it instead. The lid flipped up and for a beat the room stopped — a small, private sun catching on platinum and diamonds.
It was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen: a delicate chain of platinum links, each one holding a tiny diamond that winked when the light hit it. For a moment Emily simply forgot to be afraid. The bracelet was stunning, and a ridiculous part of her — the part that had once dreamed in magazines and on late-night TV — breathed.
"Give me your wrist," Alexander said, softer than she expected.
She hesitated. Part of her recognized the move for what it was: another step deeper into the trap. But the impatience that creased his jaw and the way his hand tightened — not roughly, but with an insistence that felt intimate — pushed her forward. She extended her left wrist.
His fingers were warm. He fastened the clasp with a motion practiced enough to be gentle and practiced enough to be possessive. The metal settled against her skin; the weight was real, comforting in a way that made her angry with herself.
"It's beautiful," she said before she could stop herself.
He glanced at the diamonds, then back to her face. "Yes." He let the word hang between them, then added, almost quietly, "And now it's yours. A token of my…affection."
At the echo of his earlier words — You belong to me now — the breath left her. "A beautiful leash," Alexander said, as if he were finishing the thought she hadn't wanted to admit.
The boldness of it stung. Emily tried to pull her hand free; his fingers tightened on her wrist, not painfully, but wholly owned. "Don't," he warned, and there was a tiredness in his voice that made the threat worse.
"Don't even think about taking it off," he said. "This is more than jewelry. It's a symbol. A reminder." His thumb brushed a diamond, a small, offhand tenderness that made her stomach lurch. "Mine."
He released her wrist and checked his watch. "We leave in twenty minutes. Compose yourself. Remember your part."
She started to ask about the consequences again — to press for a human answer, for the line between a warning and a promise to be made clearer — but he had already stepped toward the door. "Cross me," he said over his shoulder, voice flat, "and you'll find how creative I can be when someone threatens what belongs to me. The contract you'll sign gives me a lot of latitude."
Left alone, Emily sagged onto the sofa, the bracelet catching the light and throwing it back in small, cold flashes. She tried to imagine Vincent Blackwell — the smug line of his mouth, the way he would look at Alexander and then at her — and wondered how much of the act would be acting. Part of her, much to her own disgust, felt an unwanted heat at the memory of Alexander's hand on her wrist. She hated that feeling immediately and fiercely.
A soft chime sounded. A young woman in a tidy maid's uniform stepped in, carrying a large garment bag. "Your evening wrap, Miss Chen," she said, her accent soft and unfamiliar. "Mr. Drake thought you might be cold."
Emily took the cashmere shawl — deep, midnight blue, impossibly warm — and found herself saying, before she even thought, "Wait. What's your name?"
The maid blinked. "Maria," she said.
"How long have you worked here?" Emily asked, wanting a human anchor, someone who wasn't a headline or a threat.
Maria's expression tightened for a microsecond, then smoothed into politeness. "Three years, Miss. Mr. Drake is…generous."
"Does he always keep such close watch on his guests?" Emily asked, softer now. She'd hoped for blunt honesty, but what she got was something more complicated: a tiny, wary flicker of sympathy.
Maria lowered her voice, as if the walls had ears. "He takes care of those who matter to him," she said. "You're fortunate."
It wasn't the reassurance Emily had wanted. It was worse — a confirmation that the pattern reached beyond her. She wasn't the first woman to be sheltered and watched and owned.
Alone again, she went to the bedroom to check the final details in the mirror. The suite was obscene in its luxury: a king bed with silk sheets, marble everywhere, a closet that Victoria had already filled with impossible clothes. It would be easy to get used to it, she thought. Easy to let the comforts blunt the sharp edges of everything that had happened.
A glint at the corner of the ceiling caught her eye — too quick, too precise to be decoration. She stepped closer and squinted. There it was: a tiny camera lens, almost invisible unless you knew exactly where to look, aimed with a careful, clinical accuracy toward the bed.
For a second she simply stood there. Then, without thinking, she drew her arms across her chest, the old, reflexive gesture of modesty and vulnerability. The camera made it real in a way the bracelet hadn't: someone could be watching her now, in this room, in her most private moments. The thought turned her blood cold.
Footsteps sounded in the hall. A knock, polite and practiced. "Miss Chen?" Marcus's voice. "Mr. Drake is ready."
She wrapped the shawl around her shoulders like a shield and caught her reflection: composed, elegant, the picture of control. It was a lie she could wear for a night.
"Coming," she said, voice steady though her hands shook.
As she crossed the suite, she forced herself not to look up at the lens. She knew, somewhere, that every choice she made now — every smile, every tilt of the chin, every word she redirected toward Alexander — would be recorded and filed and perhaps used. The realization made her feel small and exposed, but also, oddly, steadier. If she was to survive this, she told herself, she would learn to live inside the frame.
The door closed behind her, and the sound snapped something shut inside the room. She stepped into the corridor and into the life she had agreed to, the life that felt at once like a rescue and like a cage.