Rules
839 Words
Richard didn’t announce the rules the way normal people did—there was no warmth in his voice, no easing into it, no concern for how they might land.
He stood at the foot of the grand staircase, hands tucked into the pockets of a perfectly tailored dark suit, eyes steady and unreadable. The house behind him stretched wide and silent, all polished wood, glass chandeliers, and expensive stillness. Jane stood near the entrance, her bag still slung over her shoulder, feeling like she had walked into a place that had already decided she didn’t belong.
“You will follow my rules,” Richard said simply.
Jane blinked. “Your rules?”
Silence.
His gaze shifted to her, sharp but controlled. “Yes.”
There was a pause. It’s not dramatic. He didn’t blink when she challenged him.
Just final.
Then he began.
“No leaving the house without permission.”
Jane almost laughed, but nothing about his expression suggested a joke. “Excuse me?”
He continued anyway, as if she hadn’t spoken. “No phone usage.”
Her hand instinctively tightened around her bag. “My phone is my property.”
“It is now irrelevant,” he replied.
Jane gripped tightened on her bag. “You can’t just take someone’s—”
“No questions during instructions,” he cut in, voice even.
That shut her up faster than she expected.
Richard’s face didn’t change. If anything, it became more distant, like he was reciting policies rather than controlling a human being. “No entering my office.”
That one lingered in the air longer than the others.
Jane narrowed her eyes. “What’s in your office?”
His stare flicked to her—quick, precise. “That is not your concern.”
A silence stretched between them. The chandelier above them made a faint ticking sound, like the house itself was counting the seconds of her patience.
Jane exhaled slowly through her nose. “You’re insane.”
Still, Richard didn’t react. It’s not offended. Not amused. Not even slightly disturbed.
“You may hate the rules,” he said, “but you will follow them.”
“That’s not how life works,” she snapped.
For the first time, something subtle shifted in his expression—not emotion, exactly, but attention. Like she had done something mildly unexpected.
“In this house,” he said quietly, “it is.”
Jane wanted to argue more. She wanted to throw her bag down, turn around, and walk out just to prove she could. But the doors behind her suddenly felt heavier than they looked, like they wouldn’t open for her even if she tried.
Instead, she forced her voice to stay steady. “Why am I even here?”
Richard studied her for a moment, longer than necessary. Then he said, “Because I decided,” he said after a purse.”
“You would be.”
That answer should have been infuriating enough to make her leave on principle alone.
But she didn’t move.
Instead, something else caught her attention.
The way he said it wasn’t cruel.
It was final.
Like a decision already made long before she arrived.
Richard turned slightly. “Your room is prepared.”
Jane frowned. “I didn’t agree to stay.”
“You didn’t have to.”
He began walking up the stairs.
That should have been the end of it. A simple dismissal. A power play. A man used to be obeyed.
But as he walked, Jane noticed something strange.
He didn’t look back to check if she was following.
He didn’t need to.
That certainty irritated her more than anything he had said.
Still, curiosity pulled her forward before anger could stop her.
The staircase creaked softly under her steps as she followed him. The house smelled faintly clean wood and something colder beneath it—something like metal or stone that had been closed away for a long time.
At the top of the stairs, Richard paused but didn’t turn.
“One more thing,” he said.
Jane braced herself. “Of course there is.”
“This house has order,” he said. “You will not disrupt it.”
Jane let out a short, humourless laugh. “And if I do?”
That time, he turned his head slightly. Just enough for her to see his profile.
“You won’t,” he said.
It’s not a threat.
A certainty.
Then he continued down the hallway, leaving her standing at the top of the stairs, surrounded by silence and expensive walls that suddenly felt too close.
Jane hated him instantly.
“That alone annoyed her more than the rules.”
That much was clear.
But as she followed him at a distance, something unsettled her in a way she couldn’t explain.
It wasn’t just the rules.
It was the way he enforced them without anger.
Without pleasure.
Without anything at all.
Like she wasn’t living in his at all but already accounted for inside it.
- Writer
