The address Harris had given me led to a building that scraped the New York sky like a glass and steel monument to wealth and power. As I stood on the sidewalk looking up at the penthouse level, my heart hammered against my ribs with a rhythm that had nothing to do with the elevator ride I was about to take.

The anonymous text from the night before had haunted my dreams. Ask Harris about the other women. Ask him what happened to them. I had spent hours researching Harris Kingston online, but the internet only revealed the sanitized version of his life-business acquisitions, charity galas, carefully staged photographs that showed him alone or with different women who never appeared in more than a few pictures.

What happened to the women who disappeared from his life? And why did someone want me to know about them?

The doorman, a distinguished man with silver hair and kind eyes, smiled at me as I approached. "Miss Bennett? Mr. Kingston is expecting you. Penthouse level."

The elevator that carried me up forty-two floors was lined with mirrors, and I caught glimpses of myself from every angle-auburn hair that I had tried unsuccessfully to tame into something sophisticated, emerald eyes that revealed every emotion I was trying to hide, and the simple black dress that Maya had insisted I wear because it made me look "like someone who belonged in a billionaire's world."

I didn't feel like I belonged anywhere except back in my tiny Brooklyn apartment, grading art projects and pretending that my biggest worry was whether I could afford groceries this week.

The elevator doors opened directly into Harris's penthouse, and I stepped into a space that took my breath away. Floor-to-ceiling windows offered a view of Manhattan that made the city look like a jeweled tapestry spread out below us. The furniture was elegant but comfortable, expensive but not cold, and everything was arranged with the kind of perfection that suggested a man who controlled every detail of his environment.

"You're right on time."

I turned toward his voice and felt that familiar flutter in my chest. Harris stood near the windows, silhouetted against the city lights, wearing dark slacks and a white shirt that was open at the collar. He looked more relaxed than he had in his office, but there was still something predatory in the way he watched me cross the room.

"Your penthouse is beautiful," I said, because commenting on the apartment seemed safer than acknowledging how devastatingly attractive he looked in his own environment.

"Thank you." He moved toward a bar cart that probably cost more than my annual salary. "Wine? You look like you could use something to calm your nerves."

"I'm not nervous," I lied, accepting the glass of red wine he offered me. Our fingers brushed during the exchange, and I pretended not to notice the way the simple contact sent electricity shooting up my arm.

"Of course you're not." His smile was knowing, dangerous. "That's why your hands are shaking."

I looked down and realized he was right. I set the wine glass on the nearest table before I could drop it and embarrass myself further.

"The contract," I said, trying to sound businesslike. "You promised I could see every clause."

"Direct as always." He walked to his desk and picked up a document that was even thicker than the version he had shown me in his office. "But before we go through this line by line, I think you should know why I chose you."

"Because I'm desperate enough to agree to anything?" The words came out more bitter than I had intended.

"Because you're nothing like her."

The statement hung in the air between us like a live wire. I didn't need to ask who he meant. The pain that flickered across his handsome features told me everything I needed to know.

"Victoria," I said quietly.

His jaw tightened. "Victoria Ashford was everything I thought I wanted in a wife. Beautiful, sophisticated, from the right family, said all the right things." He moved to the window, staring out at the city. "She was also a liar and a thief who sold my company secrets to my biggest competitor."

"That must have been devastating," I said, and meant it.

"It taught me an important lesson about trust." He turned back to face me, his steel-gray eyes intense. "Which is why this arrangement is perfect. You need something from me, I need something from you, and neither of us is pretending it's anything more than a business transaction."

Something about his words stung more than they should have. "How romantic."

"Romance is a luxury I can't afford." His voice was flat, emotionless. "It makes people do stupid things. It makes them vulnerable."

I walked to the contract and began flipping through the pages, trying to focus on the legal language instead of the way his words made my chest ache. But as I read, my confusion deepened.

"Harris, these clauses about publicity and media appearances-they're very specific. Too specific." I looked up at him. "It's like you've done this before."

For a moment, something that might have been panic flashed across his face before the mask slipped back into place. "I told you, I'm thorough in my business dealings."

"This isn't just thorough. This is..." I flipped to another page, my heart racing as I found what I was looking for. "This clause about what happens if I breach the confidentiality agreement. Harris, this isn't about protecting your business. This is about protecting secrets."

He moved toward me with that controlled grace that reminded me of a predator stalking prey. "What are you implying, Flora?"

