The train ride back to my loft was a blur of rain-streaked windows and the suffocating memory of Josh's hand gripping mine under that table.

The moment I stepped through my door, I stripped.

I didn't care where the clothes landed. The black slip dress, the expensive heels that felt like shackles they were discarded on the dusty floorboards like the remains of a life I was finished with.

​I stood in the center of my studio, naked and shivering, the smell of linseed oil and old wood grain finally beginning to settle my frayed nerves.

I walked to the sink, grabbing a rag and a tin of turpentine, and began to scrub at my skin. I scrubbed my wrists where the heat of his grip still lingered. I scrubbed my neck where I imagined Vanessa's perfume had settled. I wanted to be clean. I wanted to erase the Gala, the Maid of Honor vow, and the sight of Josh standing on that stage looking like a god while he spoke of a future that didn't include me.

​The heavy industrial lock on my door clicked.

​I didn't scream. I knew that sound. It was a rhythmic, proprietary turn of a key that only one other person possessed.

​Josh stepped into the room, slamming the door behind him. He looked wrecked. His charcoal tuxedo jacket was gone, his white shirt was unbuttoned halfway down his chest, and his silk tie hung limply around his neck. He smelled like expensive bourbon, cold night air, and the lingering, metallic scent of corporate lies. He looked at me standing there with a rag in my hand, my skin red from scrubbing, my hair a wild mess and his eyes went black.

​We didn't speak. There was no room for words in the vacuum of the room. The air was thick with a volatile, suppressed rage that mirrored my own.

He crossed the floor in three predatory strides, grabbing my waist and hauling me against him.

The contrast was a shock to my system; he was dressed in thousands of dollars of wool and silk, and I was bare, damp, and smelling of the chemicals I used to create my art.

​He didn't kiss me. He buried his face in the crook of my neck, inhaling sharply, his stubble grazing my sensitive skin. He groaned, a sound of pure, unadulterated frustration.

​"I couldn't stay there," he rasped, his voice vibrating against my throat. "I dropped her at the valet and drove like a fucking madman. I couldn't breathe until I was back here."

​I wrapped my arms around his neck, my fingers tangling in the soft hair at the nape of his neck. I didn't want his explanations. I didn't want to hear about Vanessa or the Sterling legacy. I wanted to wash the night off. I wanted to drown in the only thing that felt real.

​I pushed him toward the bed, my hands frantic as I tore at the buttons of his shirt. He helped me, stripping out of the expensive fabric as if it were a skin he was desperate to shed.

When he was finally as bare as I was, he shoved me back onto the mattress, his body following mine with a heavy, crushing weight that I welcomed.

​He didn't go slow. He didn't give me time to think.

He grabbed my wrists and pinned them above my head, his chest heaving as he stared down at me.

​"You're mine, Viv," he growled, his voice a low, dangerous warning. "For these eighty-nine days, you are the only thing that is true."

​He dropped his head, his mouth finding mine in a kiss that tasted of bourbon and desperation. It was a battle, a clash of teeth and tongues that left my lips swollen and my head spinning. His hands left my wrists to roam over my body, his palms rough and possessive as they traced the curve of my waist and the flare of my hips.

​He moved down, his mouth marking a trail of fire across my collarbone and down to my breasts. He latched onto one nipple, his teeth grazing the sensitive peak until I cried out, my back arching off the bed.

He was being rough, fueled by the jealousy and the pressure of the night, and I met his energy with my own. I bit his shoulder, my nails digging into the hard muscle of his back, needing to mark him just as he was marking me.

​"Josh, please," I gasped, my legs wrapping around his waist, pulling him closer into the heat of me.

​He didn't wait. He reached down, his fingers finding me already soaked and aching for him. He didn't tease. He shoved two fingers inside me with a sharp, blunt force that made me gasp, his thumb grinding against my clit in a rhythm that was designed to break me.

​"You like this?" he whispered, his breath hot against my ear. "You like when I take you like this, when nobody can see us? When the world thinks I'm a saint and you're just the artist in the corner?"

​"Yes," I sobbed, my vision blurring as the first wave of an orgasm began to build in the base of my spine. "Yes, Josh, please!"

​He withdrew his fingers and grabbed his cock, the head of it already weeping and angry. He guided himself to my opening and slammed home in one long, devastating thrust.

​I screamed into the quiet of the loft. He filled me completely, stretching me until it felt like I would break, pressing deep into the softest parts of my core. He didn't give me time to adjust. He began to fuck me with a raw, primal intensity, his hips slamming against mine with a rhythmic, wet slap of skin on skin.

​Every thrust was an exorcism. He was pounding the image of the Gala out of my head. He was erasing the sound of Vanessa's voice. He was claiming the territory he had been forced to share with the public all night. I gripped his forearms, my knuckles white, my breath coming in ragged, broken sobs as he drove into me deeper and harder than he ever had before.

