"Look at me."
His voice rolled like a deep bass thunder and crackled in the hollowness of my throat, and I would not give heed to it. I stared at the mahogany bureau and at the ink stains that looked to me like a graph of my downfall.
The office smelled of old paper, expensive cigarettes and him, the heavy metallic scent of a man who controlled half the coffers of the empire.
"I told you, look at me, Evelyn."
A leathered hand lifted my chin. Cold glove on a skin that felt aflame. Duke Alistair was no angel, he was a hunter who had captured the single thing which could quench his appetite.
My breathing was in wounded little pulses. Shallow. Worthless.
"You need the money," he said, his thumb tracing the curve of my lower lip. "And I… I need a toy that knows how to be secretive."
He leaned close, his body heat seeping through my thin linen gown. I should hit him. I should flee. But my father's debts were like a specter around my throat, and he was holding a blade.
"One year."
"One year," he said, the blue in his eyes turning colder and hardening. "But no corset will be fastened on you in this house. I will do it. Every day of my rule under this roof will be in submission to me, and you will learn to do that."
The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating, punctuated only by the ticking of the massive grandfather clock that seemed to be measuring out the last seconds of my freedom. He let go of my chin, but the cold imprint of his leather glove lingered on my skin. He didn't move back, though. He stayed in my space, his shadow swallowing me whole.
He reached onto the mahogany desk and dragged a heavy, cream-colored document across the ink stains. The ink looked like a diagram of the trap I was walking into.
"Sign," he said, offering me a fountain pen that felt too heavy, too metallic in my trembling fingers.
I looked at the document. It wasn't a contract; it was a bill of sale.
...Evelyn Reed, in exchange for the full liquidation of all debts owed to the Alistair Ducal Treasury, hereby enters a binding agreement of indenture... to Duke Alistair Vance for a period of twelve months... to serve at his sole discretion and whim... to relinquish all personal autonomy under his roof...
WHIM. DISCRETION. RELINQUISH. The words clawed at the lining of my stomach.
"My father..." I started, my voice failing me, but Alistair didn't let me finish.
"Is safe from the debt collector's knife, if you sign. Every minute you hesitate, the interest claws deeper into his throat. Your signature is his only shield."
It wasn't a choice. It was a hostage negotiation.
I looked at the pen, then at the man who held my world in his left hand. The blue of his eyes wasn't just cold; it was predatory. He was watching me break, and he was enjoying it. The way a collector enjoys acquiring a rare, fragile specimen.
I brought the pen to the paper. The metal tip was cold against the skin of my index finger. I closed my eyes for a fraction of a second, visualizing the graph again—the line of my family's disgrace plummeting into an abyss, and Alistair's rule starting at the very bottom.
I opened my eyes and signed. Evelyn Reed. The letters were messy, a graph of my defeat written in my own hand.
The pen fell from my fingers and clattered onto the desk. The sound was too loud in the room.
Alistair didn't smile. He didn't seem triumphant. He just picked up the document, blew on the fresh ink, and carefully placed it into a drawer. Then, he looked back at me.
The interview was over. The agreement was sealed.
"Now," he said, his voice dropping an octave, becoming the low-frequency thunder again. "Evelyn Reed, indenture No. 001. Our agreement begins. You remember the first rule?"
I remembered the graph, the contract, the pen. But it was his glove on my chin that I really remembered.
"The corset," I whispered, the word a confession, a prayer.
"Correct." He moved. The predatory stillness was gone, replaced by a swift, efficient predatory grace. He bypassed me, walking toward the large, velvet-upholstered divan against the wall. He gestured toward it.
"Lie down."
The command was so absolute, so devoid of hesitation, that my legs moved before my mind could process the implications. My body heat was seeping into the velvet as I laid my spine onto the divan, staring up at the intricate, gilded plasterwork of the ceiling. It looked like a gilded cage.
He was above me in a second, his presence a heavy weight pressing the oxygen out of the air. He reached down and gripped the hem of my thin linen gown.
The R18 tension in his voice when he spoke next was crackling, electric.
"In this house, Evelyn, nothing will be fastened on you, or taken off you, that doesn't pass through my hands. Today, you wore this. Tomorrow, you wear only what I give you."
With one brutal, leather-gloved pull, he ripped the linen up over my hips, exposing me to the cold air of the office and the colder blue of his eyes. The agreement had begun.