Bought by the Ruthless CEO

Chapter 9: The punishment

I woke up to sunlight stabbing my face like punishment for sleeping too long.

10:17 AM.

For three seconds I just stared at the ceiling, confused. The bed was too soft. Too big. The room was too quiet. Too perfect. Then my brain caught up. Like a truck.

7 AM. Rule One. Be awake before me. Be ready before me. Be downstairs before my first coffee.

He had more rules now. He keeps changing the number like he forgets where he stopped. Rule Seven, Rule Eight, Rule Nine. My head was full of his rules.

"OH MY GOD!" I screamed and jumped out of bed so fast I got dizzy.

I threw on the first thing I saw on the floor — my big, faded hoodie, the grey one with the hole in the sleeve, tiny cotton shorts, no bra, hair wild from sleeping and crying and dreaming, barefoot. No teeth brushed. No face washed. I ran.

Down the hall, down the stairs, marble so cold it burned my bare feet.

Martha was in the kitchen, humming, arranging fruit in a crystal bowl. Calm as always.

"Martha!" I breathed, relieved to see a friendly face. "Thank God you're here. Is he—"

She turned and smiled, but her smile faded fast when she saw my outfit. My bare thighs. My messy bun. My chipped nail polish.

"Good morning, dear," she said softly. "You slept well? You needed it. After yesterday with Victoria and your mother, all that stress..."

"Where is he?" I whispered, looking toward the dining room, heart hammering.

Her smile disappeared completely. She lowered her voice.

"In the dining room. Waiting. Since 8 AM. He had coffee at 8. Then second coffee at 9. He is... not happy today, Lisa. Not happy at all."

My stomach dropped to my feet. Down to the basement. 60 floors down.

I walked to the dining room, the orange juice Martha handed me shaking in my hand, sloshing.

Aaron Cross was sitting at the head of his black marble dining table — I googled it last night, that table costs more than a car — in full charcoal suit. White shirt. Dark blue tie, perfect knot. Hair combed back perfectly. Cold CEO face back on. Laptop open. Two coffee cups — one empty, one stone cold untouched with skin on top. A stack of files with my name on it. REYES.

And on the corner of the table, sitting neatly like evidence in a courtroom, was a small black heel.

My mother's black heel. But not the one she wore yesterday.

How did this heel get here? Did Mom leave it on purpose to come back? Oh God, Mom.

He was looking at his watch. A Patek. Then he looked up. Slowly. So slowly it was torture.

His eyes started at my messy bun, went down to my oversized hoodie that swallowed me, to my bare thighs, to my bare feet with chipped red nail polish.

The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. I swear the orange juice got colder.

"Good morning, Miss Reyes," he said. His CEO voice. The one that made grown men stutter in meetings and that made me want to run back upstairs.

"Do you know what time it is?"

"10:17... I overslept, I'm sorry, my alarm didn't— I didn't set—"

"You don't have an alarm. I am your alarm. That is in the contract. Rule One: You wake up at 7 AM. Rule Two: You are dressed appropriately when you come downstairs into my house. You are currently breaking both rules at once."

He always changes the number of his rules like he forgets where he stopped. Rule Five was Rule Two yesterday.

"I said I'm sorry!" My voice was getting higher, defensive. "I was tired! Yesterday was a lot! My mother came, Victoria was here, you gave me a lot of works to handle"

"And Rule Five," he cut me off, standing up abruptly. His tall chair scraped the marble floor loud. "You do not disrespect me in my own house. Nor does your family disrespect me in my own house."

I frowned. "I didn't disrespect you— I apologized—"

"Your mother did." He said it flat, but his jaw was tight, ticking. "Yesterday. In my penthouse. In front of my staff. She pointed at my chest. She said I was not raised properly. She said I buy small girls like goat at market."

"She was protecting me!" I shot back, my own anger rising now, orange juice shaking more. "She thought you kidn*pped me! She is mother! What did you expect? That she would curtsy and say thank you sir for buying my daughter?"

"I expected respect in my own penthouse, Lisa! My own home!"

"Then you shouldn't have bought her daughter!" I shouted.

The second I said it, I regretted it. The words hung in the air.

The room went completely silent. Even the AC seemed to stop.

Martha had vanished into the pantry. Smart woman. She knows when to disappear.

Aaron stared at me for a long time. Long enough that my bare feet got cold. Then he walked around the huge table toward me. Slow steps. Hands in pockets. Suit perfect.

"I did not buy you to be disrespected in my own home, Lisa," he said quietly. But quiet was more scary than shouting.

"I bought 365 days of order. Of control. Of peace. Yesterday your mother brought chaos into my house. She yelled at me. She served food on my $500 plates without asking. She left her shoe on my marble. And you stood there and let her. You laughed at me."

"So what? You want me to punish my mother? She's my mother! " and she took subway from Queens to bring me food! And besides I know nothing about this shoe! She didn't leave it!"

"No. I want to punish you," he said. "You are responsible for your family while you live under this contract, Lisa. That's how it works in my world. Your father's debt became your debt. Your mother's behavior becomes your behavior. Actions have consequences. You should have taught her how to behave in a penthouse."

My mouth fell open. "That's not fair! That's insane! That's—"

"Life is not fair, Miss Reyes. You learned that the day your father got sick and no bank would help you."

That hurt. That really, really hurt. Like a slap.