"I'm not implying anything. I'm asking directly." I held up the contract. "How many women have signed contracts like this one?"

The silence stretched between us, and I knew I had hit the mark. Harris Kingston wasn't just a man who had been betrayed once. He was a man who had learned to orchestrate relationships like business deals, complete with legal protections and predetermined expiration dates.

"The answer to that question," he said finally, "is not relevant to our arrangement."

"It's relevant to me." I set the contract down and faced him fully. "That text I received last night-someone warned me about other women. Someone who knows what happened to them."

His face went pale. "What text?"

I pulled out my phone and showed him the message. As he read it, I watched his expression change from surprise to something that looked almost like fear.

"Who sent this?" His voice was deadly quiet.

"I don't know. But they obviously know about us, about this arrangement." I took a step back, suddenly very aware that I was alone in his penthouse with a man whose past was apparently littered with women who had signed contracts and then disappeared from his life. "Harris, what happened to the other women?"

Before he could answer, the lights went out.

The penthouse was plunged into complete darkness, and I heard Harris curse under his breath. Emergency lighting kicked in a moment later, casting eerie shadows across the room.

"Stay calm," Harris said, but I could hear the tension in his voice. "It's probably just a power grid issue."

But then I saw something that made my blood turn to ice. On the window, written in what looked like lipstick, were words that hadn't been there moments before: "She's watching you, Flora. Run."

"Harris," I whispered, pointing at the window.

He followed my gaze and went completely still. "That's impossible. We're forty-two floors up."

"Then how-"

The sound of the elevator doors opening made us both spin around. A figure stepped out of the shadows, and my heart stopped completely.

It was Victoria Ashford, but not the polished, sophisticated woman I had met in Harris's office. This Victoria looked wild, desperate, her perfect blonde hair disheveled and her ice-blue eyes blazing with something that might have been madness.

"Hello, Harris," she said, her voice carrying that same slight accent but now with an edge of hysteria. "Did you miss me?"

Harris stepped in front of me, his body tense and protective. "Victoria, how did you get up here?"

She laughed, and the sound made my skin crawl. "Oh, darling. I have keys to all your properties. I have access to all your accounts. I know all your secrets." Her gaze shifted to me, and her smile turned predatory. "Including what happened to the other women who thought they could take my place."

"What are you talking about?" I demanded, but even as I asked the question, I was beginning to understand. The anonymous text, the perfect contract clauses, the way Harris had refused to answer my questions about other women.

Victoria pulled something from her purse-a thick folder that looked disturbingly familiar to the one Harris had shown me in his office.

"Should I tell her, Harris? Should I tell sweet little Flora about Jennifer, who signed a contract just like hers two years ago? About Rebecca, who disappeared after her year was up? About Amanda, who tried to break her contract and-"

"Stop." Harris's voice was a growl, dangerous and threatening.

But Victoria was just getting started. She opened the folder and pulled out photographs-pictures of women who looked nothing like each other except for one thing: they all had the same desperate look in their eyes that I saw in my own mirror every morning.

"You see, Flora," Victoria continued, her voice dropping to a whisper that was somehow more terrifying than screaming, "Harris doesn't just collect companies. He collects women. And when he's done with them..."

She let the sentence hang in the air, but the implication was clear.

I looked at Harris, waiting for him to deny it, to explain, to say something that would make this nightmare make sense. But he just stood there, his face carved from stone, his steel-gray eyes unreadable.

"Harris," I whispered. "Tell me she's lying."

His silence was answer enough.

And that's when I realized I wasn't just trapped in a contract.

I was trapped with a man whose previous wives had a habit of disappearing.

The photographs scattered across Harris's marble floor like accusations made of paper and ink. My hands shook as I picked up one after another-Jennifer with dark hair and sad eyes, Rebecca with a bright smile that didn't reach her face, Amanda whose picture showed her looking over her shoulder as if she was running from something.

Or someone.

"Flora, don't listen to her." Harris's voice cut through the silence, but I couldn't look at him. Not yet. Not when Victoria's accusations were hanging in the air like poison.

"Where are they now?" I whispered, staring at Amanda's photograph. She looked so young, maybe even younger than me. "Where are these women now, Harris?"

