Chapter 17
THE QUEEN’S MOVE
This game ends with the queen’s move
Leah
What I remember most is the smell of fresh paint.
The living room was half-finished—a new shade of warm cream on one wall, the rest still bare, waiting.
We had moved in only a couple of weeks ago.
The house wasn’t big, but it was ours. Or rather, his.
Dorian had been stubborn about that—refusing my father’s offer to help us get a bigger place in a better neighborhood.
He wanted to provide for us himself. And, truth be told, he was doing fine.
The business was growing, jobs were steady, things were looking up.
But looking up had never been enough for me.
I stood in the doorway of the bedroom with my last suitcase—my hand resting lightly on the handle. I had timed this. Of course, I had. I’d left everything exactly as I wanted him to find it: empty.
The house was stripped bare, just space and silence. A single bucket of paint sat in the living room. I left it there on purpose—a reminder of the life I didn’t want.
He stepped inside on crutches, his right ankle in a fresh cast, looking tired. His eyes swept the room once, twice. Confusion turned to realization.
“Leah? What’s going on?”
I smoothed my hair, and gave him the smallest smile I could manage. Soft enough to sting later.
“I can’t do this anymore, Dorian.” My voice stayed calm, almost gentle. “This life… it’s not what I want.”
His jaw tightened. “Because I broke my leg? Because I can’t work for a few weeks? Leah, we’re fine—”
“It’s not about that.” I cut him off before he could make it noble. My voice stayed soft, calm—the kind that sinks in deeper than shouting.
“When we met in college, you walked like a demigod who couldn’t be bothered with the mortals around you. You always had a short, sharp answer for everything.”
Dorian’s brows knit, his grip on the crutches tightening.
“I was a modest freshman, and you were a polished senior, already belonging everywhere I didn’t. I was just finding my way in a new world. You were the one who walked through it like you owned it.”
I smiled faintly, remembering. How I had seen him then: beautiful, untouchable, and how I’d made it my mission to make him mine. To own his thoughts. His heart.
“Yes, I did,” I said softly. “And I chose you. I wanted us to own that world together. I always knew you had more in you than you let anyone see. The way you looked at me… like there was nothing else. I felt adored.”
His voice cracked, low but steady.
“I did. I do, Leah.”
But I shook my head, my suitcase still between us like a quiet wall.
“I don’t feel worshiped anymore, Dorian. Now, all you talk about is a home, a family… Sunday mornings and barbecues in the yard. I’ve tried to picture myself in that life and… it’s not for me. It will never be.”
He shifted his weight on the crutches, frowning like he hadn’t heard me right.
“We just moved in. We're happy—”
“You are happy.” I stepped closer. “I need more than this. More than painting our own walls and talking about someday.”
I didn’t say the rest.
Dorian’s mouth worked, but no sound came out. Hurt shadowing his face.
“Is there someone else?”
Not just someone. A life without limits, and a man who’d been happy to give me a taste of it—the excitement, the power, the world I was raised to belong to. I wasn’t walking into the unknown. I was stepping back into the life I was meant for.
But that was mine to know.
“There’s always something else,” I said instead. “I want more. I need more. You’ll understand one day.”
I reached out and touched his cheek, letting my fingers linger.
“This isn’t your fault,” I murmured, knowing the words would dig deeper than blame. “You’ve given me everything you could.”
And it was true—everything he could. Just not everything I wanted.
Silence stretched. I wanted him to say something that would make me stay—not because I would, but because I liked knowing he still believed he could keep me.
Finally, he asked, “Will you come back?”
“To what, Dorian?”
He swallowed hard, pride and love warring in his eyes. “I love you.”
“I know.” I reached for my suitcase.
He lowered himself onto the paint bucket with a grimace. He looked so young in that moment—strong shoulders, proud jaw, but still believing love was enough to fix anything.
When I walked past him, I didn’t look back. I didn’t need to. I could feel his eyes on me, heavy with confusion, hurt, and that love I knew so well. That was what I wanted to keep—the part of him that would still think of me, still wonder if I might come back.
One week later, I sent him the divorce papers.
* * *
I still remember him that day—leg in plaster, living room half-painted, our new house echoing with nothing but silence.
He didn’t fight. Didn’t beg. Just stood there, stunned, exactly as I wanted.
But in his eyes, I saw it—that flicker of hope I might come back.
That was always Dorian Marshall’s flaw: he could believe in forever.
And now?
Now he’s become what I always saw buried inside him. The demigod I spotted back in college. Strong. Powerful. Connected. A man who commands respect the moment he enters a room. Everything I wanted and deserved.
Except he’s no longer mine.
Because she’s back.
Della.
The pathetic little dreamer who somehow managed to bleed into his scars and twist them into strength. She reaps the harvest of seeds I planted, takes the man I shaped
Dorian Marshall is my creation.
He became this man because of me. And I will not allow her to be the most important woman in his life. Not ever.
I know exactly how to crush it—and him, and her—all over again.
* * *
Dorian’s office smells like expensive restraint—cedar polish, quiet air, clean lines. It’s late enough for the city to glow and early enough for the ambitious to still pretend they aren’t tired.
“Is he in?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
Julian, his assistant, looks up from his monitor like a schoolboy caught staring.
Twenty-two, a perfect age for devotion; he wears a tie that tries too hard and a mouth that apologizes before it speaks.
He’s been mine for months now—eager hands, eager eyes, eager to be useful in every way that matters.
“Mr. Marshall is not in, Ms. Kingsley.”
Of course he’s not.
I let a small smile tilt my mouth.
“The small conference room,” I say. “Now.”
He stands so quickly his chair rolls back.
“Yes, Ms. Kingsley.”