My eyes filled with tears instantly. I bit my lip to not cry.

"So what's my punishment then?" I whispered, voice shaking. "What will you do? Take away the hospital money? Stop my dad's transplant?"

His face flickered. Just for a second. His cold mask cracked.

"Don't be stupid," he said, almost angrily. "Don't ever say that. I would never touch your father's money. I would never touch his care. I am an asshole, Lisa, but I am not a monster who kills a dying man to punish his daughter. Don't insult me."

"Then what? What is punishment?"

He flipped his file open. Business mode back on, but his ears were red. He was angry, but not at me. Not really. At himself? At the shoe?

"Meeting today," he said, reading from his laptop like a boss. "11 AM. Conference room downstairs on 2nd floor. Julian and his team. Ten men. Investors from Dubai. You will come. You will take notes. You will serve coffee. You will smile and be perfect and not speak unless spoken to."

"I can do that. Easy."

"You will do it wearing what I tell you to wear. Not that homeless hoodie. Not those shorts that..." He stopped himself, eyes flicking to my bare thighs for half a second then snapping back up like it burned him to look.

"Not those shorts. Ever again in this house when men are here."

"You hate my hoodie so much! It's just a hoodie!"

"I hate that Julian saw a photo of you in it on your f*******: and texted me at 6 AM this morning asking if you were single and if he could 'borrow' you for his yacht party."

I blinked. "What? He what?"

"Yes, your i********: and f*******: have you in those shorts and that hoodie. He did research. He found you. He always finds pretty girls.”

"And what did you say?" My heart was beating fast now.

"I said you are not. For 365 days, you are not single. You are not available. Not for Julian. Not for anyone."

My face went hot. So hot I thought orange juice would boil.

"I AM single! Rule Four says don't fall in love with YOU! It doesn't say I can't date! It doesn't say I can't—"

"Rule Six: I choose your wardrobe for business meetings. Rule Two: You obey me while you live here. For 365 days, no man looks at you like that. Do you understand me, Lisa?"

"Like what? Like I'm a person?"

He stepped closer. Too close. I could smell his cologne and cold coffee and expensive suit. I could see his tie.

"Like you are available to be touched," he whispered, so low Martha couldn't hear even if she was there.

My heart was beating so loud I was sure he could hear it. My bare feet curled on cold marble.

He straightened, checked his Patek watch again. "You have 18 minutes to be ready. Hair done. Light makeup. Navy dress in your closet — the one with long sleeves, high neck. Heels, not sneakers. If you are late by one minute, your punishment doubles."

"Doubles to what?" I asked, chin up, even though my knees were shaking and I was still in tiny shorts.

He leaned down, voice low, only for me, his lips almost at my ear.

"Doubles to you spending Saturday night organizing my entire walk-in closet. By hand. All 200 suits, by color, by season. While wearing heels. And no hoodies for three whole days. No shorts for a week."

"THREE DAYS? YOU CAN'T— THAT'S MY COMFORT— THAT'S MY— YOU CAN'T TAKE MY HOODIES!"

"I can. It's my house. My contract. My rules."

I wanted to throw my orange juice at his perfect dark blue tie. I wanted to scream that he's acting like he didn't say my mother could visit anytime yesterday, like he didn't touch my foot under the table, like he didn't write "You looked cute in the hoodie" on a sticky note and now hates hoodies.

"Fine!" I snapped, sloshing juice. "Fine! I'll wear your stupid navy dress! Are you happy now? Are you happy you ruined my morning?"

"No," he said honestly, sitting back down. "I have been waiting since 8 AM with cold coffee because you were sleeping like a baby upstairs with your mouth open."

That made me pause. Mouth open?

"You... you waited for me? Since 8 AM? You were watching me sleep?"

"I wait for no one, Miss Reyes. I was working. Your door was open. I saw you."

But his cold coffee said otherwise. Two cups. One empty at 8, one cold at 9. He waited.

I grabbed my mother's small black heel from the table and held it to my chest like a weapon.

"18 minutes," he repeated, but his voice wasn't ice anymore. It was tired. Almost soft.

I turned to storm off, hoodie bouncing, bare feet slapping marble.

"Lisa."

I stopped but didn't turn around.

"Tell your mother..." He hesitated, and I heard him sigh. "Tell her I was not offended yesterday. Tell her the jollof was good. Really good. And tell her next time she visits — and she will visit, Rule Nine still stands — she should knock on the elevator first. But she can still bring food. As much as she wants."

I turned around, surprised. His head was down, typing, pretending he didn't just say something soft and human.

But on the corner of his laptop, stuck crooked, I saw it. A small yellow sticky note. In his sharp black handwriting:

_Don't wear shorts again. They make it hard to focus. - A_

Not "Miss Reyes." Just A.

I ran upstairs to get ready, holding my mother's heel tight, and I heard Martha whisper from the kitchen as I passed, leaning close:

"He kept her shoe all night, you know. On his dining table. He didn't let me touch it or move it. He just stared at it while drinking coffee."

What?

I didn't know what that meant. But in my closet full of designer dresses I never asked for, I picked the navy dress with sleeves, and I smiled while putting it on, even though I was supposed to be mad.

Because if he was punishing me for my mother laughing in his house, it meant he was still thinking about last night.

And Rule Four was in more danger than ever before.