Chapter Twenty-Eight

Ava’s POV

That night I slept like a baby.

For the first time in quite a while, my body gave in completely. The exhaustion from the day—the school, the cafeteria conversation, the drive home, the way Corren had carried me and taken me in his room—pulled me under as soon as my head touched the pillow. No restless turning. No half-awake thoughts circling the same conflicts. Just deep, unbroken sleep that lasted until the sound of my bedroom door opening cut through it.

“Small madam, you are late to school.”

The maid’s voice was urgent but carefully controlled. I sat up fast, heart already racing, and looked at the time on my phone. She was right. I had overslept by nearly forty minutes. The calm of the night before vanished in an instant.

I threw the covers aside and moved quickly. In the bathroom I brushed my teeth in hurried strokes, splashed water on my face, and ran a comb through my hair with little concern for neatness. There was no time for the careful preparation of the previous morning. I pulled on one of the dresses Corren had chosen—the simpler black one—grabbed the bag still packed from the day before, and left the room with my shoes only half adjusted.

Breakfast was already set in the small dining room when I arrived. Corren sat in his usual place, coffee untouched, eyes on me the moment I entered. The weight of his attention landed harder than usual. I took the seat at his right, pulse still elevated from the rush.

He looked at me for a long second.

“Why did you wake up so late today?” he asked.

I looked at the table, at the plate of food I had not asked for, at the neat arrangement of cutlery. My mind scrambled for an answer that would not expose too much—would not mention how thoroughly he had used my body the night before, or how deeply I had slept because of it. I opened my mouth to speak.

He cut me off before the first word formed.

“I will not be back tonight,” he said, voice calm and final. “I am going out to visit my wife and my child. You should behave yourself.”

The statement settled over the table like a change in temperature. His wife. His child. Sybil. Vance. The ordinary language of family, spoken by the same man who had fucked me in his bed hours earlier and required me to call him Daddy. I felt something cold move under my ribs, followed almost immediately by the familiar heat of confusion. I nodded once.

“Yes, Daddy.”

He held my gaze a moment longer, as if measuring the sincerity of the agreement, then returned his attention to his coffee. The rest of breakfast passed in silence. When it ended he stood, adjusted his cuffs, and told me the driver was already waiting. I left the table without finishing the food and walked out to the car with the weight of his absence-to-come already pressing against the edges of my thoughts.

The drive to school felt longer than the day before. I sat in the back seat watching the estate disappear behind the gates and tried to arrange my feelings into something orderly. Corren would be with Sybil and Vance tonight. The idea should have brought relief—space, quiet, a night without the study or the rules spoken aloud. Instead it left a restless, complicated ache. I did not examine it too closely.

Campus was already busy when the car dropped me off. Students moved in groups across the walkways, voices carrying in the mild morning air. I adjusted the strap of my bag and started toward the main building, still slightly out of breath from the rushed morning. I had not taken more than a dozen steps before I saw him.

The same guy.

He was standing near the base of the wide steps, handsome in the clean, effortless way that belonged to this place, a folder under one arm. The moment he noticed me his expression shifted into recognition and something warmer. He walked toward me without hesitation.

“How was your night?” he asked when he reached me.

The question was light, ordinary, completely free of the heavy undertones that lived in every exchange with Corren. I felt my face heat despite myself.

“It was fine,” I answered. “How about yours?”

He smiled, a small, private curve of the mouth, and glanced once toward the flow of students around us before returning his attention fully to me. Without answering right away he moved a step closer—close enough that the noise of the campus seemed to recede. Then he placed his right hand on the wall beside my head, bracing himself there as he looked into my eyes. The shift in distance was deliberate. My back was nearly against the stone. His body blocked most of the view of the walkway. He leaned in slowly, carefully, giving me every chance to turn away, his lips moving forward toward mine until there was almost no space left between us.

“Do you love me?”