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Home / Romance / OWNED BY MY EX'S GODFATHER / Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

All Chapters of OWNED BY MY EX'S GODFATHER: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

41 Chapters

Chapter One:

"Miss Bennett," he says. "Mr. Kane is waiting for confirmation."I look at the contract. One year. Total compliance. My body, my time, my obedience written out in clean legal language that makes it sound reasonable. The clock on Alexander Kane's kitchen wall reads 2:17 a.m., and I have been sitting here for twenty minutes staring at a signature line. "How did he know where to find me?" I ask.The lawyer does not blink. "Mr. Kane has resources." "That is not an answer." "It is the one I am authorized to give."I look back at the contract. At the terms that say he will own every hour of my day and I will live in his penthouse and wear what he chooses and attend what he requires. At the section that promises a trust fund large enough that I will never have to ask my family for anything again. At the legal intervention clause that mentions my mother's estate in language so specific he must have been watching for a while.At the folder underneath with dates going back three years. Medical

Chapter Two:

The penthouse is silent. I stand in the entrance hall with my suitcase at my feet and Alexander three steps behind me, and I try to catalogue what I am seeing. Floor-to-ceiling windows. Grey walls. Charcoal furniture. Everything clean and expensive and impersonal except for a single photograph on the console table by the door. A woman with dark hair and a smile that looks like his."Your mother?" I ask. "Yes." I turn to look at him. He is watching me with the same unreadable expression he had at the bar. Patient. Controlled. Waiting for me to finish processing whatever I need to process before he tells me what comes next. "She is beautiful," I say. "She was."Was. Past tense. I do not ask. It feels too intrusive. I look back at the windows. The city spreads below us in every direction. Manhattan. I am in Manhattan. I am standing in a billionaire's penthouse, and I have just signed a contract that gives him ownership of my life for a year, and I do not know what I am supposed to do now

Chapter Three:

I wake to sun streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows and have no idea what time it is. I reach for my phone. Ten thirty. I have not slept past eight in years. I sit up and look around the room. My room. In Alexander Kane's penthouse. This is real. This is actually happening.I get out of bed and shower in the bathroom with water pressure that could strip paint and more hot water than I have ever had in my entire life. When I come out, there is a tray on the desk by the window. Coffee. Toast. Fruit. A note in clean handwriting that says, "Eat. A."I pick up the note. Read it three times. He brought me breakfast. Or had someone bring it. Either way, I slept through it, and he did not wake me. I drink the coffee and eat the toast and look out at Manhattan spread below me and try to figure out what I am supposed to do today.The rules did not cover this. You will not leave without notifying security. You will attend required events. You will wear appropriate clothing. Nothing abou

Chapter Four:

I cannot sleep. Again. It is becoming a pattern, and I do not know how to break it. Midnight comes, and I am wide awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking about Derek and the gallery and the way Alexander held his hand at my back like he was holding me in place. Like he wanted me there. Not because the contract required it. Because he chose it.I get out of bed. Pull on the grey cashmere robe. Go downstairs to the kitchen because maybe tea will help. Maybe anything will help. The kitchen is dark except for the under-cabinet lighting. I find the kettle. Fill it with water. Set it on the stove, turn on the burner, and try to quiet my mind.I do not hear him come in. I just feel the shift in the air, and then Alexander is standing in the doorway in dark pants and a white T-shirt and bare feet. His hair is messed. He looks human. Real."I am sorry," I say. "I did not mean to wake you.""You did not. I do not sleep much."He crosses the kitchen. Stands beside me at the counter. Close enough

Chapter Five:

The cedar and sharp, expensive cologne that has become one of the most familiar things about this penthouse hits her first when she walks into the living room. Tom Ford Oud Wood. He is standing at the floor-to-ceiling windows with his back to her, looking out at the city. When he turns and sees the amber silk dress she picked from the wardrobe he provided, the compliment comes out flat and direct the way his compliments always do."If I knew you were going to look this beautiful in that color, I would have banned you from wearing anything else inside this penthouse."No build-up. No performance. Just that.Her cheeks go red. The intensity in his ice-blue eyes startles her, and she takes a quick step back without meaning to, nearly walking into the corner of the marble console table behind her. He lets out a low, quiet laugh at that."You are always watching me so closely," she says."You are the only person who can pull my attention away from my work," he says. "So I have to stay on h

