The morning sun sliced through the gap in the curtains, hitting Eloise directly in the eyes.

She groaned, turning her head on the pillow. Her entire body ached. Her muscles felt heavy and bruised. She reached her hand across the mattress, expecting to feel a warm body.

The sheets were cold. The space beside her was empty.

Eloise opened her eyes. She sat up slowly, pulling the silk blanket up to cover her chest. She looked down at her arms and collarbone. Faint red marks dotted her pale skin. The physical evidence that last night wasn't a nightmare.

She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. She took a deep, shaky breath, forcing the lump in her throat down. She didn't have time to cry.

A sharp, rhythmic knock echoed from the front door downstairs.

Eloise threw the blankets off. She grabbed a thick cotton robe from the chair and wrapped it tightly around her body, tying the belt in a hard knot. She walked barefoot down the stairs. The wood felt freezing against her toes.

She looked through the peephole. A woman in a sharp grey business suit stood on the porch, holding a black leather briefcase. Her face was completely blank.

Eloise unlocked the door and pulled it open.

"Good morning, Ms. Brandt," the woman said. Her voice was crisp and professional. She held out a plain white business card. "I am Cameron Shaw, executive assistant to Mr. Clarke."

Cameron didn't wait for an invitation. She stepped past Eloise into the narrow entryway and walked straight into the living room. She set her briefcase down on the glass coffee table and popped the latches.

She pulled out two thick stacks of paper and a heavy Montblanc fountain pen. She arranged them neatly on the glass.

"Mr. Clarke requested these be signed immediately," Cameron said, pointing to the documents. "The prenuptial agreement and a standard non-disclosure agreement."

Eloise walked over to the coffee table. She stared down at the fifty pages of dense legal text. Her stomach churned.

"I will summarize the core clauses to save time," Cameron said, her tone robotic. "During the marriage, you have no right to interfere in Mr. Clarke's personal life. In the event of a divorce, you leave with zero assets. You are required to play the role of a devoted wife at all public events. Any breach of these terms will result in the immediate withdrawal of the fifty million dollar capital injection."

Eloise stared at the black ink. She felt like a piece of property being cataloged and restricted.

She reached out and picked up the Montblanc pen. The metal barrel was freezing cold against her fingers.

The cold metal instantly sent a violent flash of memory through her brain.

Yale University. Sophomore year. The basement of the Sigma Chi fraternity house was packed with sweating bodies and cheap beer. The strobe lights flashed, making everyone look like they were moving in slow motion. Eloise had gripped a folded piece of notebook paper so hard her hands cramped. She walked up to Christian, who was standing in the corner. She held out the letter, her heart pounding out of her chest, stuttering as she confessed she had liked him since boarding school.

Christian had looked at the letter, then up at her. His eyes were filled with absolute disgust. He took the paper, ripped it perfectly in half, and dropped it into a plastic trash can. Keep your rich-girl games away from me, he had sneered loudly. The entire room had erupted in laughter.

The memory burned her chest. Eloise's fingers trembled around the heavy pen.

Cameron tapped her watch. "Mr. Clarke's patience is limited, Ms. Brandt. I suggest you sign."

Eloise sucked in a sharp breath. She blinked away the burning tears in her eyes. She flipped to the last page of the contract. She pressed the nib of the pen to the paper and signed her name in quick, sharp strokes.

The scratch of the pen against the paper sounded incredibly loud in the quiet room. It sounded like a door locking shut forever.

Cameron immediately snatched one copy of the contract and slid it back into her briefcase. She snapped it shut.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a heavy silver key embossed with the Clarke family crest, along with a small white card. She placed them on the glass table.

"The address is on the card," Cameron said, walking toward the front door. "You are expected to move into the Upper East Side penthouse by eight o'clock tonight. Failure to arrive is a breach of contract."

The front door slammed shut. The draft from the closing door fluttered the pages of the remaining contract on the table.

Eloise's knees gave out. She collapsed onto the sofa. She reached out and picked up the heavy silver key. Her fingers closed tightly around the metal edges. She stared blankly at the white ceiling.

She wasn't Eloise Brandt anymore. She was just a purchased asset.

The moving truck idled outside the massive glass-and-steel residential tower on Fifth Avenue. The sun had already set, and the city lights reflected off the polished marble of the lobby.

Eloise dragged two medium-sized suitcases across the floor. The wheels clicked loudly against the stone. She stepped into the private elevator and swiped the keycard Cameron had given her. The doors slid shut, and the elevator shot upward, making her stomach drop.

The doors opened directly into the penthouse.

