Liora’s POV

"Out," Xavier said.

He didn't even wait for me. He stepped out into the rain and opened an umbrella that looked like it cost more all my belongings…oh I don’t even have any

I followed him. My shoes hit the pavement with a wet, squelching sound. Squish. Squish. It was annoyingly embarrassing. I tried to walk on my toes to stop the noise, but that just made me stumble.

I clutched my father’s satchel against my chest. It was the only thing I had left that wasn't ruined. I hoped the leather and few clothes was thick enough to keep the rain off the notebook inside.

If that got wet, I’d have nothing. Truly nothing.

We walked toward the main entrance. The doors were massive slabs of glass that slid open before we even touched them. I stepped inside and stopped dead.

The lobby was huge. It was all white marble and silver accents. It smelled like expensive perfume and ozone. 

It was so bright it made my eyes ache after the darkness of the car.

And the people… oh God.

There were men in suits that looked like they were sewn onto their bodies. Women in dresses that belonged in magazines, walking on heels so thin they looked like needles. Everyone was beautiful. Everyone was perfect.

And then there was me. 

I caught my reflection in a silver pillar and almost choked. I looked like a disaster. My pink diner uniform was soaked through, the fabric clinging to my stomach and thighs in all the wrong places. There was a mustard stain on my collar that I’d forgotten about. My hair was matted to my head like seaweed. 

I was shivering so hard my teeth were actually chattering, a loud, rhythmic click-click-click that felt like it was echoing off the marble walls.

I looked down. I was leaving a trail of muddy water across the floor. A literal trail of filth in a place that looked like a temple.

A woman at the front desk looked at me. She was wearing a headset and had a bun so tight it probably pulled her eyebrows up. She didn't look away. She just stared. It wasn't a mean stare, which was worse. It was a look of pure, clinical confusion. Like she was trying to figure out how a piece of trash had blown in through the vents—RUDE!

"Keep moving," Xavier whispered. He didn't even sound embarrassed, he sounded bored…I mean why would he?

Xavier was used to this. He belonged here.

"Everyone is looking," I whispered back. My voice was thick. I wanted to cry again, but I remembered what Xavier said about the steel core,I forced my chin up. 

Think about Mom, I told myself. Think about the heart monitor. Screw these people.

But I didn't feel like a person of steel. I felt like a mistake.

I stepped over a velvet rope, my wet shoe making a loud thwack on the stone. A man in a grey suit stepped to the side to avoid me, pulling his briefcase close to his leg like I might infect him. I felt a surge of hot, messy anger. I wanted to tell him I didn't want to be here either. I wanted to tell him my mother was dying and his briefcase didn't matter.

But I didn't say anything. I just kept walking.

"Xavier," I said, my voice shaking a little. "How much longer? The hospital alert... it’s been five minutes since I checked."

"If you stop talking and start walking, we’ll be there in sixty seconds," he said. He didn't slow down. He was gliding across the floor while I was struggling to keep up.

I saw a security guard touch his ear and look at us. He started to move forward, his hand on his belt, but Xavier didn't even look at him. He just held up a small gold card. The guard stopped instantly. He actually bowed his head a little.

The power of the Volkov name was like a physical weight. It opened doors. It stopped guards….It even bought people—I mean,look at me.

We reached a bank of elevators at the far end of the lobby. These weren't like the others. They were tucked away behind a wall of frosted glass. There were no buttons on the wall. 

No "Up" or "Down." 

Just a single, gold-plated door.

Xavier pressed his thumb against a small pad on the wall. A blue light scanned his print.

Ding.

The doors slid open. The inside of the elevator was lined with black velvet. There was a small bench and a mirror. I looked in the mirror and immediately looked away. I couldn't stand to see myself next to Xavier. He looked like a prince. I looked like something the cat dragged in during a flood.

I stepped inside. The air was cool and smelled like mint.

"Is this it?" I asked. "The penthouse?"

