Chapter 7 Lena
LENA
The nightmares came every night.
Three days of them. Three days of waking up drenched in sweat, heart pounding, sheets twisted around my legs like restraints. In the dreams, I was in his office, but it wasn’t an office anymore. It was a cage. And he was circling me, those dark eyes burning, that predatory smile fixed on his face.
What will you give me, Lena? What do you have that’s worth twenty million dollars?
I knew the answer. I’d known it since the moment he said the words. My body. My freedom. One year of my life.
But knowing and accepting were two different things.
The worst nightmare came Thursday night.
In it, I was kneeling on that cold marble floor while he stood over me.
His hand in my hair, tilting my head back.
His voice, low and certain, telling me exactly what he was going to do to me.
And the terrible part, the part that made me wake up gasping, was that I didn’t try to run. I just looked up at him and waited.
Would he laugh at me? Would he be cruel? Would he use me roughly, carelessly, the way you’d use something you’d bought at a discount? I didn’t know what men like him wanted. Didn’t know what submission meant in practice. The word felt foreign in my mouth, like a language I’d never learned to speak.
I lay in bed afterward, staring at the ceiling, running the numbers one more time. As if they might have changed overnight. As if some miracle might have materialized while I tossed and turned.
They hadn’t. It hadn’t.
Friday arrived like an executioner’s footsteps.
I hadn’t slept more than two hours. The sun came up over the mountains and I watched the light creep across my bedroom wall, marking the minutes until I had to face what I already knew I would do. The sheets smelled like my own fear. Sour. Human.
I dragged myself out of bed and went through the motions.
Shower. Coffee that tasted like ash. A piece of toast I forced down because I needed something in my stomach.
The hotel was already humming with activity when I made my way downstairs, staff moving through their routines like nothing was wrong.
Like their entire livelihoods didn’t hang by a thread I was about to cut.
Michael caught me in the hallway outside the back office.
“Lena.” He fell into step beside me, coffee cup in hand. His boyish face was creased with concern, and something about his expression made my throat tighten. “You look exhausted. Have you been sleeping?”
“Not really.”
“Is there anything I can do?” His voice was gentle. Sincere. The kind of voice that made you want to lean on someone, to let them carry part of the weight. “I know you’re under a lot of pressure. Whatever it is, you don’t have to carry all of this alone.”
I stopped walking and looked at him. Michael, who knew every inch of the building, every quirk of the plumbing, every staff member’s birthday. He’d shown me how to run the front desk software when I was fourteen. He’d covered for me when I snuck out to meet Joe last summer.
He meant well. They all did.
But none of them could help me with this.
“I appreciate it,” I said. “Really. But I have it handled.”
Hurt crossed his face. His expression hardened for just a second before the concern returned.
“If you change your mind,” he said, “I’m here. Day or night. You know that.”
I thanked him and kept walking. My heels clicked against the marble floor, echoing in the empty corridor. I had things to do. A life to sell.
Part of me wanted to tell him. Wanted to grab his arm and say I’m about to do something terrible to save all of you, and I need someone to tell me it’s okay. But I couldn’t. The words wouldn’t come. And what could he do anyway? What could any of them do?
This was my burden. Mine alone.
I chose my outfit carefully. Navy blue dress, professional cut, modest neckline.
Heels that made me feel taller, more confident than I was.
I pulled my hair back in a sleek ponytail and put on makeup for the first time in days.
Concealer for the dark circles. Lipstick in a shade my mother used to wear.
A shield. That’s what it was. A shield for a battle I’d already lost.
The drive to his office took twenty minutes.
I spent every one of them gripping the steering wheel so hard my knuckles went white.
Traffic crawled past the downtown district.
A mother pushed a stroller across the crosswalk, her toddler pointing at birds.
A couple laughed together on the sidewalk, shopping bags swinging from their arms.
Normal people living normal lives. I wondered what that was like.
I passed the turn for the hospital where my father lay. Didn’t look. Couldn’t afford to think about him right now, about what he would say if he knew what I was about to do. Would he understand? Would he be proud that I was saving his legacy, or horrified at the price I was paying?