Victoria laughed, a sound like breaking glass that made me flinch. "Shall I tell her what happened to Amanda when she tried to break her contract? How she had that terrible accident-"

"Enough." Harris moved faster than I had ever seen anyone move. In one fluid motion, he crossed the room and grabbed Victoria by the shoulders, his face inches from hers. "Get out. Now."

But Victoria just smiled, completely unafraid of the man who towered over her with barely controlled rage. "You can't make me leave, Harris. Not anymore." She reached into her purse and pulled out what looked like a recording device. "Not when I have proof of everything you've done."

The blood in my veins turned to ice water. "Proof of what?"

Victoria's ice-blue eyes gleamed with triumph. "Should I play it for her, Harris? Should sweet little Flora hear the conversation you had with your lawyers about how to make problems disappear permanently?"

"You're insane," Harris said, but I heard something in his voice I had never heard before. Fear.

"Am I? Then you won't mind if Flora hears this." Victoria pressed play on the device, and suddenly Harris's voice filled the penthouse, cold and calculating in a way that made my skin crawl.

"The contract needs to be airtight. If any of them try to break it or go public, I need legal ways to ensure their silence. Permanent ways."

My heart stopped beating. That was Harris's voice, unmistakably, talking about ensuring silence in ways that sounded anything but legal.

"There's more," Victoria continued, fast-forwarding through the recording. "Listen to this part."

Again, Harris's voice: "Victoria was a mistake I won't make again. The next one needs to be completely dependent on me, completely isolated. Someone with family she'd never risk putting in danger."

The words hit me like physical blows. Someone with family she would never risk putting in danger. My mother. Tommy. He had chosen me specifically because I had people I loved who could be hurt.

I looked up at Harris, hoping to see denial in his steel-gray eyes, hoping to see some sign that this was all an elaborate lie. Instead, I saw a man who looked like he had been caught in the act of something terrible.

"Flora, it's not what it sounds like-"

"Isn't it?" I backed away from him, the photographs still clutched in my shaking hands. "You researched my family. You bought my father's debts. You knew exactly how desperate I was, and you used that desperation to trap me."

"I was protecting my business-"

"By threatening women who tried to leave you?" The words came out as a shout, all my fear and rage finally breaking free. "What kind of monster are you?"

Before Harris could answer, Victoria stepped between us, her smile wide and victorious. "The kind of monster who destroys anyone who gets in his way. But don't worry, Flora. I'm going to save you from him, just like I should have saved the others."

Something in her tone made warning bells go off in my head. "What do you mean, save me?"

Victoria's expression shifted, and for a moment, I saw something in her ice-blue eyes that was far more dangerous than Harris's calculated coldness. It was the look of someone who had lost touch with reality entirely.

"I mean," she said softly, "that sometimes the only way to save someone is to make sure they can never be hurt again."

The penthouse fell silent except for the sound of my own terrified breathing. Victoria reached into her purse again, and this time, what she pulled out made my blood freeze in my veins.

A gun. Small, silver, and pointed directly at my heart.

"Victoria, put that down." Harris's voice was deadly calm, but I could see the tension in every line of his body. "This isn't about Flora. This is about us."

"No, Harris. This is about justice." Victoria's hand was steady, terrifyingly steady, as she held the weapon. "This is about making sure you never hurt another innocent woman again."

"I never hurt anyone-"

"Liar!" Victoria's composure finally cracked, her voice rising to a shriek. "Jennifer didn't die in a car accident! Rebecca didn't just disappear! And Amanda-"

"Amanda is alive and well and living in California under a new name because I gave her enough money to start over!" Harris exploded, his control finally snapping. "Just like Jennifer, who is happily married to a doctor in Seattle! Just like Rebecca, who owns a successful bakery in Portland!"

The words hung in the air like a thunderclap. Victoria's face went white, then red, then white again.

"You're lying," she whispered.

"Am I?" Harris pulled out his phone and began scrolling through it. "Here's Jennifer's Christmas card from last year. Here's Rebecca's wedding invitation. Here's Amanda's business license." He held up the phone so Victoria could see the screen. "They're all alive, Victoria. They're all safe. They're all living the lives they chose after their contracts ended."

I stared at the phone, my mind reeling. "They're alive?"

"The contracts were real," Harris said, his voice quiet now, almost gentle. "The marriages were real. But when the year was up, I honored my word. I let them go with enough money to build new lives, free from the debts that had trapped them in the first place."