"The top floor," Xavier said. "Darian doesn't like neighbors."

The doors closed. I didn't feel the elevator move. There was no stomach-dropping sensation. The only way I knew we were going up was the digital display above the door.

10... 20... 40... 70...

My heart was beating so fast I thought it might burst through my ribs and my palms were sweaty, even though I was freezing. I started to second-guess everything. Maybe I should have just stayed at the hospital. Maybe I could have found a way. A loan? A miracle?

No, I thought. There are no miracles for girls like me. 

90... 95... 99...

The elevator slowed down. I felt a sudden, sharp urge to vomit. I gripped the strap of my satchel so hard my knuckles turned white.

"Liora," Xavier said.

I looked at him.

"Remember what I said. Don't be a puddle…He’s looking for a reason to say no. Don't give him one."

"I know," I said. But did I? I didn't even know who Darian Volkov was. Not really. I knew he was rich. I knew he was Sergei’s son. I knew he was the man who had the power to kill or save my mother with a single phone call.

The elevator made a soft, melodic chime.

The doors didn't open into a hallway. They opened directly into a room.

The penthouse office was vast. It was darker than the lobby, lit only by the glowing city lights outside the massive windows. The floor was dark wood, polished to a mirror shine. The air was heavy with the smell of rain, expensive leather, and something sharp…like ozone or scotch.

It was silent. Completely silent.

I stepped out of the elevator, my wet shoes making a miserable slop sound on the wood. I felt the cold air of the room hit my damp skin, and I started shivering again.

At the far end of the room, behind a desk that looked like a solid block of black stone, a man was standing. Or rather, he was a silhouette. He was facing the window, his back to us. He was tall. Broad shoulders. He was wearing a black suit that seemed to drink in the shadows around him.

He was looking out at the rain, his hands clasped behind his back. He didn't move. He didn't acknowledge that we had even entered the room.

I stood there, dripping on his floor. I felt like a stray dog. I wanted to speak, to beg him to call the hospital, but my throat was frozen. I just stared at his back…

Ten seconds passed. Twenty.

The tension was so thick I could taste it. It felt like the air before a lightning strike. I looked at Xavier, but he was just standing there, looking perfectly at home. He didn't seem bothered by the silence at all.

Finally, the man at the window moved. He didn't turn around. He just tilted his head a fraction.

"You're late," he said.

His voice was deeper than I expected. It wasn't loud, but it filled the entire room. It was cold.

"The traffic was difficult, Darian," Xavier said smoothly. "And we had to make a stop at the asset's residence."

"The asset," I whispered. The word felt like a slap.

Darian Volkov turned around.

The light from a desk lamp hit his face, and I forgot how to breathe. He wasn't just a businessman. He was a weapon…His eyes were the color of the North Sea in winter…grey, blue, and utterly heartless. His face was all sharp angles and hard lines. He was beautiful in the way a storm is beautiful. Dangerous. Unpredictable.

Darian Volkov was hot.

He even didn't look at Xavier. He looked at me.

His gaze traveled from my matted hair down to my stained uniform, all the way to my wet, muddy shoes. He looked at me like I was a bug he was considering stepping on. There was not even an ounce pity in his eyes. There was no kindness. There was just an intense, cold evaluation.

I felt a surge of shame. I wanted to hide behind Xavier. I wanted to cover myself up. I felt so small, so dirty, and so incredibly out of place.

"This is her?" Darian asked. He made it sound like I was a disappointment…Like he’d ordered something online and it had arrived broken.

"Liora Hayes," Xavier said.

Darian walked around his desk. He moved with a slow, predatory grace. He stopped a few feet away from me. He was so tall I had to crane my neck to see him. He smelled like expensive wood and something metallic.

He leaned in, just a little. I could see the flecks of ice in his irises.

"You look like you're about to fall over, Liora," he said. His voice was a low growl.

"I'm... I'm fine," I lied. My voice cracked.

