Chapter Four

I fixed my clothes in the restroom mirror as best I could. My lips still felt swollen. My underwear was a lost cause, so I left it off and smoothed the skirt down, praying nothing showed. My legs were unsteady when I stepped back into the hallway. The taste of him was still in my mouth. The ache between my thighs was still there too, a low throb that refused to quiet.

I found the private dining room my aunt Sybil had texted me about. Soft lighting, one long table already set. Aunt Sybil sat at the far end in a dark dress, smiling the way she always did when important people were around. Beside her was her daughter—my cousin—scrolling on her phone with that usual bored look. And across from them, already seated, was the man from the elevator. The man from the restroom. Corren.

My stomach dropped so hard I almost turned around.

It was him. The same silver at the temples. The same broad shoulders under the dark suit. The same calm eyes that had watched me come on his tongue twenty minutes earlier. The man who had been sending money every month since I was eight. The man who paid for my school, my clothes, the roof over my head. My aunt’s husband. My uncle, Corren—and Vance's father.

He looked up when I walked in. Something flickered across his face—recognition, then a deeper, quieter shock—but he didn’t move. He just watched me the way he had in the restroom, patient and unreadable.

“There you are,” Aunt Sybil said, rising halfway. “Come and greet him properly. You’ve been raised better than this.”

I forced my feet forward. My voice came out thin.

“Good evening, sir.”

He nodded once. “Good evening.”

Aunt Sybil laughed, soft and apologetic. “Sorry, she doesn’t usually behave like this. Must be the traffic. This is my husband, Corren. You’ve spoken on the phone enough times, but it’s about time you met properly.”

I already knew his voice from the short calls over the years—How is school? Do you need anything?—but hearing it now, after what we had just done, made my skin prickle. I sat where Aunt Sybil indicated, directly beside him. The moment my hip brushed his under the table, heat flooded straight between my legs again. I pressed my thighs together hard and kept my face blank. He didn’t shift away. Neither did I.

The waiter poured water. Plates arrived. Aunt Sybil started talking about the drive, the weather, how long it had been since the last visit. I picked up my fork and moved food around without tasting any of it. Every time his knee touched mine under the white tablecloth, another pulse of wetness gathered. I could still feel the stretch of him inside me. I could still feel the way I’d come in his mouth. Controlling myself took everything I had.

Aunt Sybil set her glass down and looked at me with that soft, knowing smile.

“So,” she said, “how did it go with your boyfriend, Vance? You were so nervous this morning about the gift.”

I felt Corren go still beside me. I kept my eyes on my plate and forced a small smile.

“It went great,” I said. “Really great.”

Corren picked up his spoon then, slow and deliberate, and began to eat like nothing in the world was wrong. The quiet clink of silverware filled the space where my heartbeat should have been.

We finished the meal in careful pieces of conversation. My cousin barely spoke. Aunt Sybil filled every silence. I answered when spoken to and kept my hands in my lap so no one would see them shake. When the last plate was cleared, Aunt Sybil stood and opened her arms.

“Come here, my girl.”

I rose and let her pull me into a long hug. She kissed both my cheeks, then my forehead, the way she used to when I was small.

“I’m so proud of you,” she murmured. “You’re going to be fine with him. He’s always taken good care of you.”

I kissed her back—once, twice, more than I needed to—because some part of me was still the little girl who had nowhere else to go. When I stepped away, my cousin leaned in close, her mouth near my ear.

“Thank God you’re finally leaving,” she whispered. “At least I’ll be the one in charge now.”

The words slid off me like water. I didn’t answer. I just turned toward the door.

Outside, the night air was cool against my heated skin. Seven black SUVs sat in a neat line along the curb, engines already running, drivers standing at attention. Men in dark suits moved with quiet efficiency. One of them took the small suitcase I had packed that morning—everything I owned folded into a single bag—and placed it carefully in the back of the middle vehicle.

I stared at the line of cars and felt something shift in my chest. I had always known Corren had money. The monthly transfers, the school fees, the quiet way bills disappeared. But this was different. This was power parked in formation under streetlights.

Corren appeared at my side without a word and opened the rear door of the middle SUV. I climbed in. The leather was cool and soft. He followed, settling beside me. The door closed with a solid, expensive sound. The rest of the convoy began to move.

I shifted as far toward the window as the seat allowed and turned my face away, staring hard at the passing lights. I tried to keep every inch of space between us, tried not to feel the heat of his thigh so close to mine, tried not to remember the way he had felt inside me only an hour earlier. My body still hummed with it. My pulse still remembered.

I kept looking out the window and pretended the distance was enough.