Chapter 9
Belle
I didn't go downstairs.
The house breathed around me—pipes settling, rain drumming against glass, the soft hum of central heating I hadn't earned and didn't want.
Below, movement. Deliberate. Unhurried. The clink of plates being set down. Cutlery arranged with the precision of someone who'd done this a thousand times before. A chair scraped against hardwood.
Then—nothing.
He was waiting.
I sat on the edge of the bed, still dressed in what I'd worn when I signed my life away. Jeans. Sweater. Boots I hadn't bothered unlacing.
My suitcase remained by the door, untouched.
A pathetic act of rebellion I knew meant nothing.
If I didn't unpack, I hadn't moved in. If I didn't shower, I hadn't made myself comfortable. If I didn't go downstairs, I hadn't agreed to this.
Thin logic. Tissue-paper rationalization that dissolved the moment I examined it too closely.
But it was all I had.
The contract sat in my memory like a brand. Every clause. Every term. Every place I'd initialed away pieces of myself until nothing remained except the signature at the bottom.
Belle Reiss.
My stomach growled.
I ignored it.
Hunger was easy. Manageable. A problem I could solve by simply enduring. Unlike everything else.
The house settled again. Quieter now. No footsteps on the stairs. No knock at the door. Just the awareness that he was down there, eating dinner meant for two, completely unbothered by my absence.
That bothered me more than it should have.
I wanted him angry. Wanted proof that my defiance—however small, however pointless—landed.
But Gideon Jones didn't do anger.
He did patience.
The kind that outlasted every defense until you broke from exhaustion rather than force.
I pulled my knees to my chest, wrapped my arms around them, and stared at the door. Waiting. For what, I didn't know. For him to come drag me downstairs? For the lock to click and trap me here? For the next six months to fast-forward past this moment into something survivable?
The rain intensified. And I sat. And waited. And hated that I was already counting down.
I considered running.
The thought arrived fully formed, sharp enough to hurt.
I knew where the front door was. Two floors down. Hardwood that wouldn't muffle footsteps, but I could move fast if I needed to.
The windows in this room didn't lock from the outside. I'd checked while he gave me the tour he pretended was courtesy instead of claiming.
One floor up from the ground. Manageable drop if I hung from the sill first.
The driveway curved through trees thick enough to hide in. Dark enough to disappear into.
I still had my phone. Could call an Uber… even if I wasn't sure my card would go through.
I could be gone in under three minutes.
Four if I grabbed the suitcase.
The fantasy unspooled with awful clarity: Driving back to the city, hands shaking in my lap, checking the rearview every thirty seconds.
Reaching the hospital just as they process the payment reversal.
Walking into my father's room and watching his face collapse when I tell him the money's gone.
Watching him ask why. Watching him realize.
And after—because there would always be an after—Gideon would come.
Not immediately.
Not in a rage.
He'd let me think I'd won first. Let relief settle just long enough to feel real.
Then he'd arrive.
Calm.
Inevitable.
And whatever mercy existed in this arrangement would vanish the moment I proved I couldn't be trusted to honor it.
My stomach twisted.
Bile rose.
I pressed my forehead to my knees and breathed through my mouth until the nausea passed.
Running would only teach him how far I could get. And how much harder he'd need to hold me after.
The realization landed like a stone in deep water—no splash, just the awful certainty of something sinking beyond retrieval.
I wasn't trapped because the doors were locked. I was trapped because leaving would cost more than staying.
That was the design.
That was always the design.
I lifted my head. Stared at the door. Counted my heartbeats until they steadied into something that wasn't quite acceptance but looked enough like it to pass.
Then I stood. Unlaced my boots. Set them by the bed with hands that barely shook. And unpacked.
Not everything.
Just enough to prove I understood the terms.
My phone buzzed against the nightstand.
I'd set it face-down out of habit—one less screen glowing accusations at me in the dark. But the vibration rattled loud enough to make me flinch.
I reached for it without thinking.
St. Catherine's Hospital—Billing Update
My thumb hovered over the notification. Dread pooled low in my gut, familiar and sickening. Another reminder. Another payment plan offer that wouldn't cover half of what we owed.
I opened it anyway.
The screen loaded.
Then—
ACCOUNT STATUS: PAID IN FULL
I blinked. Read it again. The words didn't change. Every line item. Every charge. The ambulance rides. The monitoring equipment. The specialists my father's insurance had refused to cover.
