OWNED BY MY EX'S GODFATHER

"Miss Bennett," he says. "Mr. Kane is waiting for confirmation."

I look at the contract. One year. Total compliance. My body, my time, my obedience written out in clean legal language that makes it sound reasonable. The clock on Alexander Kane's kitchen wall reads 2:17 a.m., and I have been sitting here for twenty minutes staring at a signature line. "How did he know where to find me?" I ask.

The lawyer does not blink. "Mr. Kane has resources." "That is not an answer." "It is the one I am authorized to give."

I look back at the contract. At the terms that say he will own every hour of my day and I will live in his penthouse and wear what he chooses and attend what he requires. At the section that promises a trust fund large enough that I will never have to ask my family for anything again. At the legal intervention clause that mentions my mother's estate in language so specific he must have been watching for a while.

At the folder underneath with dates going back three years. Medical bills I never knew existed. All paid. All handled. All by him. "Why would he do this?" I ask. The lawyer folds his hands on the table. "You would have to ask Mr. Kane."

"I am asking you." "And I am telling you I do not have that answer." He glances at his watch. "He is expecting a response within the hour." I pick up the pen again. My hand is not steady, and I hate it. Twelve hours ago I walked into my bedroom and found Derek with my stepsister. Chloe did not even reach for a sheet. She just looked at me and said, "You had to know this was coming." I had not known.

My father sided with them by dinner. Sat me down in his office and told me I needed to think about next steps. Vivienne stood in the doorway with her arms crossed and said nothing because that is how she delivers damage. Silence that confirms you are the problem.

I left after another meal I could not eat and walked until I found a bar expensive enough that nobody I knew would be inside. Sat in the VIP section and ordered something I could not afford and tried to figure out how I had managed to lose an entire life in the span of one afternoon.

Then someone moved behind me, and a Scotch glass tilted toward my dress, and I reached up on instinct, and our fingers collided around the stem. When I looked up, I found ice-blue eyes holding mine with the kind of attention that made me forget I had been trying to disappear. He said, "I am sorry." I said, "It's fine." He looked at me for a long moment. Then he said, "It does not look fine." He did not mean the drink.

I should have left. I knew it while it was happening. But he stepped closer, and I stepped closer too, and when he kissed me against the shadowed wall I felt calm for the first time in years. Like something held wrong for too long had finally been set down correctly.

I left before he could ask my name. Told myself it was nothing. Made it three blocks before I sat on a bench outside a closed coffee shop and cried where no one could see. When the black car pulled up at first light, I was still awake. Still trying to decide if I had the energy to keep going.

The lawyer produces a second pen from his jacket. Sets it beside the first. "Mr. Kane wanted you to have options," he says. I almost laugh. Two pens. Like that changes anything. but I pick up the second one. Sign my name. Push the contract across the table. "Thank you, Miss Bennett." He closes his folder and stands. "A car will collect you at nine." "Today?"

"Mr. Kane does not see the point in delay." He leaves. I sit in the kitchen of a house that was never mine and look at my signature until the ink dries. Then I go upstairs to pack. The bedroom door is locked. I knock twice before Chloe opens it, wearing one of my robes, her blonde hair a mess, her mouth swollen. She leans against the doorframe and smiles.

"Sophia. What do you need?" "My things." "Your things." "From my room." She glances back over her shoulder. "Derek, she wants her things."

Derek appears behind her in boxers and nothing else. His hair is sticking up on one side. He looks at me with the same expression he had yesterday. Not guilty. Not even uncomfortable. Just mildly inconvenienced. "Can it wait?" he asks. "No."

Chloe sighs and steps aside. "Make it quick." I walk past them into what used to be my room. The sheets are tangled. My pillows are on the floor. There is a wine glass on the nightstand that I know is not mine because I do not drink red. I open the closet and pull out the one suitcase I own. "Going somewhere?" Derek asks.

"New York."

He laughs. Actually laughs. "With what money?" I do not answer. I pull clothes off hangers and fold them into the suitcase. Grab the sketchbooks from under the mattress. The charcoal is set from the desk drawer. The photograph of my mother from the bookshelf.