​I was falling apart. My body was a live wire, every nerve ending screaming with a pleasure that was so intense it felt like pain. I could feel him hitting my cervix, a deep, blunt ache that made my toes curl and my head toss back against the pillows.

​"Look at me," he commanded, yanking my hair back so I was forced to meet his dark, blown-out pupils. "Look at me while I ruin you, Viv."

​I looked. I saw the monster and the man. I saw the billionaire who was about to marry a lie and the boy who had loved me in the dirt behind the gardener's cottage. I saw the obsession that was going to destroy us both.

​My orgasm hit like a freight train. My internal walls clamped around him, gushing heat over his cock as I shook, my voice failing me. He didn't stop. He let me ride the high, his thrusts becoming even more violent, his breath hitching in his chest. He let out a low, guttural roar as he finally hit his own limit, his body locking up as he flooded me with his heat, his head falling to my shoulder as he shook with the force of his release.

​We lay there for a long time, the only sound the frantic thrumming of our hearts and the rain tapping against the glass. The sweat was cooling on our skin, the smell of our sex mixing with the linseed oil in the air.

​Josh didn't pull away. He stayed buried inside me, his weight a heavy, comforting anchor. He reached up, his hand stroking my hair with a gentleness that was at odds with the violence of the last twenty minutes.

​He shifted, propping himself up on his elbows so he could look down at me. The moonlight from the window caught the sharp line of his jaw and the cold, lingering darkness in his eyes. He reached out, his thumb tracing the swollen line of my lower lip, his expression unreadable.

​He stared at me for a long, agonizing minute, the silence stretching until it felt like a physical thread between us.

​Then, he leaned closer, his voice dropping to a whisper that made the hair on my arms stand up.

​"Did you like it when he touched you at the gallery, Viv?"

​I froze, my heart skipping a beat. I thought of Julian's hand on my waist, the way he had flirted with me, and the way Josh had watched us from across the room.

​"What?" I whispered, my voice trembling.

​"The artist," Josh said, his eyes narrowing, his grip on my waist tightening just enough to be a warning. "Julian. I saw the way he looked at you. I saw the way he put his hand on you as if he had the right. Did you like it?"

​The jealousy was there, naked and ugly, bleeding through the cracks of our secret bargain. He wasn't just my best friend anymore. He wasn't just my lover. He was a man who wanted to own the very air I breathed, even as he prepared to give his life to someone else.

​I looked at him, the silver key pressing into my chest between us, and I realized that the next eighty-nine days weren't just a countdown to a wedding. They were a countdown to a war.

​"Josh," I started, but he cut me off by pressing his mouth to mine, a hard, possessive kiss that tasted like a claim.

​He didn't want an answer. He wanted to know that even when I was standing in the light, I was still his.

And as I held him in the dark, I knew that no matter who touched me, no matter who looked at me, I was already ruined for anyone else but him.

The morning didn't arrive with a soft glow; it arrived like a fluorescent bulb flickering to life in a morgue. Cold, gray light filtered through the industrial windows of my loft, illuminating the dust motes dancing over the wreckage of the night before.

My body felt heavy, my muscles humming with the dull ache of Josh's possession, a physical reminder of the way he had dismantled me on the bed.

​Josh was already up.

​He stood by the small, scarred kitchen table, fully dressed in a fresh white shirt he must have kept in his car for emergencies. He was the picture of corporate perfection once again, his movements precise as he fastened his gold cufflinks. The scent of our frantic, desperate union was being methodically replaced by the sharp, sterile aroma of his expensive espresso and the crisp smell of starch. Watching him was like watching a ghost materialize back into a statue. The man who had growled my name into the crook of my neck was gone, replaced by the CEO who calculated risks and managed assets.

​I sat up, pulling the thin, paint-stained duvet around my naked shoulders, feeling a sudden, sharp pang of vulnerability. "You're leaving," I said, my voice raspy and thin in the morning air.

​"I have a board meeting at eight, Viv," he replied without looking up. His voice was steady, professional. The jealousy from the night before, the raw, bleeding edge of his question about Julian seemed to have been tucked away into a neat little folder in his mind.

​He walked over to the table where I kept my brushes and a half-finished sketch of a city skyline.

With a flick of his wrist, he slid a slip of paper across the wood. It landed right in a puddle of dried cobalt blue paint.

​I frowned, leaning forward. It was a check. My eyes scanned the numbers, and my heart did a slow, sickening roll. It was enough to cover my rent for six months, with plenty left over for high-end supplies and the repairs I'd been ignoring for a year.

​"What is this, Josh?"

​"It's a solution," he said, finally looking at me. His expression was one of benign generosity, the look a king gives a subject. "The landlord called my office. Apparently, you're behind. I don't want you worrying about the ceiling caving in while you're working on our portrait. Consider it an advance."

