POV: Sophie
The phone stayed face-down beneath the pillow.
I couldn't look at Julian's message again. Not with Andrew blocking the bedroom door, whiskey sweating onto the nightstand, his cologne in the air like a threat.
He let the silence stretch between us until the ice nearly melted. Then he tipped his head toward the hallway. "Dinner."
I followed because refusal changed nothing. The dining room stretched ahead, chandelier dripping crystal tears over mahogany. Andrew sat at the head, cutting into a steak that bled pink onto his plate. He didn't look up when I entered; he simply gestured toward the chair at his right with two fingers.
"Sit."
I sat.
The silk of Eleanor's pajamas whispered against the velvet upholstery. My hands found my lap. My fingernails found my palms. Andrew kept eating, his jaw working in slow circles, the only sound in the room the scrape of silver on porcelain.
"Say whatever you're working up to," he said, not looking at me. "I can hear you thinking from here."
My throat clicked when I swallowed. "I've been thinking about the engagement photos."
"Have you."
"About the photographer situation. Julian and I—there's history. You saw it today. It's awkward, and it's unprofessional, and I think it would be better if we found someone else to finish the shoot. A woman, maybe. Someone who doesn't—"
Andrew's knife screeched across the plate.
The sound went through my molars and straight into my spine. I stopped talking. He set the utensils down, one on each side of the plate, perfectly parallel, and finally raised his eyes to mine.
"A woman photographer."
"Yes."
"Someone who doesn't make things awkward."
"That's the idea."
He smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. It was the smile he wore when he'd already won and was just waiting for me to catch up. "You want me to break Julian Vance's contract."
"It's one shoot. There are hundreds of photographers who could—"
"Hundreds." Andrew leaned back in his chair. "Then you won't mind covering the cancellation fee yourself."
I stiffened. "How much could it possibly—"
"Maxwell."
I hadn't seen the assistant standing in the corner. He emerged from the shadows near the sideboard like a ghost given flesh, a leather folio already open in his hands. His gray eyes flicked to mine with something that might have been sympathy if Maxwell were capable of human emotion.
He laid the contract on the table in front of me.
The paper was thick. Cream-colored. Expensive. The kind of paper that existed to make you feel small before you'd read a single word. My gaze dropped to the bottom of the page, to the cancellation clause, to the number spelled out in bold, unflinching type.
$10,000,000.
Ten million dollars.
The zeroes blurred. I blinked and they were still there. I blinked again. Still there. Still ten million dollars sitting on Andrew's dining table like it was a grocery receipt.
"That's a lot of zeroes," I whispered.
"That's a lot of Julian." Andrew picked up his whiskey and swirled it, watching the amber cling to the glass. "He's not some street-corner portraitist, Sophie. He's got awards, representation, an agent who negotiated that contract specifically to make him untouchable. Did you think I hired an amateur?"
"You hired him to test me."
"I hired him because I wanted the best. The test was a bonus." He took a sip, let the whiskey sit on his tongue. "And you failed."
The paper trembled in my hand. I set it down before he could see how badly my fingers were shaking. "Andrew, I can't—this number—"
"You can't what? Pay it?" He laughed, soft and cold. "I know you can't pay it. You don't have ten dollars of your own money, sweetheart. Every dress in your closet, every meal on your plate, every fucking breath you take in this house is paid for by me. That's the arrangement. That's always been the arrangement."
Maxwell retreated to his corner, folio closed, expression blank.
Andrew rose from his chair. His footsteps were silent on the carpet but I felt them in my chest anyway, each one a countdown. His hand landed on my shoulder. Squeezed.
"Julian Vance finishes the shoot. That's final. But since you're so worried about awkwardness, I've arranged for some company to ease the tension. His girlfriend will be joining us tomorrow. Cassandra. She's a model, apparently—she'll assist with lighting, reflectors, that sort of thing. Should make everything much more comfortable."
Cassandra.
The name went through me like a needle.
Cassandra with her razor cheekbones and her perfect pout and her voice saying I saw the whole thing, Eleanor, Sophie threw herself at the car, it was pathetic. Cassandra standing over me on the pavement seven years ago, mascara not even smudged, while I bled into the asphalt and screamed for a baby that was already gone.
The room tilted.
"You know her," Andrew said. It wasn't a question.
"I—" My voice cracked. "She was there. After the accident. She was the witness who told the police I'd jumped in front of the car intentionally. That it was my fault."
Andrew's thumb traced a slow arc along my collarbone. "Is that so."
"Eleanor paid her off. Had to have. I wasn't—I didn't jump, I was crossing the street, the car came out of nowhere—"
"Shh." He pressed a finger to my lips. "I don't care about your little soap opera from seven years ago. What I care about is tomorrow. You're going to stand in front of Julian's camera and you're going to smile while his girlfriend holds the light meter. And you're not going to flinch. You're not going to cry. You're not going to do anything except look like the perfect future Mrs. Andrew Croft."
The room was too hot. The pajamas were too tight. I twisted in my chair, trying to stand, trying to escape the weight of his hand and the weight of the contract and the weight of Cassandra's name still echoing in my skull.
I made it two steps before Andrew caught my wrist.
His fingers locked around the bone and yanked. I spun into his chest, my palms smacking against the starched cotton of his shirt. His arms wrapped around me, one hand splaying across the small of my back, the other tangling in my hair and pulling until my chin tilted up and my throat was exposed and my eyes were forced to meet his.
"Let go of me—"
"Shut up."
I shut up.
His mouth brushed my ear. "You're so tense tonight. More tense than usual. Is it the near-drowning, or is it Julian? Did seeing your old flame get you all worked up? Did you think about him when I was fucking you last night?"
"No."
"Liar." His teeth grazed my earlobe. "I can always tell when you're lying. You bite your lip. You're doing it now."
I stopped biting my lip.
His hand slid lower. Over the curve of my hip. Across the flat plane of my stomach. His palm settled just below my navel, warm through the silk, his fingers spread wide, a quiet claim of ownership.
"What I can't figure out," Andrew murmured, "is whether the tension is guilt. Old feelings stirring around. Maybe you saw Julian pull you out of that pool and remembered what it felt like to have his hands on you. Maybe you pictured him instead of me."
"That's not—"
"Because I remember something too." His fingers pressed inward. Not hard. Just pressure. Just a reminder. "First night you moved into this house. You were so grateful. So eager to please. But when I put you on your knees and told you to say my name, you didn't say Andrew."
The air stopped moving in my lungs.
"You said Julian." His fingers dug deeper, flattening my abdomen, pinning me against him. "And then you cried. And then you apologized. And then you spent three days in bed because you were too sore to walk. Do you remember that, Sophie?"
I remembered.
I remembered the rug burns on my knees and the bruises on my hips and the way Andrew had smiled the whole time, calm and patient, like he was teaching a dog a new trick.
"Yes," I whispered. "I remember."
"Good." He released my stomach abruptly, smoothing the pajama fabric back into place. "Because I'd hate to have to repeat that lesson. Tomorrow you're going to be perfect. You're going to smile. You're going to pose. You're going to look at Julian like he's a piece of furniture and Cassandra like she's your new best friend. And when the shoot is over, you're going to come home and get on your knees and prove to me that you know who you belong to."
He stepped back.
Released me.
Straightened his cuffs like nothing had happened, like he hadn't just hollowed me out and filled me back up with ice.
"Now go to bed. You look tired. And Sophie?"
I turned at the doorway.
"Don't check your phone again tonight. I'll know if you do."
