Chapter Three: Nine Minutes
888 Words
"Sign here. Initial here. And here."
The notary pushed the papers across without looking up.
Fayth looked at the document. Her name. His name. A date. Three years.
She picked up the pen.
The registrar's office smelled of old paper and fluorescent light. There were no flowers. No music. No one had dressed up except Elena, who wore pale grey and sat with her hands folded like she was watching a formality catch up to a decision she had made weeks ago.
Fayth's father stood at the window with his back half-turned. He had not looked at her once since they arrived. Not when they walked in. Not when the notary called her name. Not now.
She signed.
Nathaniel Blackwood picked up the pen and signed without hesitation. No pause. No glance at her. His expression was unreadable, his movements efficient, a man completing a transaction he had agreed to under conditions he had not chosen.
The notary stamped the papers.
"Congratulations."
Nine minutes.
Her whole life changed in nine minutes and nobody even looked at her when it happened.
* * *
The penthouse was on the forty-third floor and it had no warmth at all.
Fayth stepped out of the elevator and felt the cold of the place settle over her. Not temperature. Something else. The deliberate absence of anything soft. White walls. Clean angles. Furniture chosen for form, not comfort. Floor-to-ceiling windows with Manhattan spread below like something to be owned and observed.
"Miss Carrington." A woman in a dark uniform stepped forward. "I'm Lena. I manage the household. I'll show you to your suite."
Your suite.
Not your room.
Her suite was at the east end of the floor, separated from the master by the full length of the corridor. Large. Immaculate. Completely impersonal. A room built for an occupant without a thought about who that occupant was.
Marissa had packed the beige cardigan, the gray cardigan, the makeup that drained her face, the wrong glasses.
Fayth put it all in the drawer. Closed it.
She went to the window and pressed her palm flat against the cold glass.
Forty-three floors below, the city moved and breathed and did not know she existed.
Same as always.
"Mr. Blackwood will see you in his study at six," Lena said from the doorway. "He doesn't like to be kept waiting."
Fayth nodded without turning around.
After Lena left she stood at that window for a long time.
She did not cry. She had not cried in four years and she was not going to start in his house.
She just stood there and breathed and let herself feel the full weight of where she was.
Then she put it somewhere deep and locked it down.
At six, she went to his study.
* * *
He was at the window. Back to the room. The city below him.
He didn't turn when she entered.
She sat in the chair across from his desk and waited. Let him have his silence. She was good at waiting. She had been trained for it.
When he finally sat down, he opened a folder without looking at her.
"Three years. Public appearances as required. No press contact without clearance. No interference with my schedule." He pushed the papers across. "Allowance. Car. Driver. Staff."
She looked at the papers. "What do I call you?"
He paused. "Nate."
"Is there anything in this house that belongs to me?"
He looked up then. Really looked at her for the first time since she'd sat down.
"Your suite. Your allowance. Your time."
"And your respect?"
Silence.
He studied her the way you study something that has surprised you and you haven't decided how to categorize it yet.
"Earn it," he said.
She held his gaze. "Same to you."
She picked up the papers and read every word. Every clause. He did not rush her.
When she finished she set them down and looked at him.
"One condition. When this ends, I leave as a person. Not a payout. Not a transaction. My dignity walks out with me."
He was quiet for a moment.
"Lena will have the amendment drafted by morning," he said.
She stood.
"Fayth."
Her name in his mouth, for the first time. It landed differently than she expected.
She turned.
"This is still a transaction," he said. "Manage your expectations."
She looked at him for a moment.
"And don't mistake my patience for weakness," she said. "We'll get along better that way."
She walked out.
Behind her she heard him lean back in his chair.
Slowly. Like the conversation had cost him something he hadn't budgeted for.
She was halfway to her room when Lena appeared from a side corridor.
"Miss Carrington." Her voice was low. Careful. "You'll have a visitor tomorrow. She doesn't call ahead."
"Who?"
Lena's expression was the studied neutrality of someone paid to have opinions they never share.
"Her name is Celine. She and Mr. Blackwood have a long history." A pause. "A very long history."
She was gone before Fayth could ask anything else.
Fayth stood in the empty corridor.
She didn't know the name. But she knew the tone.
She had heard that exact tone before. In other hallways. From other women who knew things they couldn't say.
It was the tone of a warning.
- Writer
