Chapter 2

The drive took forty minutes and I was furious for every single one of them.

I sat in the back of that car and stared out the window and went through it all again. Every piece of it. The forehead kiss. The coffee. The I love you. Three weeks of knowing and saying nothing. And underneath all of it, growing louder the longer I sat with it, one question I couldn’t stop turning over.

Why me.

Not why did he do it. I understood why he did it – he was a coward who took the easiest way out and I had spent seven years making it easy for him. I understood that perfectly.

What I didn’t understand was why the man he owed money to had asked for me specifically.

I googled Damien Voss.

Thirty six years old. Started with nothing, built an empire. Powerful, ruthless, the kind of man people wrote about carefully because they were afraid of getting it wrong. Nobody said anything bad about him in print.

There was one quote. A journalist asked him what he wanted.

He said everything.

I put my phone away and looked out at the city going past and thought about a man who wanted everything deciding he wanted me.

The car stopped.

I got out before the driver could open my door. I didn’t want help. I didn’t want anything from anyone connected to Damien Voss. I stood on the pavement and looked up at the building and felt the anger in my chest sharpen into something colder and harder.

Six months. I was going to get through six months and then I was going to walk out of here and take my life completely apart and rebuild it without a single piece of Daniel in it.

But first I had to get through tonight.

A woman met me inside. Claire. Calm voice, practiced smile, led me to an elevator without asking questions. I was grateful she didn’t ask questions because I was not in a state to answer them politely.

She walked me down a hallway and left me in front of a door.

I stood there and breathed and told myself whatever was behind that door I was not going to fall apart in front of him. Daniel had already taken enough from me tonight. I was not giving Damien Voss my tears on top of it.

The door opened.

Damien Voss looked at me and my stomach turned over.

He was younger than I expected. Taller. His eyes landed on me the moment the door opened and didn’t move and the thing that made my skin crawl was that he didn’t look surprised. Not even slightly. He looked at me like he had been expecting me and had been patient about the wait.

“Mrs. Lawson,” he said. “Come in.”

I walked in.

I sat across from his desk and looked at him and let him see that I was angry. I was done managing how I came across tonight.

“You’re scared,” he said.

“I’m furious,” I said. “There’s a difference.”

Something shifted in his face. “Fair enough.”

“I want to know exactly what you expect from me,” I said. “Not a vague answer. Exactly.”

“You’ll live here. You’ll attend events with me when required and you’ll conduct yourself accordingly. Beyond that your time is your own.”

“That’s it.”

“That’s it.”

“You paid three million dollars and that’s it.”

“I paid three million dollars to collect a debt,” he said. “The terms of collection were mine to decide.”

I leaned forward. “Why me. Daniel owes you money. Not me. I didn’t even know your name three hours ago. So I want to know why, out of everything you could have asked for, you asked for me.”

He held my gaze. “Because I wanted you here.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It’s the one you’re getting tonight.”

I stared at him. He didn’t flinch, didn’t look away, didn’t offer anything else. I was too exhausted and too angry to keep pushing and he seemed to know it.

I stood up. “Six months,” I said. “And then I leave and you never contact me again.”

“Six months,” he agreed.

I turned for the door and stopped.

“I didn’t agree to this,” I said. My back was to him and I kept it that way. “Whatever Daniel signed, whatever that contract says – I didn’t agree to any of it. I want you to know that. I’m here because he left me no choice. Not because I consented to being sold.”

The room was quiet.

“I know,” Damien said.

Something in his voice was different when he said it. Quieter. Like the words weighed something.

I left before I could think about that too hard.

Claire took me to a room that was bigger than our entire upstairs at home. I checked the door the second she left.

It had a lock.

I turned it and stood there with my hand on it and the anger that had been holding me up all evening suddenly had nowhere to go and I felt the exhaustion underneath it hit me all at once.

I sat on the edge of the bed and I didn’t cry. I was too angry to cry. I just sat there and stared at the carpet and went through it again and again and let the fury keep me company because it was better than the alternative.

Daniel had made me coffee this morning.

He had kissed my forehead.

He had said I love you.

And the whole time that car was already booked.

I lay back on the bed without taking my shoes off and stared at the ceiling and made myself a promise in the dark.

Six months. I would get through six months.

And then Daniel Lawson was going to wish he had found another way.