Eloise stepped out. The space was massive. It was a duplex, with floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a dizzying, unobstructed view of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline. The furniture was all sharp angles, black leather, and cold grey steel. There were no pictures. No plants. It looked like a high-end hotel lobby, completely devoid of human warmth.

She pulled her suitcases onto the thick rug. The sound of the wheels was swallowed by the fabric.

From the deep shadows near the window, a small red light flared. The sharp click of a heavy metal lighter echoed through the massive room.

Eloise gasped and froze. She peered into the darkness.

Christian was sitting in a low leather armchair. He wasn't wearing a tie, and the top two buttons of his shirt were undone. He held a thick cigar between his fingers. The smoke curled up into the dim light coming from the city outside.

He didn't turn on a lamp. He just sat there, watching her.

Christian exhaled a cloud of smoke. "There is a piece of paper on the kitchen island," he said. His voice was a low rumble that carried easily across the quiet room. "Read it."

Eloise let go of her suitcases. She walked over to the massive black marble kitchen island. A single sheet of printer paper sat under a glass paperweight.

She picked it up. It was a list of typed rules.

1. This marriage is strictly confidential. No media leaks.

2. Your access is restricted to the guest bedroom and common areas. You are never to enter the master suite.

3. No scandals. Any damage to the Clarke Group stock price will be dealt with severely.

Eloise read the words twice. A bitter, angry laugh bubbled up in her throat. She tossed the paper back onto the marble counter.

She turned to face the shadows where Christian sat. "Do you have paranoia, or are you just naturally this arrogant?" she snapped. "I have absolutely zero interest in your personal life or your bedroom."

The red tip of the cigar glowed brightly as Christian took a sharp drag. He pressed the cigar into a crystal ashtray, crushing it out. He stood up.

He walked slowly out of the shadows. The neon lights from the city illuminated the hard, furious lines of his face. He stopped right in front of her.

"Remember what you are," Christian said, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "You are a fifty-million-dollar ornament. Don't speak to me like we are equals."

The cruelty in his words felt like a knife twisting in her gut. Eloise bit the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted copper. She refused to let him see her cry again.

She tilted her chin up, forcing a fake, bright smile onto her face. "Well, since I'm just an ornament, shouldn't my owner provide a clothing allowance? I wouldn't want to embarrass you in public."

Christian's jaw clenched. The muscle ticked violently under his skin. Hearing her ask for money, acting exactly like the gold-digger he thought she was, made his chest burn with a sickening mix of rage and heartbreak.

He reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket. He pulled out a solid black Centurion card. He didn't hand it to her. He flicked his wrist, throwing the card. It hit her chest and clattered onto the floor at her feet.

"Buy whatever you want," Christian said, his voice dripping with disgust. "Just stay out of my sight."

He turned his back on her and walked toward the floating glass staircase leading to the second floor.

Eloise stood frozen until she heard a door slam upstairs. Slowly, her fake smile collapsed. She crouched down and picked up the cold plastic card from the floor. Her hands shook violently. She felt completely, utterly worthless.

She grabbed her suitcases and dragged them down the hall to the guest room. She pushed the door open. The room was perfectly clean and entirely lifeless.

She left the bags by the door and collapsed face-first onto the mattress.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out. It was a text from her father.

The transfer cleared. The bank backed off. We are safe, Ellie.

Eloise stared at the glowing words. The tension that had been keeping her spine straight suddenly snapped. She dropped the phone onto the bed. She buried her face in the pillows and began to sob. Her shoulders shook as she cried out all the fear and humiliation of the last forty-eight hours.

Upstairs, the heavy oak door to the master suite remained tightly shut. The entire second floor was dead silent, the shadows stretching long and unbroken across the polished hardwood. There was no sound of footsteps, no sliver of light from beneath his door, as if he didn't even exist in this space. He had left her entirely alone in the sprawling, cold penthouse, letting the suffocating isolation of her new reality press down on her.

The chaotic noise of the Whole Foods in Columbus Circle was a welcome distraction.

Eloise pushed a metal shopping cart down the aisle. It was late afternoon. After getting the text from her father yesterday, she had spent the entire morning staring at the ceiling of the guest room, trying to rebuild her mental walls.

The money was in the bank. Her father was going to get his surgery. She had signed the contract. She decided she couldn't live in a state of constant war, but this wasn't about pleasing him. The coldness of the penthouse was suffocating, stripping away her humanity piece by piece. She needed the familiar, grounding scent of real food cooking just to prove to herself that she was still alive, still breathing. She stopped in front of the meat counter. She stared at the cuts of beef. As for what to make, a dusty, ten-year-old memory simply forced its way into her mind, and she was too exhausted to fight it or think of anything else. Back at the boarding school in Connecticut, she had overheard Christian talking to Jett in the library. He had mentioned his favorite meal was a proper Beef Wellington. It was a silent, complex test-to see if the boy from her past still existed in the monster who bought her.

