Chapter Three:

I wake to sun streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows and have no idea what time it is. I reach for my phone. Ten thirty. I have not slept past eight in years. I sit up and look around the room. My room. In Alexander Kane's penthouse. This is real. This is actually happening.

I get out of bed and shower in the bathroom with water pressure that could strip paint and more hot water than I have ever had in my entire life. When I come out, there is a tray on the desk by the window. Coffee. Toast. Fruit. A note in clean handwriting that says, "Eat. A."

I pick up the note. Read it three times. He brought me breakfast. Or had someone bring it. Either way, I slept through it, and he did not wake me. I drink the coffee and eat the toast and look out at Manhattan spread below me and try to figure out what I am supposed to do today.

The rules did not cover this. You will not leave without notifying security. You will attend required events. You will wear appropriate clothing. Nothing about what I am supposed to do with myself when there are no events and no requirements and no expectations. I am used to schedules. To obligations. To people telling me where to be and when. I am not used to empty time.

I get dressed in jeans and a sweater from the closet. Simple. Comfortable. My own choice. Then I leave my room and go exploring.

The penthouse has five levels. I find the gym on two. The office on three. A second library, one of four that is smaller and warmer and has a better view. I find Alexander's bedroom by accident when I open the wrong door on five. Dark grey walls. A massive bed. Windows overlooking the city. Neat. Controlled. A photograph on the nightstand of the same woman from the console table downstairs. His mother. I close the door quietly.

I spend an hour in the smaller library looking at the books. He has everything. Fiction. Nonfiction. Art books. History. A whole shelf of poetry that looks like it has never been touched. I pull out a volume of Mary Oliver and flip through it. Someone has dog-eared a page. I read the poem. "Wild Geese." I read it twice.

Then I hear footsteps on the stairs. I look up, and Alexander is standing in the doorway in dark pants and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. No tie. No jacket. He looks less formal than he did last night. More human. His hair is slightly damp like he just showered.

"Good morning," he says.

"Good morning."

"Did you sleep well?"

"Yes. Thank you for breakfast." He steps into the room. "You are welcome. I wanted to talk to you about something." I close the book and set it on the side table. "Okay." He sits in the chair across from me. Leans forward with his elbows on his knees. "There is a gallery opening on Thursday. I need you to attend with me." "Okay." "It will be your first public appearance. There will be questions."

"About me?" "About us." I swallow. "What should I say?" "Nothing. I will handle it. You just need to be there."

"That is all?"

"That is all."

He makes it sound simple. It is not simple. I will be standing beside him in front of people who know him and know Derek and will be trying to figure out who I am and why I am there. They will ask questions. They will judge. They will decide whether I belong.

"What if they ask how we met?" I say. "Tell them we met through mutual acquaintances." "That is vague." "It is meant to be." I look down at my hands. "Will Derek be there?"

Alexander is quiet for a moment. Then he says, "Possibly." My stomach drops. "I do not know if I can do this." "Yes, you can." "You do not know that." "I do." I look up. He is watching me with the same steady attention he always has. Like he sees something I do not. Like he has already decided I am capable of this and is just waiting for me to catch up. "What if I mess it up?" I ask. "You will not." "But what if I do?"

"Then I will handle it. That is why I am here." I want to believe him. I want to trust that he will protect me the way the contract says he will. But I have spent four years with people who said they would take care of me and then left me to handle things on my own when it mattered. I do not know how to trust anymore.

Alexander stands. Crosses the room. Sits on the couch beside me. Close enough that I can feel the heat coming off his body. Close enough that if I leaned left, our shoulders would touch.

"Sophia," he says quietly. "Look at me."

I turn my head. His eyes are pale in the morning light. Steady. Unblinking.

"I will not let you fail," he says. "Do you understand?" I nod. I do not trust my voice.

He reaches out and takes my hand. His palm is warm. His fingers curl around mine with the kind of deliberate pressure that makes my breath catch. He does not let go. He just holds my hand and looks at me and waits for me to stop panicking. Eventually I do. "Okay," I say. "I will go."

"Good." He releases my hand and stands. "There is a dress in your closet. Navy. Wear that." "You already picked it out?"

"I picked out the entire wardrobe. Everything in there is for situations like this. You just need to choose what fits the occasion."

He leaves. I sit on the couch and try to process what just happened. He held my hand. He told me he would not let me fail. He has a dress picked out for Thursday, and I did not even know about Thursday until five minutes ago. Everything is planned. Everything is controlled. I should feel trapped. Instead I feel something else. Something I do not have a name for yet: safe, maybe, or maybe just seen.

