CHAPTER TWO:MY FATHER NAMED A PRICE

Amelia's POV

My father was waiting for me the next morning with a smile I had not seen in years. He had shaved, and he wore the one good shirt he kept for funerals. He had even made coffee, and it did not smell burnt. He poured me a cup and slid it across the table as if we were a normal family.

"Sit down," he said. "I have good news."

I stayed standing. "What did you do?"

"I solved our problems." His eyes shone with something I did not recognize. "Sit, Amelia. Please."

I sat slowly. My stomach had already started to twist. He opened a folder on the table and turned it toward me. Inside was a photograph of me that I had never agreed to give to anyone.

I stood outside the diner in my work apron. My hair was messy, and I was laughing at something off camera. I remembered that day, because Claire had told a terrible joke about a customer's toupee. Someone had taken the picture without my knowing. My father must have taken it from his phone.

"Why do you have this?" I asked quietly.

"I showed it to three very rich men," he said.

I heard the words, but they did not make sense. I looked at the photograph and then at him. He kept smiling as if he had given me a gift.

"Three men," I repeated.

"Powerful men. Wealthy men. They are all unmarried, and they are all looking for the right kind of wife." He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "I told them you were beautiful, intelligent, and available. One of them is going to make an offer, and it will be a very large one."

My hands went numb in my lap. "You offered me to them."

"I introduced you," he said quickly. "That is different."

"It is not different," I whispered.

"Amelia, listen to me." He pressed his palms flat against the table. "We are three months behind on rent. The landlord is going to evict us in two weeks. The bank has stopped calling because they have started sending lawyers. We have nothing left to sell. Nothing, except you."

The word hung in the air between us. I could not breathe around it.

I had spent three years protecting this man. I had spent three years lying to him and hiding my shame so he would not have to worry about how we survived. I had given up my sleep, my pride, and my body so he could keep a roof over his head. And he had looked at me and seen only a price tag.

My coffee cup left my hand before I realized I had thrown it. It shattered against the wall beside his head, and brown liquid ran down the old wallpaper. My father flinched and stared at me with wide eyes.

"You sold me?" I screamed. "I am your daughter!"

"I saved us," he snapped, and his face turned red. "Do you want to live in the street? Do you want to sleep in a shelter with strangers?"

"I would rather sleep anywhere than be bought by a stranger."

"Then you are a fool," he said coldly. "Because you do not understand how the world works."

I wanted to scream the truth at him. I wanted to tell him I understood exactly how the world worked. I wanted to tell him I had been paying our rent with money he would never forgive me for earning. The words burned my throat, but I swallowed them down. If I told him everything, he would only use it against me.

I grabbed my coat and ran out of the apartment. The stairwell echoed with my footsteps, and the cold air hit my face like a slap. I did not stop until I reached the end of the block. Then I leaned against a brick wall and pressed my hand over my mouth. I cried so hard that a woman walking her dog crossed the street to avoid me.

I did not know where to go. At last I walked to Claire's apartment, which was ten blocks away. She opened the door in her pajamas with a toothbrush hanging out of her mouth. One look at my face made her drop it on the floor.

"Amelia," she said. "What happened?"

I told her a small part of it. I told her about the photograph and the three men and the way my father had smiled. I did not tell her about the hotel rooms or the envelopes. That secret stayed locked in my chest where it always lived.

Claire pulled me inside and made me tea. She wrapped a blanket around my shoulders and sat beside me on her sagging couch. She held my hand for a long time without saying anything. Her silence felt like the kindest thing anyone had ever given me.

"He is a terrible father," she said at last.

"He is a desperate one," I said. "I think that is worse."

"Maybe." She squeezed my fingers. "What are you going to do?"

"I do not know," I admitted. "I have nowhere else to go."

"You can stay here as long as you need."

"Your landlord will not allow it."

"My landlord can fight me," she said firmly.

I laughed through my tears, and she smiled sadly. We sat together until the afternoon turned gold in the window. Claire fell asleep on the couch with her head against my shoulder. I stayed awake and watched dust drift through the light.

I thought about running. I thought about taking my small savings and buying a bus ticket to anywhere. But I knew my father would lose the apartment within days. I knew he would end up on the street with nothing. Hating him did not make me stop caring what happened to him, and that was the cruelest part of all.

Around six o'clock, my phone buzzed on the coffee table. I did not recognize the number.

The message was short and formal, and it made my heart stop.

Miss Hart, Mr. Adrian Blackwood requests your presence at his office tomorrow at nine in the morning. Please do not be late.

I stared at the screen until the letters blurred. I knew the name Adrian Blackwood. Everyone in Manhattan did. His face appeared on the covers of business magazines, and his company owned half the buildings on Fifth Avenue. He was the kind of man people whispered about, and the kind of man who never noticed girls like me.

Now he was asking to see me, and I understood exactly why.

My father had shown my photograph to Adrian Blackwood. Of all the rich men in the city, he had chosen the one who could destroy us with a single phone call. I read the message three more times. Then I turned off my phone and held it against my chest.

Claire stirred beside me and opened one eye. "Who was that?"

"No one," I whispered. "Go back to sleep."

She closed her eyes again. I sat in the fading light and listened to the city hum outside the window. I knew I would go to that office in the morning, because I had no other choice. I only hoped that Adrian Blackwood was not as cold as the stories claimed.