All zeroed out.
Green checkmarks down the entire list like someone had taken an eraser to our disaster and simply made it disappear.
Future treatments: PRE-APPROVED
Outstanding balance: $0.00
My vision blurred.
I pressed my palm against my mouth to stop the sound trying to escape—half-sob, half-something worse.
Relief hit first. Pure. Overwhelming. The kind that made my knees weak even sitting down.
My father was safe.
The treatments would continue.
He wouldn't die because I couldn't solve an impossible equation fast enough.
I could breathe. For the first time in weeks—months—I could actually breathe. Then the shame followed.
Harder.
Sharper.
Cutting deeper because the relief had softened me first.
He did exactly what he promised.
Not a penny less.
Not a single condition left unfulfilled.
Gideon Jones was a lot of things. But he wasn't a liar.
I hated that most. Hated that he'd kept his word while I sat here plotting escapes and nursing my anger like it was the only thing left that belonged to me. Hated that the proof glowed bright and undeniable in my hands.
I'd sold myself. And he'd paid. Fair and square.
The bedroom door opened without a knock.
I didn't jump. Didn't gasp. But my spine went rigid, hand tightening around my phone hard enough to hurt.
Gideon filled the frame. Shoulders too broad. Presence too certain. Like he'd measured the doorway when he bought the place and knew exactly how much space he'd occupy standing there.
Calm.
Unhurried.
Already irritated in that quiet way that made my skin prickle.
"Dinner."
Not a request. Not a question. A statement of fact delivered in that low, controlled voice that probably worked wonders on teammates and reporters and women who didn't know better.
I didn't look at him. Kept my eyes on the phone screen. On the proof of what I'd traded. On the green checkmarks that bought six months of my life.
"I'm not hungry."
Silence.
The kind that pressed against my eardrums. That made the rain outside sound too loud and my breathing too obvious.
"That wasn't an invitation."
My jaw clenched. Something hot and vicious sparked beneath my ribs—anger, maybe, or the ghost of self-preservation finally waking up and realizing it had missed its chance to run.
I turned. Slowly. Deliberately. Met his eyes. Dark blue. Unreadable. Fixed on me with the focus of someone who'd already decided how this ended and was simply waiting for me to catch up.
"No."
One word.
Clear.
Defiant.
The syllable hung in the air between us like a thrown gauntlet.
For a moment, I thought he might smile.
That infuriating, knowing curve of his mouth that said he'd anticipated this exact response and had already planned three moves ahead.
He didn't.
His expression didn't shift at all.
No anger. No surprise. No reaction I could use to measure whether I'd landed a blow or just embarrassed myself.
He just stood there.
Watching.
Waiting.
My heart hammered against my ribs. Blood rushed in my ears.
Every instinct I'd spent years honing in a world that didn't reward women for backing down screamed at me to hold this line.
To prove that signing a contract didn't erase my spine.
That he could own my time, my presence, my body for six months—but not this.
Not the small, stupid act of refusing dinner.
"Belle."
My name in his voice.
Quiet.
Patient.
A warning wrapped in silk.
I lifted my chin. "I said no."
The air shifted.
Not violently. Not even obviously.
But the temperature in the room dropped just enough to notice. Just enough to make my breath catch.
Gideon moved. One step into the room.
The door swung wider behind him but didn't close.
Escape route still visible. Still technically available.
We both knew I wouldn't take it.
"The contract," he said, voice perfectly level, "doesn't include a starvation clause."
"Good thing I'm not hungry then."
"You haven't eaten since this morning."
How the hell did he—
My stomach chose that moment to betray me. A low, traitorous growl that echoed in the awful silence.
His eyebrow lifted.
Barely.
Just enough to communicate what words didn't need to: Liar.
Heat flooded my face.
Embarrassment. Fury. The horrible awareness that he'd been paying attention—that he'd noticed what I ate and when and probably catalogued it alongside every other detail he'd collected about me like ammunition.
"Get up."
Two words.
Soft as a blade between ribs.
I stayed exactly where I was. Perched on the edge of his bed in his house, phone clutched in my hand displaying proof of his money saving my father's life. Everything about this moment designed to remind me how thoroughly I'd already lost.
Except this.
This one, small refusal.
"Make me."
The words left my mouth before I could stop them.
Reckless.
Stupid.
Exactly the kind of challenge that would haunt me later.
But I was so tired of being sensible.