CHAPTER TWO: THE PENTHOUSE RULES

The elevator does not stop until floor eighty.

I stand in the corner of the glass box in my wedding dress with my arms wrapped tight around myself, trying not to touch him. Alexander stands beside me with his hands in his pockets, watching the numbers climb. He has not said a word since the car.

The doors open.

I forget how to breathe.

The penthouse is not a home. It is a kingdom. Floor to ceiling windows show all of Manhattan lit up at night. Black marble floors. White walls. Art that costs more than my entire life stacked up so far. Everything is cold and perfect and untouchable, just like him.

He steps out. I stay inside the elevator.

He turns.

“Are you going to stand there all night, Mrs. Knight?”

I hate how he says it, like he already owns the name.

I step out. My borrowed heels click against the marble, too loud in the silence.

A woman appears from a hallway. Older, in a neat uniform. She looks at me, then quickly looks down.

“This is Mrs. Alvarez.” Alexander does not look at her when he says it. “She runs the house. You will ask her if you need anything.”

Mrs. Alvarez nods at me. Her eyes are kind. She says nothing.

“Your room is that way.” He points down a long hallway. “Mine is opposite. We do not share. Do not enter mine without permission.”

Relief floods me so fast I sway on my feet. Thank God.

He sees it. His mouth tightens.

“Don’t look so relieved. This is still a marriage. You will attend dinners with me. Events. Galas. You will smile and hold my hand and play the loving wife for the cameras. In private, you will obey the contract.”

“What contract?” My voice comes out thin. “I never read it.”

He crosses to a low black table, picks up a thick folder, and drops it at my feet. Papers scatter across the marble.

“Then read it now.”

I kneel in my wedding dress and gather the pages with shaking hands. My eyes scan the words.

One year cohabitation at primary residence, Fifth Avenue. No intimate relations with other persons. No disclosure of contract terms to third parties. No employment outside household without written consent. Wife will attend all public functions as required. Wife will produce no scandal.

It goes on, page after page, rules that make me feel like something inventoried rather than married.

At the bottom is my signature. My desperate signature from two weeks ago, when I thought I was signing to marry an old man who would leave me alone.

I look up at him.

“This says I can’t work. I can’t paint. You can’t take my work from me.”

“I can take anything I own.” He says it simply, like a fact of weather. “And right now I own you, and that little gallery in Brooklyn.”

“You do not own me.”

He crouches until we are eye to eye. His gray eyes are close enough that I can see gold flecks buried in them. He smells like cold winter air and something expensive.

“You walked down that aisle of your own free will, Chloe. You said I do. You wear my ring.” He catches my left hand and lifts it so the diamond catches the light. “Do you know what this means in my world?”

I try to pull back. He does not let go.

“Let me go.”

“Not until you understand the rules.” He leans closer, close enough that his breath moves against my cheek. “Rule one, you do not lie to me. Rule two, you do not run. Rule three, you do not look at me like I’m a monster when we’re in public. In public, you adore me.”

“And in private?”

“In private you can hate me all you want.” His voice drops lower still. “It changes nothing. You are still my wife.”

He releases my hand and rises, and the sudden absence of his grip leaves my wrist strangely cold.

“Mrs. Alvarez will show you to your room. Dinner is at eight. Don’t be late, and get out of that dress. It’s giving you ideas about romance that don’t exist here.”

He turns and walks down the hallway, disappearing behind a black door that shuts with a soft click.

I am left kneeling on the floor in white lace, surrounded by pages that say I belong to a man who hates my family.

Mrs. Alvarez touches my shoulder gently.

“Come, dear. Let me show you where you’ll sleep.”

She leads me down the hall to a room bigger than our entire apartment in Brooklyn. A huge bed with white sheets. A closet already full of clothes that are not mine, dresses with tags still on them, shoes in exactly my size.

How did he know my size.

On the bed sits a single black box tied with a silver ribbon.

I open it with trembling fingers.

Inside is a new phone, and a note in sharp, slanted handwriting.

Your old phone has been disconnected. This one has my number saved. You will answer when I call. A.K.

He took my phone. He took my life, one small confiscation at a time.

I sit on the edge of the bed in my wedding dress and finally let the tears come, silent and hot and furious.

After a long time I stand and walk to the window. Manhattan spreads out below me, glittering and alive and indifferent. Somewhere down there is Brooklyn. Somewhere down there is my mother, believing I am on my honeymoon. Somewhere down there is my father, with no idea his debt just cost him his daughter.

I press my hand to the cold glass.

I will not cry forever. I will not be his pet.

I will find a way to survive this year and make him regret buying me.

Behind me the door opens without a knock.

I spin around.

Alexander stands in the doorway. His jacket and tie are gone, his white shirt open at the throat. He looks at my tear streaked face, then at the phone box on the bed.

“Good. You found it.” He says it like the tears are not there at all. “Now take off the dress. Mrs. Alvarez left you something more appropriate for dinner.”

He says it like it costs him nothing, like ordering me out of my wedding dress in front of him is an ordinary request.

I stare at him, stunned.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” He steps into the room and closes the door behind him. The click of it lands somewhere in my chest. “That dress belongs to the church. You belong to this house now. Change.”

He walks past me to the closet, pulls out a simple black dress, and lays it across the bed like a verdict of its own.

“You have ten minutes. Don’t make me come back in here.”

Then he is gone. The door clicks shut a second time.

I stand alone, shaking, rage tangled up with something else I refuse to name, something that flickers low in my stomach when his voice goes cold and certain like that.

I grab the black dress and hold it against myself.

One year. I can survive one year in this glass cage.

But as I zip up the dress and catch my reflection in the mirror, Alexander Knight’s diamond still cold around my finger, the most terrifying thought of the night finally arrives.

What if one year is not enough to make him let me go.