5. Lena #2
He took my left hand in his. His fingers were warm, his grip gentle, and I hated how my skin sparked at the contact.
Hated the way my pulse jumped when he slid the ring onto my finger with aching slowness, his thumb brushing across my knuckles like a caress.
Like he had the right to touch me tenderly. Like this was real.
The platinum was cold and heavy and wrong.
“With this ring,” he said, his voice pitched low enough that only I could hear, “I thee wed.”
I wanted to rip it off. Wanted to throw it in his face and run. Instead, I stood frozen, that alien weight settling onto my hand like a brand.
“You may kiss the bride.”
Terror. That was what jolted through me at the judge’s words. Terror and anticipation tangled together in a way that made me sick. I forced myself not to step back, not to show weakness, even as Raphael leaned toward me.
His lips brushed my cheek. Just my cheek. A whisper of contact that sent heat blooming across my skin despite myself.
“Later,” he murmured against my ear, so quietly only I heard.
Promise or threat. The word hung between us, heavy with possibility.
Then he pulled back, and the judge was smiling her professional smile and gesturing toward the paperwork on her desk.
“If you’ll both sign here.”
I walked to the desk on legs that didn’t feel like mine. The pen was heavy in my hand as I looked down at the marriage certificate. A box for my signature.
Clara’s strategy whispered through me. The long game.
I signed. Watched my handwriting turn me into someone else.
This is the beginning of the end for him.
Raphael added his signature beside mine, his penmanship elegant and unhesitating. He had no idea what he was signing.
“Congratulations,” the judge said. “You’re married.”
The words hit me like a slap. I was married. To him. Until death did us part, or until I found a way to burn his world to ash.
Preferably the second.
The spring air was too bright when we stepped outside, too warm, too beautiful for what had just happened.
I stood on the courthouse steps and blinked at the sunshine like a prisoner emerging from underground.
The world looked exactly the same as it had an hour ago.
It did not care that I had just signed away my name.
“Welcome to the family, dear.”
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.
“Your room is ready for you,” Raphael said behind me. “Unless you’d prefer to share the master bedroom.”
I turned. “My room will be fine.”
Something crossed his expression. Disappointment, maybe. Or relief that he wouldn’t have to pretend intimacy tonight. I couldn’t tell, and I didn’t care.
“I’ll have dinner sent up at seven.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You should eat.”
“I’m not. Hungry.”
A pause. A muscle worked in his jaw. Then he inclined his head, a gesture that might have been respect if it came from anyone else.
“As you wish. If you need anything, Alice will attend to it.”
He turned and walked away, those careful steps carrying him toward his study. I watched him go, that same stiffness still evident in his movements, the way he held himself rigid, favoring his left side. Like he was injured.
Good, I thought savagely. I hope it hurts forever.
I climbed the stairs to the second floor alone. The silence pressed in around me. My room was at the end of a long hallway, away from the master bedroom, away from him. Small mercies.
The door opened onto the sitting room I had grown familiar with during my contract months.
Soft grays and blues, exactly as I had left it.
Through an archway, the bedroom was visible.
A four-poster bed made up with crisp white linens.
My suitcases sat against one wall, already unpacked, my clothes hanging in the closet, my toiletries arranged on the bathroom counter in rows that weren’t quite how I would have done it.
He hadn’t lied. Everything I needed. Everything touched by hands I hadn’t authorized, arranged by people I didn’t trust.
I walked to the window and looked out at the mountains. The sun was setting now, painting the peaks in shades of gold and pink, achingly beautiful. I used to love this view. Used to stand at similar windows and feel the vastness of the world around me, the freedom of all that open space.
Now there was only the cage.
The ring was heavy on my finger. I looked down at it, this symbol of his ownership, and thought about ripping it off and throwing it into the nearest drawer. But that would be admitting it mattered. That would be giving him power he hadn’t earned.
Instead, I turned my hand so the diamonds caught the fading light. Studied the way they sparkled, cold and hard and permanent. A beautiful trap. The physical proof that Lena Hughes no longer existed.
Survive now. Destroy later.
Clara’s plan. I would play the role of wife just enough to protect the hotel, and I would use every moment of proximity to learn his weaknesses.
He thought he had won. He thought this marriage made me his.
He had no idea.
I stood at that window until the sun disappeared behind the mountains and the sky faded from gold to purple to black. Until the stars came out, indifferent and distant, witness to nothing.
Then I turned away, shed my battle dress piece by piece, and prepared to sleep in my new prison.
Tomorrow, the work would begin.