Chapter Six:

"Who is messing with your phone, Sophia?"Alexander's grip on her hand at the gallery railing tightens further as he waits for an answer. Her face has already given her away. She knows it and he knows it. She makes a split-second decision and holds the phone out.He reads it. His expression does not change, but the quality of his stillness shifts into something colder. More deliberate. Not the boardroom performance she has seen him use on investors. This is the other kind. The quiet one. The dangerous one."How long have the messages been coming?" he asks."Since the night Derek appeared at the first gallery opening," she says. "Three weeks ago."He pauses. "Are there others?"She unlocks her phone and hands it over without a word.He scrolls through everything in the folder she built. The unsigned messages. The dates. The restaurant photograph. The news article. Finally, the screenshot of the Kane Global internal document. His jaw tightens. He looks up and scans the room once, unhurr

Chapter Seven:

"Whoever is doing this has been inside my company for longer than three weeks. I need to know who it is before they know I am looking."Alexander is on a call at six in the morning, standing at the window of his office with the city still grey below him. Marcus Reeves is on the other end. Head of internal security. Not the building kind. The corporate kind. The man Alexander hired twelve years ago because he thinks the way people who want to cause damage think. Efficient. Unsentimental. The most reliable instrument Alexander has in a crisis.He gives Marcus three things. The anonymous message platform Derek used. The restricted distribution list the leaked document came from. The trust fund documentation breach."I want a name," Alexander says. "Not a report.""End of day," Marcus says.Alexander ends the call.He sits at his desk in the grey morning light and opens the folder Marcus already started building overnight. A preliminary trace on the anonymous message platform shows the me

Chapter Eight:

"You already knew it was her, didn't you?"It is not a question. Sophia is watching Alexander's face as she says it, and she can see the answer before he gives it. He did not go still when she started talking about the cocktail reception because the information was new. He went still because she had it. She has spent her whole life reading rooms and reading people. The skill came from necessity. Four years in her father's house after Vivienne moved in taught her to distinguish between a man receiving a surprise and a man receiving confirmation of something he already suspected. This is the second one.She finishes telling him everything. Elena at the window three weeks ago. The exact words she used. The offer wrapped in warning. The way she set her glass down on the marble ledge with deliberate care and walked away without looking back, like she had already said what she came to say and the rest was up to Sophia. When she is done, Alexander is quiet for a long moment. The penthouse ar

Chapter Nine:

"I need you to stay in this room until I tell you otherwise. Not a rule. A request."Alexander says this to Sophia in the entrance hall before he leaves for the office. She is standing by the kitchen counter with her coffee, still in the grey cashmere robe she has been wearing every morning since she arrived. The distinction he draws between rule and request is deliberate. She hears it that way. He can see it in the way her grip on the mug tightens slightly. This is the first time he has asked her for something instead of requiring it. He does not comment on what it means. Neither does she. The space between them holds it without either of them naming it.Alexander is already dressed when Sophia comes downstairs at seven. Marcus's file from the night before is open on his laptop at the kitchen counter. He closes it when she enters. She notices. Her eyes move from the laptop to his face and then away. She does not ask what was in it. That choice is its own kind of trust, and he feels t

Chapter Ten:

"You do not have to tell me tonight. But I need you to know I am not going anywhere while you decide."Sophia says this after Alexander tells her he needs to decide if he is ready to tell her about South Chicago. They are still in the smaller library. The afternoon light has shifted to early-evening grey. The city outside the windows is starting to light up building by building, the way it does every night at this hour. She is sitting on the couch with her sketchbook closed in her lap. He is in the chair across from her, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped loosely between them.She does not push. She has spent her whole life being told things in fragments by people who decided she could not handle the whole picture. Her father did this. Vivienne did this. Derek did this in his own way, feeding her just enough information to keep her where he wanted her without ever giving her the full story. She refuses to do that to him now. She built a folder and held it for

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