“You’re not fine.”She settled into the chair across from me, her dark hair pulled back in a practical knot.My cousin had been staying in my apartment since the funeral, sleeping in one of the guest rooms, refusing to leave me alone.I wasn’t sure if I was grateful or suffocated.Both, probably.“You’re running on rage and caffeine, and eventually one of those is going to give out.”
“The caffeine, probably.”
“That’s not funny.”But her mouth twitched, just slightly.Clara had always appreciated dark humor, even when she was worried.“Staring at those documents won’t change what’s in them, Lena.You’ve read them a hundred times.”
“I know.”
“So stop torturing yourself.”She took a sip of her coffee, watching me over the rim.Her eyes were sharp, assessing.Clara came from the banking branch of the Hughes family, the kind of money that taught you to read people like balance sheets.She had been more older sister than cousin for as long as I could remember, and she had never once treated me like I was fragile.“We need to talk about the marriage clause.”
I had been avoiding this conversation.Avoiding the math.Avoiding the obvious conclusion that every calculation pointed toward.
“I know what you’re going to say.”
“Do you?”Clara set her cup down.“Because I’ve been running the numbers, and I don’t see a lot of options here.You need to be married within a year.That means finding someone willing to marry you in time.Someone who won’t try to take the hotel out from under you the moment the ink dries.Someone who actually has the resources to help you keep it running while you learn the ropes.”
I waited.She didn’t say his name.Neither did I.
“The men you know,” she continued, ticking off fingers, “are your father’s business associates.Old money types who think women belong in drawing rooms.The trust fund crowd your ex ran with, and we both know how that turned out.Hotel industry contacts who would marry you for the property and nothing else.”
“I know.”
“Any of them would want control.That’s the whole point of the clause.Your father wanted someone else running things.Someone with the right equipment between their legs.”
I flinched at the bluntness, but Clara had never been one for softening blows.
“The alternative,” she said, “is losing the hotel to charity in three hundred and five days.Watching everything your mother loved get handed over to some foundation that will probably sell it to developers.”
“I know what the alternative is.”
“I’m not saying your father was right.”Her voice gentled, just slightly.“I’m saying he built the trap, and now you’re in it.So who?Who could you marry in the next year who wouldn’t try to take everything from you?”
The answer hung between us, unspoken.A name neither of us wanted to voice.
There was only one man with the resources, the connections, and the leverage.Only one man who might have a reason to want this marriage as badly as I needed it.
The same man who had orchestrated my ruin from the very beginning.
“I would rather burn the hotel down,” I said, and my voice came out harder than I intended, “than let him touch me again.”
Clara didn’t argue.Just watched me with those careful eyes, the ones that saw too much and said too little.
“What about the contract?”she asked after a moment.“The one you signed with him.Is it over?”
I froze.
The contract.The twelve-month contract I had signed in his office, my hand trembling as I wrote my name at the bottom of each page.Trading my body for my family’s debt.Trading my time, my obedience, my virginity.I had assumed it was finished.The debt was paid.He had taken everything the contract specified.What else was there?
But Clara’s question lodged in my mind like a splinter, and suddenly I couldn’t remember the exact terms.The exact language.What I had actually agreed to, in my desperation to save the hotel.
“I need to check the contract.”
The safe was hidden behind a portrait of my grandmother, a stern-faced woman I had never met who watched over the office with disapproving eyes.My hands shook as I worked the combination.Twice I got it wrong, had to start over, my fingers clumsy with sudden dread.
The safe held jewelry I never wore, the deed to the hotel, and a manila folder containing my copy of the contract.
I pulled it out and carried it back to the desk.Read it once, the words swimming before my eyes, then forced myself to read it again.
The horror built slowly, like water seeping through cracks in a foundation.
