Aliyah's Pov
After that night when Hayden stood over me in my bed, something changed inside me. I stopped being afraid of him and I started being angry at him, angry at Uncle Marcus and angry at my mother for letting this happen. Angry at myself for signing the contract so easily.
Anger was better than fear. Anger made me think, anger made me plan.
The next morning, I decided to push back.
Margaret told me that breakfast was at seven. I came down at seven thirty, I acted like it was an accident, like I had just lost track of time.
"Sorry," I said. "I didn't know what time it was."
"Seven o'clock breakfast," Margaret said. Her voice didn't change. "Every day."
The next day, I came down at seven thirty again and the day after that at seven forty five. I was late to every scheduled thing. Breakfast, lunch even the lessons with Elena.
Margaret would tell me the time and I would apologize and I would say I forgot and I would do it again anyway.
On the fourth day of being late, Hayden called me into his office.
"You're late," he said.
"I know," I said. "I'm sorry."
"That's the second time you've said that," he said. "But you're still late."
"I'll try to be on time," I said.
"You'll be on time," he said. "You'll not try, you'll do it."
"I said I'll try," I said. "That's all I can promise."
His face got hard. I could see the muscles in his jaw get tight.
"No," he said. "You'll do it, you don't get to try, you get to do."
I didn't answer. I just looked at him.
"If you're late again," he said, "there will be consequences."
"What kind of consequences?" I asked.
"The kind that make you understand that I'm not joking," he said.
I left his office but I was smiling. Because I had gotten to him, because his perfect control had cracked a little and because he cared enough to call me in and threaten me, which meant he wasn't completely ignoring me anymore.
The next day I was on time but I wore a dress that Elena had said was too casual for the house. It was a simple blue dress with short sleeves. There was nothing wrong with it, just not what Margaret normally brought me to wear.
When I came downstairs, Margaret looked at me and didn't say anything. She just looked back down at the food she was preparing.
Hayden walked past me in the hallway and he stopped.
"Go change," he said.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because that dress is not appropriate for this house," he said.
"It's just a dress," I said. "It's fine."
"I don't care if you think it's fine," he said. "Go change now."
I went back upstairs and I changed into the dress Margaret had picked. It was more expensive and more formal. It was what he wanted me to wear but I had shown him that I wouldn't just automatically obey.
The small rebellions added up. I read books he didn't approve of, i asked questions about things I wasn't supposed to ask about. I looked at the locked door every time I walked past it. I tried calling numbers on the phone he gave me to see if anyone would answer, no one ever did.
Hayden got colder as I pushed back. He stopped being distant and became downright hostile. He would give Margaret new instructions, more rules and more restrictions.
No books except the ones on the approved list. No leaving my room except for scheduled times. No asking questions, no looking at anything that wasn't directly in front of me.
He started eating dinner in his office instead of at the table. He stopped using the hallways where I might see him. He acted like I had become poison.
But I didn't stop pushing. If anything, I pushed harder.
Then came the event.
Elena told me about it on a Tuesday.
"Charity dinner," she said. "Tomorrow night. The Westbrooke Foundation hosts it every year. A lot of important people will be there. Business and media people will be present, You're going to look beautiful and happy and you're going to stand by Hayden's side and you're going to smile like you're the luckiest woman in the world."
"And if I don't?" I asked.
"Don't be stupid," Elena said. "This is the most important event all year for Hayden's business. You will be perfect or there will be consequences."
Consequences. Everyone kept talking about consequences but nobody ever explained what they actually were.
That night, Margaret brought a dress to my room. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It was gold and it fit perfectly against my body and it made me look like someone else. It made me look like
Someone important.
I looked at myself in the mirror and I didn't recognize the person looking back.
The next evening, I was ready. The dress. My hair done by someone Margaret brought to the house. My makeup done the way Elena had taught me, my nails perfect. My shoes expensive. Everything about me was designed to prove something to the world, that I belonged here. That Hayden had chosen well, that we were happy.
Hayden came to my room and knocked once before walking in. He was wearing a suit that looked like it was made of money, his hair was perfect. His face was clean shaven, he looked like a man who had never struggled for anything. Like a man who had always had everything.
He looked at me for a long moment.
"You look acceptable," he said.
That was all. He didn't say that i was beautiful, not stunning, but acceptable.
"Thank you," I said.
"Don't thank me," he said. "This isn't for you, this is for them. For the people who are going to be watching us tonight. They're going to want to see that I'm a man who has good taste. That I'm successful enough to have someone like you on my arm."
"Someone like me?" I asked.
"Beautiful," he said. "Worthy of being shown off. That's all this is."
He didn't offer me his hand. He just walked toward the door and I followed him.
The event was at a big hotel. There were photographers outside and he did something different there. He reached back and he put his hand on the small of my back. He smiled, he looked at me like I was the only person in the world.
It was the perfect performance.
The cameras flashed. The photographers called his name, he held me closer and I held onto him like I needed him to survive. Like my life depended on him and in a way, it did.
Inside the event space, everything was gold and expensive and large. There were hundreds of people all dressed like they had money, like they had won at something. Hayden walked through the room and people came to talk to him. Important people and powerful people.
He introduced me to all of them.
"This is my wife, Aliyah," he said. "Isn't she wonderful?"
"Beautiful," they would say.
"You're a lucky man," they would say.
"I know," Hayden would say. And he would pull me closer and he would smile at me like he loved me.
It was the best acting I had ever seen.
At one point, a woman from a magazine talked to us. She had a camera and a notebook.
"Tell me about your marriage," she said. "It's so romantic, like a whirlwind. What made you fall so hard for each other?"
Hayden looked at me and he smiled.
"She's unlike anyone I've ever met," he said. "When I saw her, I just knew. I knew this was the woman I wanted to spend my life with."
"And you, Aliyah?" the woman asked. "Tell us about falling in love with Hayden."
I opened my mouth to tell the truth to tell her that this was all fake. That we didn't love each other, that I was trapped and held prisoner and that none of this was real.
But Hayden's hand tightened on my back. Just a little bit, just enough that I understood.
"He's everything I ever wanted," I said. My voice sounded like someone else's voice, someone happy or someone in love. "I feel so lucky to be here with him."
The woman smiled and wrote things in her notebook. She believed every word I said.
Later, when the event was ending, the photographer wanted one more picture. Hayden and me together. His arm around me and his face close to my face.
The camera flashed and flashed and flashed.
And while the camera was taking our picture, while Hayden was smiling at the photographer, he leaned in closer to me. His lips were almost touching my ear.
"If you ever embarrass me," he said quietly, "I will bury everything you love."
The camera kept flashing. His smile never changed, his hand stayed on my back. To anyone looking at us, we were a perfect couple and completely in love.
But I heard every word. I understood every threat behind them.
"Do you understand me?" he asked. His voice was still soft, still gentle enough to be a whisper but it wasn't gentle. It was a knife wrapped in silk.
"Yes," I said. My smile was frozen on my face. Frozen exactly like his.
"Good," he said.
He turned back to the camera and he kissed my forehead while they took one last picture.
In that picture, I would later see, I looked like I was the happiest woman alive.