Victoria's gun wavered, but she didn't lower it. "But the recording-"

"Was taken out of context." Harris looked directly at me. "I was talking to my lawyers about protecting myself legally, yes. But not about hurting anyone. About making sure that if someone tried to blackmail me or go to the press with lies, I would have legal recourse."

"The permanent silence-"

"Was referring to non-disclosure agreements and financial settlements large enough that no one would ever need to break them." Harris took a step toward Victoria, his hands raised peacefully. "You know this, Victoria. Deep down, you know I never hurt any of them."

But Victoria shook her head violently, the gun still pointed at my chest. "No. No, you're lying. You have to be lying, because if you're not..." Her voice broke. "If you're not, then everything I've done, everything I've planned-"

"What have you done, Victoria?" The question came from behind her, and we all spun toward the voice.

A man stepped out of the shadows near the elevator-tall, Asian, wearing an expensive suit, with intelligent dark eyes that missed nothing. I recognized him immediately from the photographs in Harris's office.

Marcus Chen. Harris's assistant.

"Marcus, how did you-" Harris began.

"I've been tracking Victoria for weeks," Marcus said calmly, his attention focused entirely on the woman with the gun. "Ever since the security cameras picked up her breaking into the Kingston offices. Victoria, put the weapon down. It's over."

"It's not over!" Victoria swung the gun toward Marcus, and in that moment of distraction, Harris lunged forward.

What happened next seemed to unfold in slow motion. Harris tackled Victoria, the gun went off with a sound like thunder, and I heard someone scream.

It took me a moment to realize the scream had come from my own throat.

Victoria and Harris were struggling on the floor, the gun skittering across the marble toward the windows. Marcus was already moving, pulling out his phone to call for help.

But as I watched Harris pin Victoria to the ground, her wild blonde hair spread around her like a broken halo, I realized something that chilled me to the bone.

The bullet had shattered one of the floor-to-ceiling windows. And through that window, I could see lights in the building across the street-lights that had been arranged to spell out a message visible only from this angle.

"HE'S STILL LYING, FLORA. CHECK THE BASEMENT."

Someone else was involved in this nightmare. Someone who knew about Victoria's plan, someone who had been watching us, someone who wanted me to know that even now, even with Victoria subdued and her accusations apparently false, the truth was still hidden.

As sirens wailed in the distance and Marcus secured the gun, I looked at Harris, who was breathing hard as he held Victoria down.

"Harris," I said quietly, "what's in the basement?"

The look that flashed across his face told me everything I needed to know.

Victoria hadn't been lying about everything after all.

The police had taken Victoria away in handcuffs, her ice-blue eyes still blazing with a mixture of rage and madness as she screamed accusations that nobody believed anymore. The paramedics had checked us all for injuries, finding nothing more serious than a few cuts from the shattered glass. Marcus had given his statement with the calm efficiency of someone who had dealt with corporate crises before.

But through it all, I couldn't stop thinking about that message spelled out in lights across the street. By the time I had convinced one of the officers to look, the lights had been turned off, leaving nothing but ordinary office windows staring back at us like blank eyes.

"You imagined it," Harris said when I mentioned it for the third time. "The stress, the fear, the gunshot-your mind was playing tricks on you."

We were alone now in his penthouse, the broken window boarded up with plywood that made the elegant space feel like a crime scene. Marcus had gone to deal with the police paperwork and Victoria's arrest, leaving Harris and me to face the wreckage of the evening.

"I didn't imagine it," I said, wrapping my arms around myself. The temperature had dropped with the broken window, and I couldn't seem to get warm. "Someone wanted me to know about the basement."

Harris moved to the bar cart and poured himself a glass of something amber and expensive. His hands were steady, but I noticed he drank it in one swallow.

"There is no basement in this building," he said without looking at me. "It's built on Manhattan bedrock. Underground construction wasn't feasible."

"Then why did you look so panicked when I mentioned it?"

He set down his glass with more force than necessary. "Because a woman had just tried to kill you in my home, Flora. Because Victoria's madness nearly got you hurt. Because..." He ran a hand through his dark hair, messing up the perfect style for the first time since I had met him. "Because I realized how close I came to losing you."

The words hung between us, heavy with meaning I wasn't ready to examine. This was supposed to be a business arrangement. A contract marriage with no emotions involved. But the way he was looking at me now, with something raw and vulnerable in his steel-gray eyes, made my heart race in ways that had nothing to do with fear.

