HIS TO KEEP

**Chapter 3: The Cage Made of Silk**

The lock clicked three hours ago.

I know because I've been counting the seconds.

The office has no windows. Just screens. Just cameras. Just my own reflection staring back at me from every black mirror.

I pace.

Then I pace some more.

My heels are off now. I left them by the door like a breadcrumb trail, even though I know no one is coming for me. Danny is asleep in his hospital bed across the city. The nurses adore him. They don't know his sister just sold herself to a devil in a three-piece suit.

*I own you.*

The words should terrify me.

They do terrify me.

But there's something else crawling under my skin. Something that started the moment Alexander brushed that strand of hair from my face. Something that feels dangerously close to *wanting*.

I press my palms against my eyes.

*Get it together, Elena.*

The door opens.

No knock. No warning. Just the soft hiss of the lock releasing and then he's there, filling the doorway like he owns the air I breathe.

Alexander changed clothes.

The funeral black is gone. Now he wears a charcoal sweater, sleeves pushed to his elbows, and I hate how human it makes him look. How almost reachable.

He's holding a folder.

A new one.

"I brought dinner," he says.

Behind him, a server wheels in a cart. Silver domes. Crystal glasses. The kind of meal that costs more than my first car.

I don't move from my spot by the far wall.

"I'm not hungry."

"Yes, you are."

He doesn't look at me when he says it. He just lifts the domes himself, dismissing the server with a single nod. The smell hits me immediately. Roasted garlic. Butter. Something herbaceous that makes my stomach betray me with a loud growl.

Alexander's mouth twitches.

"Eat," he says. "We have a long night."

I stay where I am. "I'm not your pet. You can't starve me into obedience."

He sets down the lid. Slowly. Deliberately.

Then he crosses the room.

Each step is measured. Controlled. He's not in a hurry. He doesn't need to be. The room is his. The house is his. The whole city, probably.

And right now, I am his too.

He stops in front of me. Close enough that I have to tilt my head back to keep eye contact. Close enough that I smell cedar again. And beneath that, something else. Coffee. Late nights. The kind of exhaustion that comes from carrying too many secrets.

"Elena," he says quietly. "I don't want to starve you."

His hand comes up.

I flinch.

He notices.

Something flickers across his face—too fast for me to name—and then his hand drops back to his side.

"I want to understand you," he says. "There's a difference."

I laugh. It comes out bitter and sharp. "You locked me in a room."

"You locked yourself in a contract." He tilts his head. "I'm just holding you to it."

I want to hit him.

I want to scream.

I want to cry, which is worse, because I haven't cried since the day Danny was diagnosed. Tears are a luxury I can't afford. They don't pay bills. They don't buy chemo.

But standing here, in this cold beautiful room, with this cold beautiful man looking at me like I'm a puzzle he's desperate to solve—

My eyes burn.

I blink it away.

"Dinner," I say flatly. "Fine. Dinner. And then you tell me what you actually want from me."

Alexander gestures to the table.

I sit.

He sits across from me, which should feel safer. It doesn't. The table is wide enough for six people, but he leans forward like he wants to close the distance. Like the wood between us is an inconvenience.

I eat.

The food is incredible. I hate how much I enjoy it. Roasted chicken with crispy skin. Potatoes mashed with enough butter to stop a heart. A salad I didn't know I wanted until I tasted the dressing.

Alexander doesn't eat.

He watches.

"You're angry," he says halfway through my meal.

I stab a potato. "Brilliant deduction."

"At me. Or at yourself?"

The potato dissolves on my tongue. I chew slowly, buying time.

"Both," I admit.

He nods like that's the right answer.

"The man who hired you," he says. "Tell me about him."

I set down my fork.

"The deal was simple," I say. "I pose as Beatrice. I keep your father company. I make him feel loved in his final months. In exchange, he pays for Danny's treatment."

Alexander's expression doesn't change. "And the marriage?"

"A lie. The wedding was never real. Just a ceremony to make him happy." I pause. "He knew I wasn't her. He knew from the beginning. He just… wanted someone to hold his hand at the end."

Something shifts in Alexander's face.

For a moment, just a moment, I see something human there. Something almost soft.