He didn't believe me. He reached out, and for a second, I thought he was going to touch me. I flinched. His hand stopped in mid-air, his fingers inches from my face.

He pulled his hand back and tucked it into his pocket.

"Xavier says your mother is dying," he said. He said it like he was commenting on the weather. No emotion, No weight.

"She... she needs the surgery," I managed to say. "The alert... the hospital..."

"I know about the alert," Darian said. He poured an amber liquid into a glass. "I know everything. I know your father was a failure and I know you have twelve dollars in your bank account,I know you're desperate enough to do anything I ask.

He took a sip of his drink and looked at me over the rim of the glass.

"The question is," he said, "are you worth the trouble? Because right now, you look like a liability."

I felt a spark of that messy anger again. I was tired, I was wet, and my mother was dying. I didn't have time for his games.

"I'm worth it," I said. My voice was stronger this time. "I'm here, aren't I?"

Darian smirked, It wasn't a nice look. It was the look of a man who had just won a bet he didn't even care about.

"We'll see," he said. He walked back to his desk and sat down and he didn't even offer me a chair. He just picked up a thick leather folder and slid it across the obsidian surface.

"Open it," he commanded.

The folder hit the edge of the desk with a heavy thump.

"This is your life now, Liora. If you sign those papers, you don't belong to the world anymore. You belong to me."

I looked at the folder. I looked at the man behind the desk.

The elevator doors behind me had closed. There was no way out.

"Open it," he said again."

Liora's POV

                      I stared at him.

 That was my first mistake. You aren't supposed to stare at men like Darian Volkov...You're supposed to look at your shoes and wait for them to tell you the world is ending. 

He was beautiful. That was the messy, intrusive thought that popped into my brain. It was a stupid thought. It was a dangerous thought. He looked like something carved out of a block of ice...sharp, cold, and perfect. His eyes were a blue so pale they looked like frozen steel. They didn't look like human eyes. They looked like high-definition cameras recording every flaw on my skin.

He's too beautiful to be this heartless, I thought. Then I corrected myself. No, that's exactly why he's heartless. He doesn't have to be anything else.

He didn't offer me a seat. He didn't ask if I was thirsty. He just walked around his desk. He moved like a wolf..quiet, slow, and full of a power that made the air in the room feel heavy.

"You're shaking," he said.

"It's raining outside," I snapped. My voice sounded higher than I wanted it to. I sounded like a child. I hated it.

"I am aware of the weather, Liora. I own the glass between us and the sky." He walked in a circle around me. I felt like I was being inspected by a buyer at a livestock auction. I kept my back stiff. I kept my chin up. But I could feel a stray piece of hair stuck to my cheek. I wanted to brush it away, but I didn't want to move. I didn't want him to see my hands shaking again.

He stopped behind me. I could feel the heat coming off his body. It was weird. He looked so cold, but he felt warm. Like a furnace hidden behind a wall of ice.

"Underweight," he muttered. It wasn't a comment to me. It was a note to himself. "Malnourished. Disheveled. You look like you haven't had a proper meal in months."

"I eat," I said, turning to face him. I shouldn't have turned. Now he was too close. I had to look up to see his face..."I work in a diner. I eat plenty."

"French fries and grease do not make a healthy vessel," he said. He reached out. For a second, I thought he was going to touch my face. My heart did a panicky little flip-flop. But he didn't touch me. He just tucked a wet strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers were cold. The touch lasted less than a second, but it felt like a brand.

I flinched away.

"Don't," I whispered.

He pulled his hand back. He didn't look angry. He looked interested. Like I was a puzzle he hadn't quite solved yet. "You have a lot of pride for someone with twelve dollars in the bank."

"It's thirteen," I lied. I don't know why I lied. It was a stupid, small lie. He knew the truth anyway.

He walked back to his desk. Every step he took made me feel smaller. I looked around the office. It was so big. So empty. There were no pictures of family. No books that looked like they'd actually been read. Just stone and glass and shadows.

