THAT'S WHAT I KEEP HER FOR

He tells me at breakfast. Casual. Like he's telling me it might rain. "We have guests tonight. Eight o'clock. Help the staff set up." I look at him. He's already looking at his phone. "The tables, the flowers, the bar cart." He turns a page. "Cora will direct you." He leaves. His coffee cup is still on the counter. He didn't finish it. He just left it there for someone else to deal with. I look at my eggs. He has staff for this. Three people whose entire purpose in this penthouse is exactly what he just handed to me. He knows that. I know that. I pick up his cup and wash it myself because if I don't move my hands right now I'm going to sit here and feel things I can't afford to feel before nine in the morning. Cora doesn't look at me the whole time. That's the part that gets under my skin more than the instructions themselves. She holds her clipboard and tells me where things go and I can see it on her face — that specific discomfort of a person being made to participate in

AFTER DINNER

The guests leave at eleven. I hear them from my room. Voices at the door, laughing, saying their goodbyes. Then the door closes and the penthouse goes quiet and I just sit on the edge of my bed in the cream dress and stare at the floor. No tears. I thought there'd be tears. There's just nothing. Like I used everything up at that table and came back empty. I take the pins out of my hair and drop them on the nightstand one by one. Shake my hair loose. That's the most like myself I've felt since this morning. I'm reaching for the zip at the back of my dress when the door opens. No knock. Never a knock. Nico stands in the doorway with his jacket gone and his collar open and his eyes on me across the room. I go still with my arm twisted behind my back still reaching for a zip I can't get to. He looks at me for a moment then crosses the room and stops behind me and unzips the dress in one smooth pull like he's done it a hundred times. Because he has. "You did well tonight," he says

All Chapters of CONTRACTED TO THE DON...AND HIS TWIN: Chapter 11 - Chapter 12

THAT'S WHAT I KEEP HER FOR

AFTER DINNER