Then it's gone.

"And the pearls?" he asks.

"Your mother's."

"I know they're my mother's." His voice drops. "Why did you wear them?"

I look down at my plate.

"Because I didn't know they were hers. Because the stylist handed them to me. Because—" I stop. Swallow. "Because I wanted to feel beautiful. Just for one day."

The silence stretches.

When I look up, Alexander is staring at me with an expression I can't read. Not cold. Not warm. Something in between that makes my chest ache.

"Your brother," he says. "Daniel. He's at Mount Sinai?"

I nod.

"The treatment he's receiving—it's not enough."

My fork clatters against the plate.

"How do you—"

"I made some calls while you were pacing." He leans back in his chair. "The protocol he's on has a forty percent success rate. There's a newer treatment. Experimental. Seventy-two percent."

I'm holding my breath.

"Why are you telling me this?"

Alexander stands.

He walks around the table, slow and unhurried, until he's standing behind my chair. His hands rest on the back of it. Not touching me. Just there. A reminder.

"Because I want to make you an offer," he says quietly.

I don't turn around. "What kind of offer?"

"Stay."

The word lands between us like a stone in still water.

"Stay here. In this house. Play the role you were hired to play—but for me."

I twist in my chair to face him.

He's close. Too close. His face is inches from mine, and I can see the faint lines around his eyes, the shadow of stubble on his jaw, the way his pupils dilate when he looks at my mouth.

"Why?" I whisper.

"Because my father's enemies are circling. Because they think his estate is vulnerable. Because if they find out he hired a stranger to play his wife—" His jaw tightens. "—they'll tear apart everything he built."

"So this is about business."

"Business," he agrees.

But his voice drops on the word. And his eyes don't leave mine.

"Three months," he says. "You stay. You play the grieving widow. You smile at galas and cry at the right moments. In exchange—"

"Danny gets the treatment."

"Danny gets everything."

I should say no.

I should walk out that door and never look back. I should find a lawyer, fight the contract, disappear into the city where he'll never find me.

But Danny's face floats behind my eyes. His brave smile. The way he said *don't worry, sis* even when his hands were shaking.

"What's the catch?" I ask.

Alexander reaches into his pocket.

He pulls out a key.

A single key on a silver ring.

"The catch," he says, "is that you don't leave this property without me. You don't make phone calls I don't approve. You don't see anyone I don't clear."

He holds the key out.

"My father gave you a cage made of lies," he says. "I'm offering you a cage made of silk. It's still a cage, Elena. Don't mistake me for a good man."

I look at the key.

I look at his face.

And I realize, with a clarity that makes my stomach drop—

He's not offering me a choice.

He's offering me an illusion of one.

"What if I refuse?" I ask.

Alexander's smile is slow. Devastating. And completely empty.

"Then you owe me approximately four hundred thousand dollars. Which you don't have. Which your brother definitely doesn't have." He tilts his head. "And I take back the offer for his treatment."

My hands are shaking.

I hate that he can see it.

"Three months," I say.

"Three months."

"And then I walk away."

His smile doesn't waver. "If you still want to."

I don't know what that means.

I don't ask.

I reach out and take the key.

Our fingers brush.

His skin is warm. That surprises me. I expected him to be cold all the way through.

Alexander doesn't pull away.

Neither do I.

"You should know something," he says quietly. "The man who hired you. The one who connected you to my father."

My heart stutters.

"He wasn't a stranger."

I go cold.

"He was my brother."

The world tilts.

"Sebastian," Alexander continues, watching my face like he's waiting for me to break. "My younger brother. The one who was disinherited. The one who's been trying to destroy this family for years."

He leans closer.

His lips brush my ear.

"You've been working for my enemy, Elena. And now—"

He pulls back.

His eyes are black ice.

"—you're sleeping in my house."

The key burns in my palm.

I look down at it.

Then back at him.

And I realize I just made a deal with a man who has every reason to destroy me.

And every reason to keep me close.

"Show me to my room," I say.

Alexander smiles.

It's the most terrifying thing I've ever seen.

"With pleasure."

He offers his hand.

I don't take it.

But I follow him out the door.

And I don't look back.