Chapter 2
Faye
Waking up in a strange bed usually involves a specific sequence of sensory assessments: The smell of stale vodka, the heavy arm of a lacrosse player draped over my ribs, and the crushing weight of regret.
This was different.
There was no smell of alcohol. There was no heavy arm. There was only the scent of crisp, chemically perfect linen and the aggressively neutral smell of ozone.
I opened my eyes.
The ceiling was white. Not the dingy, popcorn-stucco white of a dorm room, but a smooth, architectural white that probably cost more per square foot than my first car.
Memory crashed into me like a Zamboni.
The frozen lock. The locker room. The bench. Him.
I shot up in bed, a gasp tearing through my throat.
The movement was a mistake. My body screamed.
Every muscle felt like it had been tenderized with a meat mallet.
The deep, aching bruise of hypothermia still lingered in my joints, a ghostly reminder of how close I’d come to becoming a permanent ice sculpture outside The Summit.
I looked around. The room was sparse. A grey bedspread. A black nightstand. A single, abstract painting on the wall that looked like a Rorschach test for psychopaths.
I was in the Governor’s mansion.
I threw off the covers and scrambled out of bed, realizing with a jolt of horror that I was still wearing my clothes from yesterday. My tights were torn at the knee. My cashmere sweater was wrinkled. I looked like a disheveled Barbie doll that had been left out in the rain.
I needed to leave. Immediately.
I grabbed my Birkin from the floor—thank God, he hadn’t touched it—and tiptoed to the door. I cracked it open, listening.
Silence.
Not the quiet of an empty house, but the heavy, pressurized silence of a library or a tomb.
I slipped into the hallway. My socks slid on the polished marble floors. I passed the kitchen. It was terrifyingly clean. The black granite countertops gleamed under the recessed lighting. There wasn’t a crumb, a water spot, or a stray coffee spoon in sight. It looked like a rendering, not a home.
A sticky note sat in the exact center of the island.
I approached it warily, as if it might explode.
*Gone to practice.
Coffee is in the pot.
Don’t touch anything else.
Be back at 1200.
Vane*
I stared at the handwriting. Sharp, angular, all caps. Even his penmanship was yelling at me.
I looked at the digital clock on the oven. 10:45 AM.
I had an hour and fifteen minutes to escape, find Cleo, and figure out how to survive without selling my soul to the ice-cold devil who lived here.
I ignored the coffee—mostly out of spite, partially because I was afraid I’d spill a drop on his pristine counter and he’d have me executed—and bolted for the elevator.
The walk to the Law Library was the longest mile of my life.
Aspen in the daylight was blindingly bright. The sun reflected off the snow banks, searing my retinas. I kept my head down, clutching my bag to my chest, walking fast.
I felt… exposed.
Usually, walking across the Sterling Vale campus was a performance. I would strut. I would wave. I would acknowledge the stares of the freshman girls who wanted to be me and the hockey players who wanted to sleep with me.
Today, I felt like a ghost.
My phone was still a dead brick in my pocket. My stomach was growling with a ferocity that was frankly embarrassing. I hadn’t eaten since lunch yesterday. A salad. A stupid, three-leaf kale salad because I wanted to look good in a dress for a party that I never even made it to.
I pushed through the heavy oak doors of the library, the smell of old paper and anxiety instantly wrapping around me.
I knew where to find her. Cleo Vance didn’t have a dorm; she lived in the corner carrel on the third floor, buried under a fortress of tort law textbooks.
I found her exactly where I expected, her dark curls pulled up in a chaotic bun, a pencil shoved behind her ear, aggressively highlighting a massive book.
"Cleo," I whispered.
She didn't look up. "If you are asking for a pen, I will stab you with this highlighter. I am in the middle of Mens Rea."
"I’m not asking for a pen. I’m asking for a lifeline."
Cleo froze. She knew that tone. She spun around in her chair, her eyes widening behind her thick-rimmed glasses when she saw me.
"Holy shit," she hissed. "Faye? You look… wreck-adjacent."
"Thank you," I said, sliding into the chair opposite her and dropping my head onto the table. "I feel like I’ve been chewed up and spit out by a Yeti."
"Where have you been? I texted you like ten times last night. There was a rumor you got arrested."
"Worse," I mumbled into the wood grain. "My father cut me off."
Silence.
I lifted my head. Cleo was staring at me, her mouth slightly open.
"Cut you off? Like… for the weekend?"
"Like forever. Accounts frozen. Housing access revoked. Cards declined. I have seventeen cents in change at the bottom of my bag and a tube of Chanel lipstick."
Cleo let out a low whistle. "Okay. Wow. That’s… that’s biblical. What did you do?"