Thursday comes faster than I want it to. I spend the intervening days exploring the penthouse and reading in the library and sketching in my room. Alexander is gone most of the day, but he comes home for dinner every night, and we sit at the table, and he asks me about my day, and I try to think of things to say that do not sound boring. I went to the roof. I read a book. I drew the same woman with bricked windows I have been drawing for two years.

He never comments. He just listens. Sometimes he asks questions. About the book. About the drawing. About whether I need anything. I always say no. I do not know what I would ask for even if I did need something.

On Thursday afternoon, I stand in my closet and look at the navy dress. It is beautiful. Simple. The kind of thing that will make me blend in without disappearing. I put it on and look at myself in the mirror and try to see what Alexander sees. A twenty-two-year-old woman who signed a contract and moved into a billionaire's penthouse. A woman who is either very brave or very desperate. I cannot tell which.

I do my makeup. Minimal. I do not want to look like I am trying too hard. Pull my hair back. Simple. Elegant. When I come downstairs Alexander is in the living room in a dark suit, and he looks up when he hears me, and something moves through his face. Not quite a smile. Something more serious. "You look lovely," he says. "Thank you." He stands. Crosses the room. Offers his arm. "Ready?"

"No."

The corner of his mouth twitches. "Good. Neither am I."

We go downstairs to the car and drive through Manhattan in silence. I watch the city move past and try to prepare myself for what is coming. People. Questions. Derek. I can do this. I have been performing my entire life. One more night will not kill me.

The gallery is in Chelsea. Small. Expensive. The kind of place where the art is secondary to the people looking at it. Alexander helps me out of the car and offers his arm, and we walk inside together. The room is full. Two hundred people maybe. All of them in dark suits and expensive dresses. All of them turn to look when we enter.

I feel their eyes on me. Assessing. Judging. Trying to place me. Alexander's hand finds the small of my back and the pressure is light but deliberate. Steadying. We move through the room, and he introduces me to people whose names I forget immediately. This is Sophia. Lovely to meet you. Yes, the art is wonderful. No, we have not been here before.

I smile. Nod. Say the right things. Let Alexander guide me through the room like I am a piece of furniture he is rearranging. We stop in front of a sculpture in the back corner. Something abstract. Unsettling. I am staring at it, trying to figure out what it is supposed to be, when I feel someone watching us. I turn.

Derek is standing ten feet away with a champagne flute in his hand and a smile on his face that does not reach his eyes. My stomach drops.

Alexander's hand at my back tightens by the smallest degree. The pressure is a message. You are not alone. I am here. Do not give him what he wants.

Derek walks over. His eyes move over me once. Quick. Assessing. Then he looks at Alexander.

"Alexander," he says. "Good to see you."

"Derek." "And Sophia." He turns to me. "You look well." He says it loudly enough for the nearest group to hear. Performing concern while delivering damage. You look well means you should not look well. You should be destroyed. Why are you not destroyed? I feel the old freeze beginning. The shutdown. My throat closes. My face goes numb. I open my mouth and nothing comes out.

Alexander's hand tightens again. You are not alone. I look at Derek. Meet his eyes. Say the only thing I can think of. "Thank you, Derek." Nothing else. No explanation. No defense. Just two words delivered with the flat calm of someone who has decided not to engage.

Derek searches my face for the flinch he expected. He does not find it. His smile goes brittle at the edges. He looks at Alexander. Then back at me. "It is good to see you," he says.

Then he walks away. I watch him go. My hands are shaking. Alexander keeps his hand at my back and steers me toward the bar and orders me a glass of water. I drink it in three swallows. When my hands are steady again, he says, "You did well." "I did not do anything." "Exactly."

I look up at him. He is watching me with something like approval in his face. Or maybe pride. I cannot tell. All I know is that I did not break. Derek expected me to break, and I did not. It felt good. Better than anything has felt in weeks.

We leave the gallery at ten. In the car, Alexander is quiet, and I am too wrung out to make conversation. We sit in the back seat with the city moving past the windows, and I think about Derek's face when I did not flinch. About the way Alexander held his hand at my back the entire time. About the fact that I survived my first public appearance and did not embarrass him.

I look at Alexander. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For not letting go."

He looks at me for a long moment. Then he says, "I do not intend to." Something in my chest cracks open. Not breaks. Opens. Like a window that has been painted shut for years. When we get home, I go to my room and lie in the dark and replay the night. Derek's face. Alexander's hand. The way I did not break. Maybe this is what the contract always was. Not ownership. Protection.

I fall asleep thinking about Alexander's voice in the car. I do not intend to. It sounds like a promise.