"Xavier told you the terms?" he asked.

"Surrogacy," I said. The word felt like a stone in my mouth.

"A bloodline," he corrected. "I need an heir. You need a miracle. I am the only miracle you are ever going to get, Liora. Do you understand that?"

I looked at the floor. The muddy water from my shoes was making a dark circle on his expensive wood floor. I felt a weird urge to apologize for the mess. Then I remembered he was buying my body and I felt like screaming instead.

"I understand," I said.

"Do you? Because once you sign, there is no 'I changed my mind.' There is no 'I want to see the baby.' There is only the contract. You give me what I need, and I give your mother the life she shouldn't have been able to afford."

"She's my mother," I said. "She's not a line item in a budget."

"To me, everything is a line item," Darian said. He sat down in his leather chair. He looked so comfortable. So in control. I felt like I was drowning in the middle of his office. "You think you're special because you love her. You're not. You're just another person with a price. Yours just happens to be her medical bills."

"Why are you wasting time,Open it." he commanded.

I didn't move. I looked at the folder. It was dark. It was heavy. It looked like the end of the world.

"Is the wire transfer ready?" I asked. My voice was steady now. I was done being a puddle. If I was going to be an asset, I was going to be a sharp one. "Xavier said you hadn't hit the button yet."

Darian leaned forward. The light from the desk lamp caught the sharp line of his jaw. 

"The money moves the second your ink hits the paper. Not a second before...Your mother is currently in a transport van. If you don't sign, that van turns around. They don't take her to the private wing. They take her back to the hallway where you left her."

He was a monster. I knew it then. I felt it in the pit of my stomach. He wasn't just doing business. He was enjoying the leverage....He liked the way I was looking at him...with a mix of fear and pure, unadulterated hate.

"Open it, Liora. Read your future."

I reached out. My hand was pale against the black desk. I touched the folder. It was cold. It felt like it had been sitting in a freezer. I opened the first page.

The words blurred together for a second. Agreement of Genetic Succession. Waiver of Parental Interest. Medical Power of Attorney.

"It's a lot of pages," I whispered.

"It's a lot of money..." he replied.

I looked up at him. He was watching me. He wasn't even pretending to do work. He was just watching me read. I felt like I was under a microscope. I felt messy. I felt like my skin was too tight for my body.

I thought about the "Emergency Alert" on my phone. I thought about the sound of my mother's labored breathing. I thought about the trash bags on the sidewalk.

I had no choice. I knew I had no choice the moment I got into that car. But seeing it in black and white made it feel real. It made it feel like I was dying, too.

"There's a pen right there," Darian said. He pointed to a silver pen resting on the desk. It was heavy. It looked like a weapon.

I looked at the pen. I looked at the signature line.

Liora Hayes.

My name looked so small on that big, expensive piece of paper.

"What happens if I can't get pregnant?" I asked. My mind was racing. Contradictions were jumping around in my head. I wanted to sign to save her, but I wanted to run to save myself. I wanted him to touch me again, but I wanted to kill him for the way he looked at me.

"We keep trying," Darian said. His voice was flat. "Until the contract is fulfilled. You don't leave until I have what I paid for."

I felt a shiver that had nothing to do with being wet. You don't leave.

I looked at the elevator. The doors were closed. Xavier was standing by them like a statue. There was no way out. Not unless I wanted to walk back out into the rain with nothing but my father's notebook and a dying mother.

I picked up the pen. It was cold, just like everything else in this room. My hand hovered over the paper. The ink was so black it looked like a hole.

"Liora," Darian said.

I looked up.

"Make sure you understand the last clause. The one about the estate."

I flipped to the last page. My eyes scanned the simple, blunt grammar of his legal team.

The Surrogate shall remain on the Volkov Estate for the duration of the term. No outside contact. No exceptions.

"A prison," I said.

"A gilded cage " he corrected. "But the bars are solid gold, Liora. Most people would kill for those bars."