"Harris," I began, but he cut me off.

"Sign the contract, Flora." He walked to his desk and picked up the thick document we had abandoned when the lights went out. "Victoria is gone. The threat is over. Your mother needs surgery in less than two weeks, and I can make that happen with one phone call."

"What if I don't want to sign it anymore?"

The question surprised both of us. I hadn't planned to say it, but Victoria's accusations and the anonymous warnings had planted seeds of doubt that were growing stronger by the minute.

"Then your mother dies," he said simply. "Your brother doesn't go to college. Your family loses everything. Is that what you want?"

"That's not fair."

"Life isn't fair, Flora. But this contract is the best offer you're going to get."

I stared at the papers in his hands, thinking about my mother's pale face in the hospital bed, about Tommy's dreams of MIT, about the foreclosure notice that gave us nineteen days to save our home.

"I want to see the basement," I said suddenly.

Harris went very still. "I told you, there is no-"

"Then prove it." I walked toward him, my fear transforming into determination. "If there's nothing to hide, show me. Take me downstairs and prove that whoever sent that message was lying."

"Flora, you're being ridiculous-"

"Am I? Because a few hours ago, you stood in this room while Victoria accused you of making women disappear, and you didn't deny it until she played that recording. You let me think you were a monster rather than simply tell me the truth."

"I was protecting-"

"Yourself. You were protecting yourself." I held out my hand. "Give me the key."

"What key?"

"The key you've been playing with in your pocket since the police left."

Harris looked down at his hand, and I saw his surprise when he realized he had indeed been fidgeting with something in his pocket. He pulled it out slowly-a small, silver key that looked old and well-worn.

"This isn't-" He stopped himself, staring at the key as if he had never seen it before.

"Isn't what?"

"I don't remember putting this in my pocket." His voice was quiet, confused. "I don't know where this came from."

A chill that had nothing to do with the broken window ran down my spine. "Harris, that's not possible. Keys don't just appear-"

The lights went out again.

This time, the darkness was complete. Even the emergency lighting failed to kick in, leaving us standing in Harris's penthouse with nothing but the distant glow of the city filtering through the remaining windows.

"Stay where you are," Harris said, his voice sharp with authority. "Don't move."

But I was already moving, drawn by a sound I couldn't quite identify. It was coming from beneath us, a rhythmic tapping like someone knocking on wood.

Or like someone knocking on a ceiling from below.

"Harris, do you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

The tapping grew louder, more insistent, and now I could swear I heard something else-a voice, muffled and desperate, calling from somewhere underneath the penthouse floor.

"Help me," the voice said, so faint I might have imagined it. "Please, someone help me."

I dropped to my knees and pressed my ear to the marble floor. The voice was clearer now, definitely female, and filled with a terror that made my blood run cold.

"Harris, there's someone down there. Someone's trapped down there."

"That's impossible." But his voice had changed, and when I looked up, I could see his face in the dim city light. He looked like a man who was seeing ghosts.

The tapping stopped abruptly, leaving only silence. Then, so quietly I almost missed it, the voice spoke again:

"Flora? Is that Flora up there? Please, Flora, you have to help me. He's been keeping me here for so long. I tried to leave, tried to break the contract, but he wouldn't let me go. Please-"

The voice cut off with a sound that might have been a door slamming.

I stood up slowly, my legs shaking so badly I could barely support my weight. In the dim light, I could see Harris standing frozen by his desk, the mysterious key still clutched in his hand.

"Who is that?" I whispered. "Who is down there?"

Harris opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He looked like a man who had just realized that everything he thought he knew about his own life was a lie.

The lights came back on with a sudden brightness that made us both wince. But in that first moment of illumination, before our eyes adjusted, I saw something that made my heart stop.

There was a woman standing by the elevator.

Not Victoria-this woman was tall and brunette, wearing a simple white dress that looked like it hadn't been changed in weeks. Her dark hair was tangled, her face gaunt, and her brown eyes were filled with a desperate hope that broke my heart.

"Rebecca?" Harris whispered, the key falling from his nerveless fingers to clatter on the marble floor.

The woman who was supposed to be happily running a bakery in Portland smiled at him with sad, defeated eyes.

"Hello, Harris," she said quietly. "Did you miss me?"

That's when I realized that everything Harris had told me about his previous wives was a lie.

And one of them had been imprisoned in his building this entire time.