THE HOUSE OF RULES

Morning at Voss House didn’t come with sunlight.

It came with instructions.

A black folder had been slid under her bedroom door while she slept, its contents as crisp and cold as the man who owned the mansion.

Inside:

A single page.

> House Rules

1. Breakfast is served at 8. You will sit. You will speak when spoken to.

2. Do not enter the East Wing.

3. My study is off-limits unless I call you in.

4. Do not speak of your mother.

5. When I call, you come.

6. When I touch, you stay still.

7. When I look at you, you will not look away.

Calla stared at the words, pulse thudding.

What kind of arrangement was this? And why did her skin flush at the idea of rule six?

---

She arrived in the dining room one minute past eight.

He was already seated.

Dark suit. Clean-shaven. Cold as ice.

“You’re late,” Damien said, without looking up from the paper he held.

“It’s one minute,” she said, voice sharper than intended.

“Your body is mine for ninety days,” he replied. “So is your time.”

Calla sat slowly, gripping the linen napkin to keep her hands from shaking.

She wasn’t used to this—the marble floors, the absurdly long table, the feeling of being watched like she was both prey and something precious.

“You like rules?” she asked, eyes on her untouched coffee.

“I like obedience.”

“And what if I don’t give it?”

He looked up at her. Calm. Direct. His voice didn’t raise.

“You’ll give it,” he said, “because you want to understand what your mother never could.”

Calla blinked. “Which is?”

“How to survive a man like me.”

---

After breakfast, Damien vanished. As if he had disappeared into the walls. No footsteps. No creaking doors. Just silence.

She wandered the halls with cautious curiosity—her heels clicking softly on hardwood as she passed closed doors, heavy artwork, and rooms that smelled like old money and leather.

But it was the East Wing that called to her.

The forbidden corridor.

Long. Dim. Velvet drapes and dust and secrets.

She stood before it, heart thudding. One step over the invisible threshold and she’d break rule number two. So what?

The doorknob on the farthest door was black glass.

Her hand reached out.

“You like breaking rules already?”

Calla spun. Damien stood behind her, leaning casually against the frame of another door. One hand in his pocket. Watching her.

She straightened.

“Just exploring.”

“That’s not exploring,” he said. “That’s testing me.”

“I thought I wasn’t a prisoner,” she snapped.

“You’re not,” he replied smoothly. “But you’re still mine.”

She didn’t move as he approached—slow, predatory, deliberate. His presence soaked into the air around her like heat.

Damien stopped a breath away.

His fingers brushed her chin. Lifted it. Her eyes met his—gray and unreadable, and dark enough to drown in.

“You want to know what’s behind that door?” he asked.

Calla nodded, just once.

“Earn it.”

Her pulse spiked. “How?”

His voice dropped. “By learning how to obey.”

---

That night, she couldn’t sleep.

Something about him—it wasn’t just about control. It was about precision. Like he was sculpting her, moment by moment, into something he could own.

And the worst part?

She didn’t entirely hate it.

She lay in the massive bed, tangled in sheets that smelled like citrus and firewood, her skin aching with unanswered questions. Her fingers curled into the pillow.

She hated him.

But she wanted to understand him more than anything.

And the way he looked at her… like she was not just his to command, but his to protect? That was dangerous.

Because part of her wanted to fall.

---

Meanwhile, deep in the mansion's study, Julian Cade leaned over Damien’s desk.

“You sure about this?” he asked. “She’s not her mother.”

“She’s worse,” Damien said, sipping his whiskey. “She has a mind of her own.”

“Which makes her harder to break?”

“Which makes her worth the game.”

Julian smirked. “Just make sure it doesn’t break you instead.”

Damien didn’t answer.

Because he already knew—Calla wasn’t just the daughter of an old debt.

She was going to become his weakness.

And that?

Was the real danger.