I can't sleep.
This bed feels like a prison tonight, silk sheets twisted around my legs like golden chains. Every time I close my eyes, I see my father's terrified face, hear Damien's voice saying "some debts can only be paid in kind," feel the weight of secrets pressing down on me.
Tomorrow I'll visit my mother's grave. Tonight, I'm haunted by memories.
I roll onto my side, staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the city lights below. Manhattan never sleeps, never stops moving, never stops consuming. Just like the man who owns this penthouse. Just like the man who owns me.
But it wasn't always like this between us. There was a time, one night, three months ago when I thought maybe, just maybe, I could survive this arrangement with my dignity intact.
I was wrong about a lot of things that night.
Three months earlier
The penthouse felt like a mausoleum when I first walked through the door.
Damien's driver had picked me up at eight o'clock sharp, exactly as promised. One black sedan, one polite but silent man in a uniform, one final ride from the life I had known to whatever came next. I sat in the backseat clutching a single suitcase, everything else would be "provided," according to the contract and tried not to throw up.
By the time the elevator reached the fortieth floor, I felt like I was attending my own funeral.
"Welcome home," Damien said when the doors opened directly into his foyer.
Home?? Wow!!
"You look terrified," he observed, voice carefully neutral.
"I wonder why." I clutched my suitcase handle so tightly my knuckles went white. "Maybe because I've just been sold to a stranger."
"Not sold. Contracted."
"Is there a difference?"
"We'll find out." He gestured toward the living room with its impossible view of Manhattan. "Can I offer you something to drink? You look like you could use it."
I wanted to refuse, wanted to maintain what little dignity I had left. But my mouth felt like cotton, and my hands wouldn't stop shaking, and the reality of my situation was crushing down on me like a physical weight.
"Whiskey," I said. "If you're going to own me, you might as well see me drunk."
Something flickered across his face, surprise, maybe, or approval. He moved to the bar with that predatory grace I was already learning to recognize, pouring amber liquid into two crystal glasses that probably cost more than my car.
"To new arrangements," he said, offering me a glass.
"To temporary ones," I corrected, taking a sip that burned all the way down. "Three years. Then I'm free."
We stood there in his palace of glass and marble, drinking expensive whiskey and sizing each other up like opponents before a fight. Because that's what we were, wasn't it? Two people who are forced into an arrangement trying to figure out how to survive it.
"I should show you to your room," he said finally.
"My room?" The question slipped out before I could stop it. "Not... yours?"
His smile was sharp as a blade. "Did you think I'd throw you down on the nearest surface and claim my prize? How disappointing. I had hoped for a more interesting adversary."
Heat flamed across my cheeks. "I don't know what I thought. This isn't exactly a situation they cover in finishing school."
"No, I imagine it isn't." He set down his glass and gestured toward the hallway. "Your room is down the hall. Mine is at the other end of the penthouse. You have your own bathroom, your own space. Consider it... neutral territory."
I followed him through a hallway lined with artwork I didn't recognize but suspected was worth more than my family's estate. The room he showed me was a beautiful king-sized bed, sitting area, and more windows offering that incredible view. It was also clearly a guest room, impersonal and carefully designed to offend no one.
"The closet has been stocked with clothes in your size," he said, opening a door to reveal more designer dresses than I'd ever seen in one place. "If there's anything you need that isn't provided, tell Maria. She handles the household."
"Very thorough." I set my suitcase down on the bed, suddenly exhausted by the surreal politeness of it all. "What happens now?"
"Now you settle in. Tomorrow we will discuss expectations."
He turned to leave, and I found myself calling after him. "Damien?"
He paused in the doorway. "Yes?"
"Why are you being so..." I searched for the right word. "Civil?"
"Did you expect me to be cruel?"
"I expected you to be the man who destroyed my family for sport."
Something dark passed across his face. "I am that man, Elena. Don't mistake courtesy for kindness. This arrangement serves my purposes, not yours."
"What purposes?"
"That's tomorrow's conversation." He stepped back into the hallway. "Sleep well. Tomorrow we begin in earnest."
The door closed behind him with a soft click, and I was alone in my beautiful prison cell, surrounded by luxury. I sat on the edge of the bed, Egyptian cotton sheets, naturally and tried to process what had just happened.
I changed into one of the silk nightgowns hanging in the closet black. But every sound made me jump, every shadow looked like a threat, and my mind kept racing through everything that had led me to this moment.