I pushed the thought away. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t help me, and I couldn’t help him. We were both trapped in different kinds of cages.
The black glass tower rose against the sky, and this time I didn’t feel intimidated.
I felt resigned.
The lobby was exactly as I remembered it. Marble floors. Cold light. The sharp smell of floor polish and something underneath it, something expensive and chemical. A receptionist who looked at me like I was expected. Because I was.
“Ms. Hughes.” She smiled, professional and distant. “Mr. Antonov is waiting for you. I’ll take you up.”
No security code this time. No private elevator ride alone with my thoughts. She escorted me personally, making small talk about the weather that I couldn’t follow. My mind was already upstairs. Already in that office. Already signing away my future.
The doors opened onto the penthouse floor. She led me down a corridor lined with artwork I couldn’t appreciate, past offices I didn’t see, to the double doors at the end.
“Go right in,” she said. “He’s expecting you.”
I pushed open the doors.
He wasn’t standing by the window this time.
He was seated behind his desk, papers spread before him, looking for all the world like a businessman preparing for a routine meeting.
He’d taken off his jacket. His shirt sleeves were rolled to the elbow, revealing forearms roped with muscle. Even seated, he radiated power.
But there was nothing routine about this. We both knew it.
“Ms. Hughes.” He gestured to the chair across from him. “Please. Sit.”
I sat. The leather was cold against my thighs, just like last time.
His scent reached me across the desk, stronger now that we were enclosed in the same space.
Dark and expensive, with something warm and male underneath.
It made my stomach clench in ways I didn’t want to examine.
Made me remember the nightmares, the way dream-him had looked at me with those burning eyes.
“You’re early,” he said.
“I didn’t see the point in waiting.”
His expression changed. Not quite approval. More like a hunter acknowledging that his prey had stopped running. “No. I don’t suppose there is.”
He slid a document across the desk. Thick. Official. The kind of paperwork that changed lives.
“The contract,” he said. “I suggest you read it carefully.”
I picked it up. My hands were steady, which surprised me. Inside, everything was shaking.
The first page was standard legal language. Parties involved. Date of agreement. Purpose of contract. I skimmed through it, catching phrases that made my throat tighten. Personal services agreement. Exclusive arrangement. Duration of one calendar year.
The second page outlined the financial terms. Upon execution of this agreement, the Party of the First Part shall remit full payment of twenty million dollars to Apex Lending, satisfying all outstanding obligations.
The debt would be paid off immediately. Completely. The hotel would be free and clear.
Twenty million dollars. Gone with the stroke of his pen. In exchange for twelve months of my life.
I turned to the third page and stopped breathing.
The Party of the Second Part acknowledges and confirms that she is virginal at the time of signing, and agrees that this status will be surrendered exclusively to the Party of the First Part during the contract term.
He knew. Of course he knew. He’d said as much. But seeing it written down, in cold legal language, made it real in a way his words hadn’t. My virginity, reduced to a clause in a contract. A term to be fulfilled.
I looked up. He was watching me, expression unreadable.
“This clause.” I pointed to it, my finger trembling despite my best efforts. “I want it removed.”
“No.”
“It’s humiliating. It has nothing to do with the debt.”
“It has everything to do with what I want.” He leaned back in his chair, utterly at ease while I sat there with my dignity bleeding onto the pages. “That clause stays.”
“Why does it matter? Whether I’m a virgin or not, the arrangement is the same.”
“It matters because I want it documented.” His voice was silk over steel. “I want a legal record that when I take you, I’ll be the first. The only. I want your signature confirming that you understand exactly what you’re giving me.”
My face burned. “That’s… that’s perverse.”
“Perhaps.” He didn’t sound troubled by the accusation. “Sign it anyway.”
I flipped to the next page, desperate to move past the humiliation.
Non-disclosure agreement. I couldn’t discuss the arrangement with anyone, under any circumstances.
Not that I was planning to announce to the world that I’d sold myself to a billionaire, but the formal prohibition was another chain around my neck.
“The non-disclosure applies to you as well?”
“Of course. I have no interest in advertising our arrangement.”
Small mercy. I kept reading.
And then I reached the penalty clause.