She bought the tenderloin, mushrooms, and puff pastry.

By the time she returned to the penthouse, it was six o'clock. The massive apartment was dead silent.

Eloise changed into a pair of soft grey sweatpants and an oversized white t-shirt. She twisted her blonde hair up into a messy clip. She walked into the pristine, untouched kitchen and tied a black apron around her waist.

She started chopping mushrooms. The rhythmic sound of the knife hitting the cutting board grounded her. Soon, the smell of melting butter, roasting meat, and fresh rosemary filled the cold air of the apartment, making it feel slightly less like a tomb.

At seven-thirty, she pulled the golden-brown pastry out of the oven. She sliced it and plated it carefully on the massive dining table, pairing it with a simple arugula salad.

She wiped her hands on a towel and picked up her phone. She opened the text thread with Christian. It was completely empty.

She typed quickly before she could lose her nerve. I made dinner. To say thank you for the transfer. If you have time, you can come back and eat.

She hit send and immediately flipped the phone face down on the marble counter. She let out a self-deprecating sigh. The CEO of Clarke Capital was probably at a Michelin-star restaurant right now. He wasn't going to come home for her cooking.

Three miles away, in the glass-walled boardroom of Clarke Capital, Christian sat at the head of a long table. Ten senior executives were arguing loudly about a hostile takeover bid.

Christian's private phone buzzed on the table. He glanced down.

When he read the text from Eloise, his grip on the phone tightened infinitesimally. His eyes locked onto the words I made dinner. The VP of Acquisitions was mid-sentence, shouting about profit margins. Christian didn't look up. He placed the phone face down on the polished mahogany table, his jaw tightening as an irritating, restless energy began to claw at his chest. He forced himself to listen for another five excruciating minutes, his fingers drumming a slow, lethal rhythm against the armrest. Finally, his patience snapped. Christian raised his right hand. The entire boardroom went dead silent instantly. "Enough," Christian said flatly, his voice cutting through the room like a scythe. "Give me these updated projections by tomorrow morning. Meeting adjourned." He stood up, grabbed his suit jacket from the back of his chair, and walked toward the door without waiting for a response.

At exactly eight o'clock, the electronic lock on the penthouse door beeped.

Eloise was sitting on the living room sofa, reading a script. Her head snapped up.

Christian walked in. He shrugged off his dark wool coat. The cold autumn air clung to his clothes. His eyes immediately swept across the room and landed on the dining table.

He saw the two plates of steaming food. He saw Eloise standing up, wearing sweatpants and an apron. A violent surge of warmth hit his chest. It was exactly what he had fantasized about for years-coming home to her.

But he quickly clamped down on the emotion, hardening his jaw. He walked slowly toward the dining area, unbuttoning his cuffs.

Eloise wiped her hands nervously on her apron. "I... I didn't think you would actually come back."

Christian pulled out a chair at the head of the table and sat down. He looked at the food, then up at her. "I paid fifty million dollars," he said, his voice laced with heavy sarcasm. "I figured I should inspect the secondary skills of my investment."

Eloise's stomach tightened. She bit her tongue to keep from snapping back. She turned around and walked to the kitchen counter to grab the bottle of red wine and two glasses.

When she turned her back, Christian's eyes immediately dropped to the curve of her waist and the soft skin of her neck exposed by her messy hair. His throat went dry. He swallowed hard.

Eloise walked back and poured the wine. She handed a glass to him.

Christian reached for it. As he took the stem, his fingers brushed against hers.

The physical contact sent a jolt of electricity up Eloise's arm. She yanked her hand back so fast she almost dropped the bottle. Christian's fingers tightened around the glass, his knuckles turning white. The air between them suddenly felt thick and suffocatingly hot.

Christian picked up his knife and fork. He cut a piece of the Wellington and put it in his mouth.

Eloise held her breath, waiting for him to insult it. Waiting for him to tell her it was garbage.

Christian chewed slowly. He didn't say a word. He just cut another piece, and then another. He ate in complete silence.

Eloise slowly sat down in her chair. She picked at her salad. The silence in the room wasn't hostile anymore. The warm yellow light from the chandelier softened the sharp angles of Christian's face. For twenty minutes, they just sat there, eating together like a normal couple.

Christian set his fork down. The plate was almost empty. He picked up his linen napkin and wiped his mouth.

He lowered the napkin. His blue eyes locked onto Eloise. The look in his eyes was so intense, so heavy with unspoken things, that Eloise felt her heart start to hammer wildly against her ribs.