"I'm not most people," I said.

I looked at the pen. I looked at him. My heart was a drum in my ears. If I do this, I'm not Liora Hayes anymore. I'm just a house for his child. But if I don't... my mom dies.

My thumb moved over the silver barrel of the pen. It was so heavy.

"Are you going to sign," Darian asked, his voice dropping to a whisper that felt like a threat, "or are you waiting for me to tell you how this ends?"

I bit my lip. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction. But I knew. I knew I was going to do it.

Darian's POV

I watched her not like I wanted to, but I couldn't help it. She was standing there, ruining my floor with every second she didn't move. She looked like a drowned rat in that ridiculous pink uniform. It was stained,cheap in fact.It was everything I hated...unrefined, messy, and loud in its poverty.

I expected the tears. Usually, when people enter this office and see me, they either start talking too fast or they start crying. Especially the desperate ones. And she was the definition of desperate. Twelve dollars in a bank account? That wasn't a balance; it was an insult.

I took a sip of the scotch. It was warm, but the ice in my chest stayed frozen. I was waiting for the sob. I was waiting for her to drop to her knees and tell me she'd do anything if I just saved her mother. I had the script ready in my head. I'd tell her to be quiet. I'd tell her to sign. I'd tell her she was lucky I was even looking at her.

But she didn't cry.

She stood there, shivering so hard I could hear the fabric of her wet sleeves rubbing against her sides. Her hands were the messiest part...They were pale, red at the knuckles, and shaking like she was plugged into a light socket. But when she reached for the folder, she didn't just touch it. She gripped it. She grabbed the edge of the desk as if she were trying to anchor herself to the earth.

The leather of the folder groaned under her fingers...

She's going to break the binding, I thought. It was a stupid, small thought. The folder cost fifty dollars. I didn't care about fifty dollars. But I cared that she wasn't doing what she was supposed to do. She wasn't looking down or even hiding.

She was staring right at me.

Her eyes were hazel, but in the dim light of the study, they looked like moss and burnt sugar. They were wide, rimmed with red from exhaustion, but the center was sharp. It was that steel core Xavier had mentioned in the folder...I'd thought he was being dramatic. Xavier liked to talk like he was in a movie sometimes. But he was right. There was something in there that didn't belong in a waitress from a crumbling apartment building.

A single droplet of water fell from a matted strand of her hair. I found myself tracking it. It hit her collarbone, right above the frayed edge of that pink uniform, and disappeared into the fabric.

I felt a weird jolt in my stomach. Not lust...Not exactly. It was more like... curiosity? No, I don't get curious about assets. It was irritation. Yes, that was it. I was irritated that she was still standing.

"Are you going to open it?" I asked. My voice sounded a bit too loud in the quiet room.

She didn't answer right away. Her jaw was locked. I could see the muscle jumping in her cheek. She was fighting the urge to shatter into a million pieces. I'd seen men in boardrooms fold under less pressure than what I was putting on her right now.

"My mother," she said. Her voice was thin, like a wire stretched too tight. "Xavier said... he said the doctors are waiting. He said it depends on this."

"It depends on you," I said. I leaned back in my chair, trying to regain the distance I felt slipping. "The folder contains the terms. If you can't follow them, the doctors go home. It's a simple trade, Liora. Life for a legacy. Don't make it more complicated than it is."

I watched her eyes flicker to the folder and then back to me. She was second-guessing. I could see it. 

She was wondering if she could run. If there was any other way. I knew there wasn't. I'd made sure of it. I'd bought her debt, her landlord, and her future before she even got in the car...

But for a second, I felt a twinge of something that felt like guilt...It was gone before I could name it. Guilt was for people who didn't have a company to run. My father didn't feel guilt. He felt results.

"You're Daniel's daughter," I said, mostly to see if she'd flinch. "He was a man of principles. Look where that got him. He's in a grave, and you're standing in my office soaking wet, begging for a check."

