Alice’s voice, behind me.I turned to find her watching me with that unreadable expression, grief and regret layered beneath.
“Thank you.”The words were automatic.Meaningless.
“I know this isn’t what you wanted.”She stepped closer, lowering her voice so only I could hear.“But perhaps, in time, it will be something you can live with.”
Live with.As if this marriage were a chronic illness rather than a cage.As if I should make peace with my captivity rather than fight it.
But there was a strange weight in her tone.Not pity exactly.She knew things about this situation that I didn’t.The careful way she chose her words made that clear.
I filed that away for later.
“We should go,” Raphael said behind me, and I turned to find him holding open the car door.A gentleman’s gesture.Ownership wrapped in courtesy.
I walked past him without touching, without looking, and slid into the back seat.The leather was cool against my legs through the fabric of my suit pants.I fixed my gaze on the headrest in front of me and waited for him to follow.
He did, settling onto the seat beside me with that same careful stiffness.Whatever was wrong with him, it wasn’t getting better.The door closed.Parsons started the engine.
And we were moving.Away from the courthouse.Away from the last shreds of my independence.Toward the manor I had once lived in as his contracted mistress and now would inhabit as his wife.
The silence in the car was suffocating.I kept my eyes on the window, watching Paradise Peaks roll past, the charming downtown giving way to winding mountain roads.His presence beside me was a pressure I couldn’t ignore, his cologne filling the enclosed space, that undercurrent beneath it that made my body respond in ways my mind despised.
“Your things have been moved to the manor.”
His voice broke the silence.I didn’t turn.
“My things?”
“Everything you’ll need.”
Already.He had already moved my belongings without asking, without consulting, without giving me the dignity of packing my own life.The ring shifted on my finger as my hand clenched into a fist.
“I didn’t give anyone permission to touch my things.”
“It’s done.”No apology in his tone.Just statement of fact.
I turned then, letting him see the fury in my eyes.“You don’t get to decide what happens to my belongings.You don’t get to move my life around like furniture.”
“You’re my wife now.”He held my gaze, and there was an almost-softness in his expression that I refused to trust.“What’s yours is ours.”
“Nothing of mine is yours.”The words came out sharp enough to cut.“Not my hotel.Not my things.Not me.”
Pain showed in his eyes.That wounded look I had seen before, or a very good imitation of it.I couldn’t tell if it was genuine, and I didn’t care.
“We’ll discuss it later.”
“Go ahead.”I kept my voice flat, lethal.“Lock me in.Chain me to the bed.It won’t make me forgive you.There’s nothing to discuss.You can own this marriage on paper.You can own this ring on my finger.But you will never own me.”
I turned back to the window.Conversation over.
The manor rose against the mountain like a fortress as we approached, all stone and glass and too many windows.Twenty thousand square feet of beautiful prison.I had lived here for two months, sleeping in his bed, wearing his collar, letting myself believe his touches meant something.
Never again.
Parsons pulled up to the front entrance.Raphael got out first, moving around the car to open my door with that same careful stiffness.I climbed out without taking his offered hand.
The front door opened before we reached it.Alice must have called ahead.
Inside, the manor was exactly as I remembered.The grand staircase sweeping upward.The library where I had played piano while he listened, foolish enough to find beauty in his darkness.