The glass wall of the small room reflects us as we enter. He reaches for the panel and lowers the privacy screen; the glass turns from clear to milky in a smooth, obedient fade.
“Lock it,” I say.
He does.
I sit at the edge of the glass table, cross my legs slowly, and let silence set the temperature. He shifts his weight, waiting for instructions, needing them like air.
“The Queen doesn’t wait,” I murmur. “On your knees.”
He doesn’t hesitate. He never does. That’s what makes him useful.
He kneels. I rest one heel on his shoulder, light as a promise I might keep.
“Worship,” I order, lifting my skirt and opening my knees just enough to make him swallow. “Properly.”
He does. Greedy, reverent, grateful. He’s always grateful. I thread my fingers through his hair, guiding his pace, sometimes generous, sometimes not. I watch my reflection in the narrow mirror panel on the side wall. Beautiful. Worth kneeling for.
When the world narrows to warmth, and pulse, and those delicious little threads of power tightening low in my belly, I tug his hair and still him.
“Enough.”
He freezes, breath hot against my skin, eyes blown wide with the need to please.
“Stand up,” I say, smoothing my skirt back into place, leaving my legs parted just to watch his self-control fracture. “Now. Tell me where he is.”
“Mr. Marshall?” His voice is wrecked in a way that pleases me.
“Don’t be cute.” I drag a fingertip along the edge of the table, examining my nails. “Where?”
“At the lake house,” he says quickly. “He left yesterday morning.” A beat. “With her.”
Her. The word prickles. That’s why he didn’t answer my calls.
“Continue.”
“He hasn’t canceled tomorrow’s nine a.m.—Townes contract review. He told me to keep the deck ready.”
I stand and step into Julian’s space. He smells like clean sweat and office air and the kind of cologne you buy because the ad suggests a life you don’t yet have.
“Hands behind your back,” I order.
His spine straightens. “Yes, Ms. Kingsley.”
I slide a palm over his chest, feel the frantic drumming there, and smile.
“You want to be owned,” I whisper. “Say it.”
The smallest sound escapes him. “I want to be owned.”
I prowl around him, my hand tracing over his chest, his back.
He trembles—from fear or desire doesn’t matter. What matters is feeding my hunger to punish, to devour.
“Take it out,” I say, voice silken steel.
Color climbs his cheeks. He obeys, desperate, one hand still clasped behind him, the other fumbling, then finding. I lean against the table and watch, unhurried, the way a queen watches a fire she started.
“Eyes up,” I say. “On me.”
They lift immediately. Good boy.
“Tell me the rest,” I instruct, letting the word rest curl. “Who’s on tomorrow’s agenda after Townes?”
“David at ten-thirty,” he manages. “Then legal. Then—” A hitch. “Lunch with a—with a real estate broker.”
My smile sharpens. A house. A perfect little dream for a small, ordinary life. A cage dressed up as love. Pathetic. The man I molded wasn’t born for fences. Fury burns through me, disgust crawling like rot beneath my skin.
I shove him back until he hits the small sofa against the wall.
“Down,” I order, pressing my hand into his shoulder. “Sit.”
He drops instantly, like a string has been cut. I seize his face in both hands and tilt it up to mine.
“Do you know why I keep you?” I ask.
“Because I’m loyal,” he blurts. “Because I—I worship.”
“Because you understand your place,” I whisper. “And because you deliver.”
I drag my finger under his chin, forcing his gaze up as I press him back into the sofa. “Undo your belt. But don’t move until I say.”
He obeys, trembling.
I climb astride him slowly, deliberately, the fabric of my skirt whispering against his thighs. His hands stay flat at his sides, white-knuckled against the sofa.
“Hands,” I warn. “Or you lose them.”
“Yes, Ms. Kingsley,” he breathes.
I rock once, just to feel the power rush like champagne.
Anger flashes hot and clean—Dorian at the lake house with her; Dorian making plans for a life he once promised me just so I could refuse it.
I move harder, unrelenting, riding him only for myself.
Not tenderness or intimacy. Just fury sharpened into rhythm, every thrust a reminder that he is nothing but a body to absorb my anger.
He bites back a sound, and I smile through clenched teeth, because control is the sweetest high.
When the heat breaks and my body shudders, I don’t soften. I press down one last time, using him until I am done, then slide off with a sharp inhale, neat and composed while he trembles beneath me.
“Don’t move,” I command, adjusting my skirt. “You don’t get to finish. Not yet.”
His breath stutters. His cock throbs red, desperate, but he doesn’t reach for me. Good boy.
“Now,” I murmur, sinking back into the chair across from him, crossing my legs like a queen on her throne. “Show me how you plead without words.”
His throat works. One hand wraps around himself, stroking slow, cautious, the other still fisted at his side. His eyes flick up, wide and pleading.
“That’s it,” I purr, resting my chin on my palm as I watch. “You come when I say. Not before. Not after.”
I let him writhe on the edge, his breath breaking in little gasps, until the sight bores me.
“Now,” I order.
The release tears out of him, frantic and ugly, spilling across his stomach as he groans through gritted teeth.
I don’t flinch. I only smile, cold and satisfied, because humiliation is the only devotion worth taking.
“Clean yourself up,” I say, smoothing my hair in the glass. The privacy screen holds our outlines like ghosts with better posture. “And delete the security clip under the room’s ID. All of it.”
“Yes, Ms. Kingsley.”
I pause with my hand on the lock and glance back.
“And Julian?” I add, letting his name linger the way I know he likes.
“Yes?”
“Be useful,” I say. “Or be gone.”
The glass clears when I hit the panel. The office still smells like expensive restraint.
I leave without looking back, heels stitching a steady line toward the elevator, already planning the next move.
Tomorrow, Dorian will come back to his perfect little dream.
But first, I’ll ruin hers.