“But if you do.What’s your penalty?”
Something cold moved behind his eyes.“The contract doesn’t work that way.”
“Then make it work that way.Equal terms.If you end things early, you still owe the hotel the full twenty million.”
He was quiet for a long moment, and I saw him weighing the request.Deciding whether to grant this small concession or crush it like he’d crushed everything else.
“Fine,” he said finally.“I’ll have my lawyer add a mutual termination clause.If I end the arrangement prematurely, the debt remains cleared.But.”He leaned forward, and the air between us grew heavy.“If you end it, Lena.If you run.If you decide one day that you can’t stomach what I’m doing to you and you try to escape.The full penalty applies.Thirty million dollars.Do you understand?”
I understood.He was telling me there was no way out.That once I signed, I was his until he decided to let me go.
“I understand.”
“Good.Keep reading.”
I turned to the next section, and my stomach dropped.
The Party of the Second Part agrees to obey all reasonable commands issued by the Party of the First Part during the contract term.Failure to comply may result in penalties at the discretion of the Party of the First Part.
“All reasonable commands.”I read the phrase aloud.“What does that mean?”
“Exactly what it says.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He stood, and I tensed as he came around the desk.He didn’t stop until he was standing over me, close enough that I had to crane my neck to see his face.Close enough that his scent wrapped around me, dark and overwhelming.
“It means that when I tell you to kneel, you kneel.When I tell you to strip, you strip.When I tell you to spread your legs and let me look at what belongs to me, you do it without argument.”
My breath caught.“And if I refuse?”
“Then I’ll remind you why you’re here.”He crouched down until we were eye level, his face inches from mine.“You came to me.You called my number.You walked into my office and asked me to save you.I didn’t hunt you down, Lena.I simply made myself available, and you chose this.”
The worst part was that he was right.I had called him.I had come here.Every step of this had been my choice, even if the choices themselves had been impossible.
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“Right has nothing to do with it.You want to save your hotel?This is the price.”He straightened, looking down at me with cold patience.“You can hate me for naming it.But don’t pretend you didn’t already know what you were willing to trade.”
The truth of it burned.I had known.From the moment I’d dialed his number, I’d known exactly what he would want.I’d just hoped I was wrong.
“Now, do you have any other objections to the contract, or are you ready to accept what you’ve already decided?”
I wanted to throw the papers in his face.Wanted to tell him exactly where he could put his contract and his commands and his thirty-million-dollar penalty.The rage was a living thing in my chest, clawing to get out.
But I thought of Marjorie.Of Michael.Of Sophie and all the others.
“I want to add a clause,” I said, my voice barely steady.“A safeword.Something I can say if things go too far.”
He tilted his head, considering.“Define ‘too far.’”
“I don’t know.That’s why I need the word.Something that means stop, this is beyond what I agreed to.”
For a long moment, he just looked at me.Then he nodded, once.
“Fine.Choose a word.”
I hadn’t expected him to agree.I scrambled for something, anything.“Paradise.”