She did flinch then. Her eyes narrowed, and for a split second, the hazel turned dark green. It was fire. Real, honest-to-god fire.

"I'm not begging," she whispered.

"Aren't you?" I asked. I stood up and walked toward her. I wanted to see if she'd back away. I wanted to feel the power of being the one who decided if she survived the night.

I stopped just inches from her. She smelled like the rain..cold and metallic...and that cheap, greasy smell from the diner. It was a human smell. It was messy and It didn't belong in this room with its air-filtration systems and its scent of expensive cedar.

She didn't move. She stayed right where she was, even though I was looming over her. She was tiny, but she felt... heavy.

I realized then that she was more dangerous than the socialites my father usually tried to set me up with. A socialite wanted my name. She wanted the black card and the parties. She was easy to buy because her price was just money.

But this girl? Liora? She wasn't here for money. She was here for a life. She was here because she loved someone enough to sell herself to a man she clearly hated.

That made her unbuyable. I could buy her time. I could buy her body for nine months. I could buy the baby she would carry. But I couldn't buy that look in her eyes. It was a contradiction. I owned her, but I didn't possess her.

It made my skin itch. I didn't like things I couldn't fully control.

"You have five minutes," I said, my voice dropping to a low growl. "Read the first three pages. That's the core of the agreement. The rest is just legal jargon about your diet and your medical checkups. Sign the last page, and the doctors move."

She looked at the folder again. She still hadn't opened it.

"Why me?" she asked. "There are thousands of women. Why choose someone whose father you... whose father you hated?"

I didn't have a good answer. The real answer was that I wanted to win. I wanted to take the one thing Daniel Hayes had left and make it mine. I wanted to prove to my father that I could be just as ruthless as he was.

But I couldn't say that.

"Because you have nothing," I said instead. "And people with nothing are the most reliable. You have everything to lose, Liora. That makes you the perfect partner for this transaction."

Partner. It was a lie. We weren't partners.

She finally opened the folder. I watched her eyes move over the words. Surrogacy. Parental Rights. Non-Disclosure. Genetic Succession.

The room felt colder. I watched the way her fingers trembled as she turned the first page. She was reading about her own disappearance. She was reading about how she would give birth to a child and then never be allowed to hear its name or see its face.

I expected her to stop. I expected her to throw the folder at my head and tell me I was a monster.

But she just kept reading. Her face went pale, almost grey, but she didn't stop.

"It says here... I can't leave the estate," she said. Her voice was flat. No emotion left. Just a statement of fact.

"Correct," I said. "You will live in the West Wing. You will have everything you need. But you will not be seen. You will not have contact with the outside world. Until the child is born and the recovery is complete, you belong to the Volkov estate."

"Like a prisoner," she said.

"Like an asset," I corrected.

She looked up at me. The fire was still there, but it was buried under a layer of ice. She looked older than she was. She looked like she'd lived a hundred years in the last hour.

"My mother stays in the private wing?" she asked.

"For as long as she needs," I said. "The best doctors. The best recovery plan. All paid for."

She looked back at the paper. She was hesitating. I could see her thumb rubbing against the corner of the page. She was thinking about her mom. She was thinking about the empty apartment. She was thinking about the trash bags in the rain.

I felt a sudden, weird urge to reach out and touch her shoulder. Just to see if she was as cold as she looked. I didn't. I gripped my scotch glass tighter instead.

I was second-guessing myself now. Was this a mistake? Bringing this much fire into my house? My life was quiet. It was organized. She was a mess. She was a walking, shivering complication.

But then I thought about Sergei. I thought about the "Legacy Clause."

I needed this.

I leaned in closer, drawn to the defiance that still wouldn't die in her eyes. I could see my own reflection in her pupils. I looked cold. I looked like a machine.

"Are you going to read," I said, my voice a whisper that felt like a threat, "or are you waiting for me to tell you how this ends?"

She didn't blink. She just stared back.

"I know how it ends," she said.