Chapter 3

THOMAS

I see the moment it hits her. The guilt. The fear. The horrifying discovery that she's already broken something sacred and expensive just by wanting.

Most people never understand just how loudly their bodies speak, but I've built an entire life around hearing what others miss. It's how I've closed deals, demolished rivals, bent rooms toward the outcome that I wanted without ever raising my voice.

It's how I became very, very rich. I didn't become a billionaire by mistaking reactions.

Iris Caldwell feels my attention the moment it settles on her, as strong and sure as a physical touch. Her body answers before her sense can intervene, a subtle but unmistakable softening that moves through her. It's brief, almost invisible, but it's there:

Arousal.

I watch her realize it. I see those mint-green eyes change behind the veil: the flicker of panic, the way her focus collapses inward as the contract asserts itself inside her mind. I can almost hear the clauses snapping into place, the machinery of legal restraint grinding down on impulse. Her body locks itself back into stillness with ruthless efficiency, and I'm completely, utterly impressed by her.

Of course, I'm used to people reacting to me. Men do it with defensiveness, women with desire or invitation, usually both. Fear, attraction, ambition... they all feel different, but they register the same way, with a subtle reorientation toward me that I then take full advantage of.

Iris is no different in the reaction...  but she's better at hiding it, faster to recover from it, and despite myself, I feel my cock harden. But then again, being around her these past months has had that effect on me more than once. 

She's standing up there at the altar, her curly red hair tamed and smoothed beneath a veil that does nothing to disguise the sensual line of her throat. She's stunningly beautiful, yes – but beauty alone has never held my attention for long. What interests me is Iris' contradictions: the toughness beneath that creamy white skin, the quiet resilience that doesn’t announce itself.

When Edward first met her and said that she ticked all the boxes as his wife, I had her vetted thoroughly. Her background is clean in the way that poverty always is – no excess, no safety nets, nothing wasted. She's smarter than Edward by miles, and she's lived a life that required vigilance rather than assumption, effort rather than entitlement. She learned early how to endure without collapsing, how to make herself useful enough to keep doors open. She's been fighting her entire life and losing just slowly enough to survive it. That kind of exhaustion leaves a mark.

One that my son can't even begin to comprehend.

Edward stands in front of her now, smiling with uncomplicated satisfaction, pleased with the day, with how neatly everything has resolved. He works for one of my companies and always will, not because I insist on it, but because he's comfortable within the structures provided to him. He executes well, takes direction without complaint. He hungers for nothing, aches and strives for nothing. He never has.

So I smoothed the path for him: I ensured the right education, the right position, the right woman. Iris was chosen because she knows how to survive within constraints. My son doesn't understand her at all, but I do. I know her, I know what she craves, deep down, in her bones, in her blood, in her pussy.

Iris wants to stop fighting, she wants to rest; she wants to be held in place, watched, contained. More than anything, she wants someone else to decide, to carry the weight she's been hauling alone for too long, to make the rules and hold her to them.

That deep desire is etched into her posture even now, even as she fights it, even as she remembers the contract and pulls herself back from the edge of response. She doesn't want romance, she has zero interest in chaos. She wants safety, real safety, not the illusion of it.

Edward lifts the veil, and I watch Iris look up into my son’s face, schooling herself into something serene and acceptable, locking away the part of her that answered me so instinctively. Edward kisses her, brief and tasteful, and the church erupts into approving applause.

The happy couple turns and begins their walk down the aisle. I remain seated, watching her move away from the altar, from the moment, from me. She walks carefully, as though every step has been rehearsed, as though she's afraid of misplacing her foot and revealing something she can't afford to show.

As they reach the doors, I rise at last, buttoning my jacket with practiced ease. The legal agreement has been activated, the arrangement's in place, and everything has gone almost exactly as planned. Iris' tiny stumble aside – and it is quite small, when you consider that she'll need an adjustment period – she's already performing as outlined in the contract.

Good girl, I think.