Around midnight, I gave up and wandered out to the kitchen for water. The penthouse was dark except for the city lights streaming through the windows, casting everything in shades of silver and gold. I felt like a ghost haunting someone else's life.
"Can't sleep either?"
I spun around to find Damien sitting in one of the living room chairs, still dressed but with his shirt unbuttoned, a glass of whiskey in his hand. He looked tired, human in a way that surprised me.
"I'm not used to..." I gestured helplessly at the opulent surroundings. "Any of this."
"It takes time." He stood, moving toward me with that same careful grace. "Would you like some wine? It might help."
"I don't think alcohol is going to solve my problems."
"It might not solve them, but it could make them more bearable."
There was something in his voice, understanding. Like he knew what it felt like to be trapped in a life you didn't choose.
"Okay," I said quietly.
He poured me a glass of wine, and we sat on opposite ends of his massive sofa like two strangers awake.
We sat in silence after drinking wine and whiskey and watching the city lights twinkle below us. It would have been terrifying sitting in the dark with the man who had bought me like property. Instead, it felt oddly peaceful.
"Elena," he said eventually.
"Yes?"
"I want you to know that nothing will happen between us that you don't choose. Whatever else this arrangement is, it won't be assault."
"Thank you," I whispered.
"Don't thank me. It's not kindness, it's practical. Unwilling partners are... unsatisfying."
But there was something in his voice that suggested it was more than practical. Something that sounded almost like decency.
"What if I never choose?" I asked.
"Then you never choose." He finished his whiskey and set the glass aside. "I'm a patient man, Elena. I can wait."
"For three years?"
"If necessary."
"I should get some sleep," I said, standing on unsteady legs.
"Elena." He caught my wrist as I passed his chair, his touch warm and surprisingly gentle. "This doesn't have to be a war."
"Doesn't it?"
"Not unless you make it one."
I looked down at his hand on my wrist, at the contrast between his tan skin and my pale arm. His touch was light, careful, like he was holding something fragile.
"I don't know how to do this," I admitted. "I don't know how to be someone's... possession."
"Then don't be." He released my wrist, fingers trailing across my skin. "Be Elena Castellano. Be yourself. Just... be yourself here, with me."
"Goodnight, Damien," I said softly.
"Goodnight, Elena."
I made it halfway down the hall before I stopped, turned around, and walked back to where he still sat in his chair.
"What is it?" he asked.
I didn't answer with words. Instead, I leaned down and kissed him.
It was supposed to be defiant. A way of taking control of the situation, of making a choice on my terms. It was supposed to be a kiss that said I wasn't afraid of him, that I could play his games and win.
It wasn't supposed to be soft, tentative and sweet.
It wasn't supposed to make me melt when he kissed me back with infinite care, his hands coming up to frame my face like I was something precious rather than something purchased.
When I pulled away, we were both breathing hard.
"Why?" he asked quietly.
"Because you're right," I whispered. "It doesn't have to be a war."
That night, I slept in my own room. But I dreamed of storm-gray eyes and gentle hands and the taste of expensive whiskey on a stranger's lips.
It was the last time I had slept alone in this penthouse.
Not because he demanded it. Because I chose otherwise.
Present day
The memory fades, leaving me staring at the empty space beside me in the bed we now share. That first kiss changed everything between us, set the tone for a relationship that's been built on my choices rather than his demands.
Which makes everything so much more complicated.
Because it would be easier to hate him if he had simply taken what he wanted. Easier to play the victim if he had made me one. Instead, he's given me just enough agency to make me complicit in my own captivity.
Just enough choice to make me fall for my captor.
The thought terrifies me more than any threat he could make. Because tomorrow I'm going to visit my mother's grave, and depending on what I find there, everything about this arrangement might change.
Everything about who I am might change.
I close my eyes and try to sleep, but all I can think about is that first night. The moment when I chose to kiss him instead of fight him.
The moment when I sealed my own fate without even realizing it.
Because now, three months later, I can't tell where Stockholm syndrome ends and genuine feeling begins. Can't separate the woman I was from the woman I've become in his bed.
Can't decide if that makes me a victim or villain in this twisted story we're writing together.
But tomorrow, when I find out whether my mother is really dead, I might finally get some answers.
Starting with whether I'm Elena Castellano, beloved daughter and innocent victim...
Or someone else entirely.