Gideon's jaw tightened. He turned to face me fully, and when he spoke, each word came out measured and cold.
"This is a contract. An agreement. You signed it willingly, and you will honour it." His eyes didn't waver. "You live in my house, you carry my name, and you will live by the rules of this arrangement. You do not question my authority, Esther. That was not part of the deal."
"The deal."
I laughed — a short, broken sound that surprised even me. "Is that all I am to you? A deal?"
"That is all this is."
Something snapped.
My hand moved before my mind gave it permission. I raised it — palm open, arm swinging — aimed straight at the side of his face.
It never landed.
His hand caught my wrist mid-air, fingers wrapping around it with a grip that was firm but not cruel. The force of it pulled me forward, stumbling a half-step toward him, closing the distance between us until I could feel the warmth coming off his chest.
I looked up, expecting fury.
What I found was something else entirely.
His eyes searched mine for one suspended, breathless second — and then he kissed me.
It wasn't gentle. It wasn't cruel either. It was sudden and consuming and completely disarming, his free hand coming up to cradle the side of my face as though he'd done it a hundred times before.
I felt my anger dissolve somewhere in the space between one heartbeat and the next, replaced by something warm and terrifying and impossible to name.
I didn't pull away.
I should have. I didn't.
When he broke the kiss, we were both very still. His hand still held my wrist. Mine had somehow found its way to the fabric of his shirt without me realising it.
Then I watched something shift behind his eyes. A wall going back up, brick by hurried brick.
He released my wrist and stepped back.
"Uh—" He cleared his throat. The composure he wore like armour flickered, just once, visibly. "I… sorry. This didn't mean anything." He straightened his collar, not quite meeting my eyes. "Forget it."
And then he was gone.
His footsteps were brisk down the hallway. A door opened somewhere in the depths of the mansion. Then silence.
I stood exactly where he'd left me.
My wrist still felt the ghost of his grip. My lips still felt — I pressed my fingers to my mouth and immediately felt foolish for doing it.
The room was the same room it had been five minutes ago.
The city lights still spilled through the tall windows. The paper with his rules still lay on the coffee table.
Everything was the same. Nothing felt the same.
Had that just happened? Was I dreaming? Had Gideon — cold, controlled, emotionless Gideon — just kissed me like that and then walked away as though it were something to simply be filed and forgotten?
I sat down slowly on the sofa. My legs had decided they were done holding me up.
I stared at the ceiling. My heart was beating too fast.
My thoughts were running in circles and underneath all of it, buried beneath the confusion and the anger and something else I refused to examine too closely, was one undeniable, unsettling fact:
I had not wanted him to stop.
My phone buzzed.
I froze. The name on the screen made my stomach twist.
Joseph.
My thumb hovered over the screen.
I unlocked it.
"So… you finally got married to him."
The words burned on the screen.
I dropped the phone on the sofa, trembling. My heart slammed against my ribs.
How did he know?
I didn't sleep.
Not even a little.
I lay on top of the covers and stared at the ceiling because pulling them over me felt like saying Yes, I live here now and I wasn't ready to say that. I might never be ready to say that.
Outside, the city glittered through the tall windows like it had something to prove.
All those lights, all those people going somewhere, belonging somewhere, living lives that made sense.
I pressed my palm flat against the cold glass and stood there for a long time, thinking about my mother lying in that hospital bed, thinking about my father's voice, thinking about the restaurant that no longer existed and the man sleeping somewhere down this hallway who had looked me dead in the eyes and said "I don't lose" like it cost him nothing at all.
I got up before the alarm.
Showered. Dressed. Stood in front of the mirror and looked at the girl staring back at me.
She looked tired. She looked scared. She looked like someone who had jumped off a cliff and was only now, in the dark and the quiet, realising how far down the water was.
"Don't let him see a single thing," I told her.
She straightened her shoulders.
We had an agreement.
Breakfast was at seven.
I walked in at six fifty-eight.
Not because the schedule said so. Not because I was trying to be good. Because I refused — with every stubborn bone in my body — to give Gideon Cross one single thing to correct me on. Not one. He had taken enough already.
He was already there.
Of course he was.
Sitting at the head of that long, cold, gleaming table like he had been placed there by someone who wanted to make a point about power. Jacket on. Coffee in hand. Reading something. Not looking up. Completely unbothered by the world and everything in it.
I hated that he looked like that in the morning.
Rested. Composed. Like the night before had been nothing. Like the kiss had been nothing. Like I was nothing.
I sat at the far end and kept my face very still.
Neither of us said a word about it.
I had actually rehearsed for this moment, somewhere between three and four in the morning when sleep had completely abandoned me.
I had run through a dozen different versions of what I would say if he brought it up. "It was a mistake. Don't read into it. It won't happen again." I had them ready and waiting.