"I breathed wrong? I don’t know. He found out about the Paris application."
"The gallery residency?" Cleo’s face softened. She was the only one who knew about my painting. To the rest of the world, I was Faye the Party Girl. To Cleo, I was Faye the Artist who was terrified of her own talent. "He nuked your life because you want to be an artist?"
"He considers it a 'bad investment.'" I laughed, but it came out sounding like a sob. "Anyway. That’s not the worst part."
"How can that not be the worst part?"
"I didn't have anywhere to sleep last night."
Cleo gripped the edge of the table. "Faye. Please tell me you didn't sleep in your car."
"I don't have a car. The lease is in his name. It was gone this morning." I took a deep breath. "I broke into the arena."
"You… you what?"
"And then Graham Vane found me."
Cleo’s face went through a complex journey of emotions. Horror. Confusion. And then, pure, unadulterated disgust.
"The Governor?" she whispered. "The guy who looks like he would foreclose on an orphanage just to check the box on a to-do list?"
"The very same."
"Oh my god. Did he call the police?"
"No," I said, looking at my chipped nails. "He took me home."
Cleo gasped so loud the librarian three rows over shushed us. "He what?"
"Not like that!" I hissed. "He took me to his penthouse. Because he’s a control freak and couldn't stand the idea of me freezing to death on his team’s property. He let me sleep in the guest room."
"Okay," Cleo exhaled, rubbing her temples. "Okay. That’s… surprisingly decent. Scary, but decent. So, you stayed the night, you survived, and now you’re here to crash on my floor until we figure this out."
I bit my lip.
"Faye," Cleo warned. "Why are you making that face?"
"He… he offered me a deal."
"What kind of deal?" Her lawyer brain activated instantly. Her eyes narrowed. "Did he ask for sex? Because that is coercion, Faye. That is quid pro quo sexual harassment and I will bury him under so much litigation he won’t be able to skate until he’s forty."
"No," I said quickly. "He didn't ask for sex. He specifically said I wasn't 'fuckable' in my condition."
"Charming."
"He wants a housekeeper."
Cleo stared at me. She blinked once. Twice.
"I’m sorry. My brain just short-circuited. Did you say housekeeper?"
"He fired his last one. He’s obsessive-compulsive about his space. He said if I cook and clean and keep the place spotless, I can live there rent-free. And…" I lowered my voice. "He said he’d pay my tuition."
Cleo slammed her book shut. "No."
"Cleo—"
"Absolutely not. Are you insane? You’ve never cleaned a toilet in your life. You think Swiffer is a Taylor Swift cover band."
"I can learn!" I argued, my defensive brat-shield coming up. "It’s not quantum physics. It’s wiping surfaces."
"It’s Graham Vane! He’s a psychopath, Faye. Everyone knows it. He doesn't date. He doesn't smile. He treats his teammates like employees. Living with him would be like living in a military barracks run by a Calvin Klein model with a god complex."
"I have nowhere else to go," I whispered. The fight drained out of me. "I can’t stay in the dorms. I can’t pay tuition. If I drop out, my father wins. He proves I’m useless without his money."
Cleo looked at me, her expression crumbling into pity. I hated pity. I hated it more than the cold.
"You can stay with me," she offered, but we both knew it was a lie. She lived in a studio apartment the size of a closet with a boyfriend who played drums. There was no room.
"I have to do this," I said, steeling myself. "It’s just a business arrangement. I scrub some floors, I make some pasta, I get my degree. I paint in secret. Then I go to Paris and never look back."
"He’s going to eat you alive," Cleo warned. "You’re chaos, Faye. He’s order. That’s not a roommate situation; that’s a matter-antimatter explosion waiting to happen."
"I can handle a hockey player," I said, standing up and smoothing my wrinkled skirt. "They’re all simple creatures. Feed them, ego-stroke them, ignore them."
"Graham isn't simple," Cleo said, her voice grave. "Be careful. Please."
"I'll be fine," I lied. "Do you have a charger? My phone is dead and I need to google 'how to operate a washing machine' before noon."
I returned to the penthouse at 11:58 AM.
I punched the gate code Graham had texted me earlier—1998, presumably his birth year, the narcissist—and took the elevator up. My heart was doing a frantic drum solo against my ribs.
It’s just a business deal. Be cool. Be aloof. Be Faye Allister.
The elevator doors slid open.
The smell hit me first. Garlic. Rosemary. Seared steak.
My stomach let out a treacherous roar.
I stepped into the living room. Graham was in the kitchen.
He had showered since practice. He was wearing grey sweatpants that hung low on his hips and a black t-shirt that stretched tight across his back as he moved. He was barefoot.