(Ruby's POV)
The heavy book feels like an anchor in my arms all the way back to my room. Knowledge is the only form of care that isn't sentiment. His words won't leave me. They feel less like advice and more like a confession. What has sentiment cost him?
I spend the afternoon devouring the botanical text. It's meticulous, beautiful, and cold. It describes symbiotic relationships and parasitic ones with the same clinical detachment. I learn about mycorrhizal fungi that help roots absorb nutrients, and about pests that hollow out a plant from within while leaving the exterior perfectly intact. The metaphor isn't lost on me.
As dusk bleeds into the sea outside my window, a different kind of knowledge arrives.
Mrs. MacLeod enters without a tray. In her hands is a sleek, modern satellite phone. "Your call, Miss Banks. You have ten minutes."
My heart leaps into my throat. Mia.
She sets the phone on the desk. "Dial the number. It is the only one programmed. Do not attempt to use it for anything else." Her gaze is stern, but not unkind. "The connection is… fragile. Do not waste time."
The moment she leaves, I snatch the phone. My fingers are clumsy as I press the single button. It rings twice, and then—
"Ruby?" Her voice is thin, scratchy with distance and what I fear is pain, but it's her. It's Mia.
A sob tears from my chest before I can stop it. I clamp a hand over my mouth, squeezing my eyes shut. "Mia. Oh, God, Mia."
"Hey, don't. Don't cry." Her voice firms, trying to be strong for me. Always for me. "I'm okay. Really. The new treatment… it's different. I don't feel as sick after. I actually ate toast today."
"Toast?" I laugh through the tears, sinking into the chair. It's such a stupid, normal thing. It's everything. "That's amazing."
"How are you?" The question is tentative, dreading the answer. "What's it like? Is he…?"
I look around the beautiful, terrible room. How do I describe the gilded cage? The silent staff? The terrifying, beautiful man who is not a beast but something infinitely more complicated?
"It's a castle. On a cliff. It's very… quiet." I choose my words like stepping stones across a river of lies. "And he's… he's just a man, Mia. A reclusive man. It's not what the papers say." I need her to believe that. I need to believe it myself.
"They're saying awful things, Ruby. Dad showed me a paper. They call him 'The Beast of Sterling Cliff.' They say he's disfigured and cruel." Her voice drops to a whisper. "They said he bought you."
The truth of it, said aloud by her, is a fresh wound. "The debt is gone, though. Right? Your treatment is paid?"
"Yes. All of it. A man from a foundation comes to check. He's very… efficient." She hesitates. "Dad seems lighter. Mom is… shopping."
Of course she is. A flash of bitterness cuts through me. They sold me and got a shopping spree. But Mia is safe. That's the only part of the equation that matters.
We talk then, a frantic rush of normalcy. She tells me about a nurse who makes terrible jokes, about the soap opera on the hospital TV, about the dream she had where she was swimming in a warm sea. I tell her about the conservatory, about the orchids. I make it sound like a hobby, not a lifeline. I don't mention the painting. I don't mention the sketch, or the circled window, or the way Nicholas Sterling's storm-gray eyes seem to see straight through my carefully constructed calm.
"You sound different," Mia says softly, near the end of our precious minutes.
"I'm just tired."
"No. You sound… sharper. Like you're thinking really hard about something."
Out of the mouths of babes, or in this case, my brilliantly perceptive little sister. "I'm just trying to understand the rules here," I say, which is also true.
The line crackles, a reminder of its fragility. "I have to go, Mia. I love you. I love you so much."
"I love you more. Be safe, Ruby. Promise me."
"I promise."
The call dies, leaving a hollow, static silence in its wake. The room feels larger, colder. The validation of her safety is a tangible relief, but it's welded to the reality of my captivity. This call was a gift. A demonstration of power. See? I keep my word. Now remember your place.
I sit in the growing dark for a long time, the satellite phone a cold weight in my lap. The connection to my old life, severed again. I feel untethered, floating in this opulent void.
A soft sound makes me look up.
He's there. Leaning against the archway of my open bedroom door, one shoulder propped against the frame, his hands in the pockets of his dark trousers. How long has he been watching? He's shed the sweater, dressed now in a simple white shirt, the sleeves rolled to his elbows. The casualness of it is more disarming than any formal attire. The faint firelight from my hearth plays over the lines of his forearms, the elegant tendons of his hands.
My breath hitches. He looks like a fallen angel contemplating a mistake.
"Was she well?" His voice is quiet, blending with the whisper of the sea wind.
"She ate toast," I say, the simple truth feeling sacred.
A faint, almost imperceptible nod. "Progress."
"Thank you." The words are out before I can stop them. "For letting me call. For… her treatment."
He pushes off from the doorframe and takes a few steps into the room. He doesn't come close, but his presence immediately dominates the space. His gaze travels over the open botanical book on my desk, the satellite phone in my lap, my undoubtedly tear-streaked face. His expression is unreadable.
"Your gratitude is misplaced, Ruby."
The use of my name again. It's a current under my skin.
"You kept your promise. That deserves thanks."
"I kept a business term," he corrects, his voice cool. "A transaction requires follow-through to be valid. This," he gestures vaguely between us, "is not kindness. It is accounting." His stormy eyes lock onto mine. "The price is always paid. Just not always by you."
The words are a chilling splash of reality. What is the price? And who is paying it?
"Then who is?" I dare to ask, standing to face him. The defiance he sparked in the library is returning, fueled by the emotional whiplash of Mia's call. "If not me, and not Mia… who?"
For a long moment, he just looks at me. And in that look, I see not cruelty, but a profound, weary bitterness. It's an old hurt, buried deep and covered over with granite and ice. In the flickering light, the sharp planes of his face seem less severe, almost sorrowful. A lock of that raven-black hair has fallen across his forehead, softening his brow. The urge to reach out and push it back is so sudden and shocking it steals my breath.
He is, in this unguarded moment, heartbreakingly beautiful. Not cute—that word is too soft, too simple for the complex, damaged male beauty he radiates. It's a beauty that makes your chest ache. The kind that makes you want to both run and step closer, to unravel the mystery of the pain in those incredible eyes.
He doesn't answer my question. Instead, he turns his gaze to the wilting black orchid on my nightstand. "You're trying to save it."
"I am."
"It's a Phalaenopsis violacea. It requires a specific dry period between waterings you're not giving it. You're drowning it with sentiment." He delivers the diagnosis without looking at me, his profile etched in fire and shadow. "Sometimes, the kindest thing is to stop pouring water and let the roots search."
Is he talking about the orchid? Or me? Or himself?
He finally looks back at me, and the momentary softness is gone, shuttered behind a wall of impenetrable reserve. "The call will be arranged weekly. Same terms. Do not abuse the privilege."
He turns to leave.
"Why?" The question bursts from me. "Why give me the book? Why give me the call? If you just want me quiet and invisible… why show me any of this?"
He pauses at the threshold, half in the dark corridor, half in my fire-lit room. He doesn't face me.
"Because a curious mind is quieter than a desperate heart," he says, his voice so low I almost don't catch it. "And desperate hearts do reckless things."
Then he's gone, melting into the shadows of his own house, leaving me more confused, more intrigued, and more unsettled than ever.
He isn't trying to break my spirit. I realize that now.
He's trying to manage it. To channel it. To keep my desperate heart from doing something reckless.
But as I look at the dying orchid, then at the complex diagrams in the book he gave me, a new thought takes root.
The most reckless thing of all wouldn't be despair.
It would be hope.
And he's just handed me its first, fragile seed.