“All of them.Say it properly.I understand that I’ll come to you every night.”
My throat closed.He was making me rehearse my own surrender.Making me practice the words that would seal my fate.
“I understand that I’ll come to you every night.”
“And that my body will be yours to use however you want.”
“And that my body will be yours to use however you want.”The words tasted like ash.
“And that I will obey you without question.”
I stopped.This was too much.He was pushing too far, trying to break me before the contract was even signed.
“No.”
His eyebrow rose.“No?”
“I’ll agree to your terms.I’ll come to you.I’ll…” I swallowed hard.“I’ll submit.But I’m not going to stand here and recite humiliating phrases for your entertainment.”
For a long moment, he just looked at me.I watched the calculation behind his eyes, the weighing of how hard to push, how much to demand.
Then he smiled, and it was worse than his anger would have been.
“Fair enough.For now.”He moved back to his chair, giving me space to breathe again.“You have spirit.I look forward to seeing how long it lasts.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a promise.”He sat down, crossing one leg over the other with casual elegance.“By the end of our year together, you’ll say those words.You’ll say them willingly, eagerly, and you’ll thank me for teaching you how.But we can take our time getting there.”
I wanted to argue.Wanted to tell him he was wrong, that I’d never break, that he could use my body but he’d never have my submission.
But the way he looked at me made the words die in my throat.He wasn’t angry.He wasn’t frustrated by my resistance.
He was enjoying it.
“Now,” he said, “are there any other conditions you’d like to attempt to negotiate?Or are you ready to accept reality?”
The fight drained out of me.Every boundary I tried to set, he dismantled.Every condition I proposed, he twisted into something that served him.This wasn’t a negotiation.It was a demonstration of exactly how little power I had.
“And what happens to me?”I forced the words out through numb lips.“After the year is up?”
“You’re free.”He said it simply, like it was obvious.“The contract ends.The debt is cleared.You go back to your life, and I go back to mine.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”Something shifted in his eyes.Gone too fast to read.“One year of your life in exchange for twenty million dollars.I’d say you’re getting the better end of this deal.”
I wanted to laugh.Or scream.One year.Twelve months of belonging to this man, of following his rules, of submitting to whatever he wanted to do to me.And then I’d be free, and the hotel would be saved, and I could pretend none of it ever happened.
Except I knew I wouldn’t be able to pretend.Some things leave marks that don’t fade.
The math ran through my head unbidden.Twenty million dollars.The hotel.The staff.Marjorie and Michael and everyone who depended on Hughes Grand.Everything my mother had loved, everything my father had built.
Versus one year of my life.My body.My dignity.Twelve months of belonging to a man who looked at me like I was something to be consumed.
“And if I say no?”
He shrugged.One shoulder, elegant, dismissive.“Then I file for foreclosure on Monday.The hotel goes to auction.You lose everything anyway.The only difference is whether you have something to show for it.”