​The air in the loft suddenly felt very, very cold. The "Maid of Honor" title was a public shackle, but this? This felt like a private leash.

​"An advance?" I repeated, the words tasting like copper. I stood up, gripping the duvet tight against my chest, and walked toward the table. "I didn't ask you for money, Josh. I've never asked you for money."

​"You shouldn't have to ask," he said, his tone softening into that infuriatingly patient "billionaire" voice. "You're an artist, Viv. You shouldn't be struggling to keep the lights on while you have real talent. I'm fixing it."

​"You're fixing it?" My voice rose, the suppressed rage from the gala finally bubbling to the surface. "You think my life is something you can just patch up with a signature? You think you can buy your way out of the guilt of what we're doing?"

​Josh's eyes narrowed. The "nice" mask began to slip. "Guilt? I'm taking care of you. Most people would be grateful."

​"I'm not 'most people'! I'm your best friend! Or your lover! Or whatever the hell we are in the dark!" I grabbed the check, my fingers trembling. "But I am not one of your charities. I am not a Sterling Enterprise line item."

​"Don't be dramatic, Viv. It's just rent."

​"It's not just rent!" I screamed, the sound echoing off the brick walls. "It's control. You spend your whole day owning people. You own the skyline, you own the merger, and you're about to own Vanessa in a contract marriage. But you do not own me. This loft is a mess, and it's cold, and the plumbing is a disaster, but it is mine. I earned every inch of this struggle."

​I looked at the check, at the crisp, clean signature that held more power than my entire life's work, and I felt a wave of pure, unadulterated loathing for the paper in my hand. With a slow, deliberate motion, I caught the edge of the check and ripped it.

​The sound of the paper tearing was like a gunshot in the silence.

​I didn't stop. I tore it again and again, until the six months of security were nothing but white confetti falling onto the floor, mixing with the dust and the dried paint.

​Josh froze. His face went pale, then a deep, dangerous red. He looked at the scraps on the floor like I had just spat in his face. "That was forty thousand dollars, Vivian."

​"That was a leash, Josh!" I stepped closer, ignoring the fact that I was shivering, ignoring the way my heart was breaking. "You want to care for me? Then talk to me. Stay for breakfast. Be a person. But don't you dare try to 'fix' my life with a checkbook because you're too cowardly to give me what I actually want."

​"And what is it you want?" he hissed, stepping into my space, his height used as a weapon. "You want me to call off the wedding? You want me to let ten thousand families lose their jobs because the merger fails? You think life is a fucking painting where you can just layer over the parts you don't like?"

​"I want intimacy, Josh! I want you to look at me and see a woman, not a problem to be solved!"

​"I look at you and I see the only thing I have left that isn't a transaction!" he roared, his hands balling into fists at his sides. "I tried to do one thing, one thing to make your life easier so you could focus on your art, and you throw it back in my face because of your goddamn pride."

​"It's not pride, it's independence! If I take your money, I'm just another employee. I'm just another thing you've bought. And I refuse to be bought by you."

​"Fine," he spat, the word dripping with venom. He reached for his coat, swinging it over his shoulders with a violent grace. "Keep your independence. Keep your freezing loft and your broken pipes. If you want to play the martyr, Viv, go ahead. But don't expect me to sit here and watch you drown while I have a life raft in my pocket."

​He turned on his heel, heading for the door.

​"Is that all I am to you?" I called out, my voice breaking. "A project? A girl you need to save so you can feel better about the monster you're becoming for the Sterling name?"

​Josh stopped at the door. He didn't turn around. His shoulders were slumped, the tension in his back visible even through the expensive fabric of his shirt. "I don't know how to do this any other way, Viv," he said, his voice quiet and dangerously flat. "In my world, you protect the things you love by securing them. If you won't let me secure you, then I don't know what we're doing here."

​"Maybe we're doing nothing," I whispered.

​The door slammed so hard a stack of canvases near the entrance toppled over. The sound rang in my ears, a final, brutal punctuation mark to the morning.

​I stood there in the center of the room, clutching the duvet to my chest, staring at the white scraps of paper on the floor. My chest ached with a physical weight, a pressure so heavy I could barely draw air. I looked at my paintings, the raw, bleeding abstracts of my soul and I realized the terrifying truth.

​I wasn't just in a 90-day bargain. I wasn't just his secret lover.

​I was falling in love with a man who was fundamentally broken. A man who thought a dollar sign was a synonym for 'I love you.' A man who would rather buy my silence than share his heart.

​I walked to my easel and picked up a palette knife. I didn't paint. I just stared at the blank white canvas, the void of it staring back at me.

Josh was gone, back to his world of glass and steel, leaving me behind in the ruins of our morning. And for the first time, I realized that the 89 days left weren't going to be a goodbye.

They were going to be a slow-motion car crash, and I was the one strapped into the passenger seat, watching the wall come closer with every breath I took.