First Day .

CHAPTER FIVE : First Day

The bodyguards escorted me through the winding hallways of the Volkov estate. My feet ached from a tour that had gone on for hours, each corridor blending into the next until I lost track of where I was. Everywhere I looked, paintings of stern-faced ancestors stared down at me like they were judging me.

The instructions had been endless. When Ethan took his medication, I was to administer it at precisely the right time. His meals had to follow strict dietary guidelines set by the family physician. Whatever he needed, I was to anticipate it, even though he could not ask. The weight of it pressed down on me.

The bodyguards stopped at a heavy oak door and pushed it open. I stepped inside. The room was dim and quiet, and there, on a bed with crisp white sheets, was a man.

He was handsome, sharp-featured, dark hair falling across his forehead. He looked like he was sleeping. If I had not known better, I would have thought he might wake up any moment and ask what I was doing there.

But he had been in a coma for months, with no guarantee he would ever wake. Such a pity, I thought. He would remain here while the world moved on without him.

I sat beside him, searching his face for any flicker of awareness. Nothing. Just stillness, and the soft rise and fall of his chest.

"What happened to you?" I asked softly. "How did you end up like this?"

I laughed at myself, bitter and hollow. I was talking to a man who could not hear me. One day in this nightmare, and I was already losing my mind.

But the silence was unbearable, so I kept talking. "You could listen if I talk, right?" I said, a sad smile tugging at my lips. "I'll take your silence as a yes."

I told him everything. About Leo, and the elopement we were supposed to have. About three years spent changing myself for him. About finding him with Mira in that hotel room, the way he looked at me like I was nothing. About the document I had signed, the one that sealed my fate.

"My father sold me out," I said, my voice cracking. "Like I was property. He never cared about me. He just wanted to get rid of me."

Tears streamed down my face before I even realized I was crying. I wiped at my cheeks, embarrassed and overwhelmed. I was pouring my heart out to a man who could not hear me, and I had never felt more alone.

"If you wake up," I said, "would you be happy to know your parents picked out a surrogate for you without your consent? That they're planning for you to father a child with someone you've never met? No one would be."

I looked at his closed eyes and wondered what he would say if he could speak. I would never know.

I took a breath and stood, wiping my tears away. There was work to do. I walked to the table where the medications were laid out and prepared the doses exactly as instructed.

Then I remembered bathing him was part of my duties too. The thought of it made my stomach churn.

"This is so wrong," I muttered. "He can't consent to this. Why didn't they give him a male caretaker?"

I hesitated, my hand over his chest. He was a man, and I was a woman, and I was supposed to undress him like he was a child. It felt invasive.

But I had no choice. If I refused, they would think I was a spy and throw me back onto the streets. I had to get the job done.

I reached for the hem of his shirt and pulled it up slowly. His chest was defined, muscled, the body of an athlete, not a man who had been bedridden for months.

I stared at him, confusion washing over me. Everyone said he'd been in a coma for months. So how could he look like this? No atrophy. No wasting. He looked strong, like a man ready to wake up and take on the world.

"What is going on here?" I whispered. "What are you hiding?"

He did not answer. His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm that gave nothing away.

Something was wrong.

And I was determined to find out what it was.