Chloe is watching me from the doorway. "This is a bit dramatic, don't you think?" I zip the suitcase. "You can have the room." "I already do." I meet her eyes. She does not look away. There is something almost like pity in her face, and it makes my skin crawl. I pick up the suitcase and walk past both of them without another word.

Vivienne is in the hallway. She looks at the suitcase. Then at me. "Where are you going?" "Out." "Sophia." I stop. Turn. She is in her robe with her arms crossed and her mouth set in a thin line. "You cannot just leave," she says. "Watch me." "Your father will not support this." "My father has not supported me in four years."

She flinches. Barely. Then her face smooths out again, and she steps closer and lowers her voice. "If you leave now, you cannot come back." "Good." I turn and walk down the stairs and out the front door, and I do not look back.

The car arrives at exactly nine. Black. Expensive. The driver gets out and opens the door without asking my name. "Miss Bennett," he says. "I am Thomas. Mr. Kane sent me." I look at the house one more time. The windows are dark. No one is watching. No one cares. I get in the car.

Thomas loads my suitcase into the trunk and gets behind the wheel. He does not ask where I am going. He already knows.

The drive to the airport takes forty minutes. I spend the entire time staring out the window at Chicago moving past. The suburbs. The city. The lake. All the places I have lived my entire life and never once felt like I belonged. When we pull up to the private terminal,, I realize I have been holding my breath. "Here we are," Thomas says. I look at the sleek glass building. At the planes on the tarmac beyond. Private jets. Of course. Alexander Kane does not fly commercial. "Is he here?" I ask.

"Mr. Kane is in New York. He will meet you at the penthouse."

Thomas opens my door,, and I step out into the cold October air. A woman in a dark suit is waiting by the entrance. She smiles and extends a hand.

"Miss Bennett. I am Jennifer, Mr. Kane's assistant. If you will follow me." I follow her through the terminal and out to the plane. It is small. Sleek. The interior is all leather and polished wood and soft lighting. There are eight seats,, and I am the only passenger.

Jennifer gestures to the seat by the window. "We will be taking off shortly. Flight time is approximately two hours. Can I get you anything?" "No. Thank you."

She nods and disappears toward the front of the plane. I sit down and buckle the seatbelt and try not to think about the fact that I am flying to New York to live with a man I have known for less than twenty-four hours. A man who kissed me in a bar and then sent a lawyer with a contract and a file full of secrets about my family that he should not have had access to.

A man who has been paying my mother's medical bills for three years without telling me.

The engines start. The plane begins to move. I watch Chicago disappear beneath the clouds,, and I do not let myself cry. Not yet. Not here. When I cry again, it will be in private where no one can see. That is the rule. That has always been the rule.

I close my eyes and try to sleep,, but my mind is too loud. It keeps circling back to the bar. To his eyes. To the way his hand felt at the back of my neck, warm and sure, like he knew exactly what he was doing and was giving me time to decide if I wanted it. I had wanted it; I still want it. That is the problem. By the time we land, my hands have stopped shaking. Jennifer appears and hands me a bottle of water.

"Mr. Kane is waiting," she says. I follow her off the plane and into another black car,, and then we are driving through Manhattan, and I am staring out at buildings so tall they block the sun. The car pulls up to a glass tower in Midtown. Kane Tower. His name in silver letters above the entrance.

The driver opens my door. I step out onto the sidewalk and look up at the building. Forty-three floors. He owns the entire top floor. The penthouse. Where I will live for the next twelve months, where I will belong to him.

Jennifer leads me through the lobby to a private elevator. She presses a button, and the doors close, and we ride in silence to the top. When the elevator opens, I step out into a hallway with only one door. Jennifer knocks twice.

The door opens.

Alexander Kane is standing there in a dark suit with his tie loosened and his sleeves rolled up. His hair is darker than I remember. More silver at the temples. His eyes are the same. Ice blue. Direct. Unblinking. He looks at me for a long moment. Then he says, "Sophia."

Just my name. That is all. But the way he says it makes my stomach drop. "Hello," I say.

He steps aside. "Come in." I walk past him into the penthouse, and the door closes behind me, and I think, There is no going back now.