I stumbled after him, dozens of gloating eyes burning into my back.
The elevator doors slid shut. Howard didn't loosen his grip on my wrist. If anything, his fingers tightened.
"That hurts..."
The words slipped out before I could stop them.
He slammed me against the elevator wall, caging me with his body.
"Hurts?"
His gaze was dark, predatory, fixed on my bare shoulders.
"Stella, is your spine made of jelly? Someone tells you to kneel and you kneel? Someone tells you to drink and you drink?"
I swallowed against the searing pain in my stomach.
"If I don't kneel, are you going to lend me the money? Howard, I need to eat. I need to pay rent. I need to survive. I don't have the luxury of pride."
"So you'd rather sell yourself?"
He reached up and yanked off his tie, winding it roughly around my still-bleeding palm.
"Selling myself to your fiancée beats selling myself to some old man."
I glared right back at him.
"At least she only humiliated me. She didn't assault me."
Ding.
The elevator reached the top floor.
He seized my arm again and strode toward the executive suite, his long legs eating up the corridor. The moment we were inside, he threw me into the bathroom. Into the bathtub.
Hard porcelain slammed against my spine, sending numbness radiating through my back.
He turned on the shower. Ice-cold water crashed over my head, and my whole body convulsed with tremors.
"Clean yourself up."
I curled into a ball under the freezing stream, watching my blood turn the water pink.
"Will being clean prove I didn't steal the necklace?"
Howard let out a cold laugh. He reached into his pocket, pulled out something that caught the light, and tossed it casually into the bathwater.
The pink diamond necklace. The one Vivienne had claimed was "missing."
"The necklace was with me the whole time."
I stared at him, unable to process what I was seeing.
"You... you did this on purpose? You watched me get humiliated. Watched them nearly strip me naked..."
"If I hadn't, how else would I get to see you beg like a dog?"
Howard crouched beside the tub and reached over to turn off the shower.
"Stella, remember this feeling. You owe me this."
He stood.
"You're sleeping in this bathtub tonight. Tomorrow morning at seven, I want to see you in a mascot costume, greeting guests at the hotel entrance."
"What costume?"
A sick feeling coiled in my gut.
Howard turned and walked out of the bathroom.
"Since you love playing the dog so much, you might as well commit to the role."
At six in the morning, pounding on the door jolted me awake.
Every inch of my body felt like it had been run over by a truck. My head was swimming, and my palm, soaked in water all night, was swollen and ringed with angry red.
Vivienne's assistant stood outside, holding a dog-head mascot suit that reeked of stale urine.
"Put it on."
The assistant pinched her nose, disgust plain on her face.
"Miss Graves says there's a pet charity expo today. You're the mascot at the front entrance. On all fours. Barking. Bark well enough and you get to eat."
"I'm not wearing that."
"No?"
The assistant's lip curled.
"Mr. Henson said if you refuse, he'll take it to mean you don't need this job and don't want to stay in this city."
I bit down on my lip until I tasted copper.
Howard, you heartless bastard.
Twenty minutes later. The hotel entrance.
I was on my hands and knees on scorching concrete, sealed inside the suffocating mascot suit. The sun beat down mercilessly, turning the costume into an oven. Sweat mixed with the blood still seeping from my wounds, stinging every inch of raw skin.
The guests filing past were all money and status. Every single one of them recoiled at the filthy "dog" sprawled in front of the doors, covering their noses as they hurried by.
"Is this some kind of performance art? God, the smell."
"I heard it's that fake heiress from the Graves family. She'll do anything for money now."
