WANT ME BACK. BREAK ME TWICE

A worthless servant. A house-bound slave. That was the title my billionaire husband had stripped me down to. It was ten in the morning, but my day had begun at three, knees pressed against cold stone. Every muscle in my body throbbed in slow, agonizing pulses. My fingers were pruned and raw from hours submerged in icy, chemical-heavy water, the tight skin stinging each time my knuckles scraped the brutal marble edges of the grand staircase. Eighty steps. Each one scrubbed until it reflected the towering crystal chandelier above like a sheet of ice. "Elara." The voice didn’t just slice through the quiet foyer; it wrapped around my spine and pulled tight. It was a voice that carried the terrifying weight of a man who owned the very earth beneath my bleeding knees. My hand froze on the wooden scrub brush. I didn’t look up. The rules in the Margualie mansion were absolute, carved into the stone by the master himself: You do not speak unless spoken to. You do not look him in the eye. A pair of immaculate, hand-crafted Italian leather shoes came to a halt exactly two steps above my hands. Rohan. "Look at me," he commanded. The low, deep baritone vibrated right through the floorboards and into my chest. I swallowed the dryness sticking to my throat and slowly lifted my chin. Rohan Margualie stood like an arrogant, dark deity against the opulent gold-leaf backdrop of the foyer. His tailored charcoal suit clung flawlessly to his broad, imposing frame. His jawline was sharp enough to cut glass, and his eyes those striking, midnight-black irises were entirely devoid of mercy. This was the man I had once given my innocence, my heart, and my soul to. Four years ago, he had bound me to him under a strict, bloodless legal contract—a temporary arrangement meant to shield his supposed "true love," my step sister Treas, from a volatile family scandal. It was supposed to end in a quiet annulment. But our unexpected, breathless pregnancy had shattered their timeline. I had given Rohan a daughter. A beautiful, perfect variable they never anticipated. And then, the trap had snapped shut. Marina and Treas had blackmailed me, forging embezzlement papers and forcing me to sign a brutal non-disclosure agreement under the lie that I was saving Rohan from ruin. When Rohan found those staged documents, his fierce pride turned to pure frost. He divorced me, stripped me of my status, and cast me into this domestic Hell, reducing his former wife to a common maid. "Sir," I whispered, the submissive title tasting like hot ash on my tongue. He looked down at me, his gaze scanning over my faded, form-fitting uniform, my damp hair clinging to my neck, and my trembling, soap-reddened hands. There was no pity in his face. Yet, beneath the cruelty, there was that familiar, suffocating heat. He claimed to loathe the sight of me, yet his twisted pride wouldn't let me leave. He kept me under his roof, using the guise of punishment just to keep me trapped within his gravity. "You missed a spot," Rohan said softly. He pointed a long, leather-gloved finger at the corner of the step I had just spent twenty grueling minutes cleaning. "Right there. It’s still dull. Much like your family’s fading legacy." The insult hit my chest, heavy and precise. But today, the exhaustion fractured my compliance. Something raw and untamable snapped inside me. I didn't lower my head. Instead, I leaned back on my heels, tightening my grip on the wooden brush until my knuckles turned white. I looked him dead in his dark, unreadable eyes. "If the stairs are dull, Sir," I said, my voice dangerously steady, cutting through the silence of the foyer, "perhaps it is because the foundation of this house is built on lies. Dullness runs deep in the Margualie estate. I'm merely matching the environment." The silence that followed was suffocating. Rohan’s jaw locked so hard the muscle in his cheek violently leaped. The calculated, cold billionaire vanished, replaced by a man possessed by a sudden, feral fury. Before I could even draw a breath, his hand shot out. His leather-gloved fingers wrapped around my upper arm with bruising, iron strength, and he forcefully yanked me to my feet. My wet shoes slipped on the soapy marble, and a gasp tore from my throat as he dragged my body flush against his. He didn't let go. He shoved me backward, trapping me against the grand white pillars of the foyer. The impact jarred my spine, but the sheer heat radiating from his towering frame stole my breath entirely. "You dare speak to me like that?" Rohan growled, his voice dropping into a dangerous, rough gravelly register. He leaned in so close his chest pressed against mine, pinning me down. The intoxicating, overwhelming scent of his expensive cedarwood cologne, leather, and rain flooded my senses, waking up a sickening, electric memory in my veins. "I gave you mercy by letting you stay near our daughter," he rasped, his eyes dropping to my lips, his breathing suddenly heavy, ragged, and thick with an unrefined rage that looked dangerously like starved desire. He gripped my jaw with his other hand, his thumb pressing hard against my lower lip, forcing it open. "I could destroy you with a single phone call, Elara. I could throw you to the wolves. Yet you stand here, looking at me with those defiant, beautiful eyes, begging me to break you." "Then break me," I choked out, my chest heaving against his, the raw friction between us turning the air to liquid fire. "But you won't throw me out, Rohan. Because you hate the fact that even when I am on my knees scrubbing your floors, you still can't keep your hands off me." His grip tightened, his dark eyes flashing with a violent, possessive hunger that made my heart hammer against my ribs. For a fraction of a second, the space between us melted. His head tilted down, his mouth hovering mere centimeters from mine, his touch bruising, demanding, and overflowing with a toxic intimacy we both fought against. He wanted to crush me, but down deep, he wanted to consume me. "Rohan, hubby? What is going on down there?" The sharp, purring voice shattered the spell like ice hitting stone. Rohan froze. The venomous, cold armor snapped right back onto his face. He violently let go of my jaw and stepped back, smoothly breaking the stifling proximity between us, leaving me flushed and trembling against the pillar. Treas stood at the top of the stairs, her fingers gripping the wrought-iron banister. She had been watching from behind the heavy mahogany doors upstairs, her eyes wide with a poisonous, burning jealousy. She glided down the steps, the heavy silk of her designer gown rustling elegantly, though her face was twisted into a mask of pure malice. "I heard shouting," Treas said, her eyes darting between Rohan's rigid posture and my disheveled uniform. She stepped directly past me, ignoring my existence entirely, and wrapped her manicured arms around Rohan’s neck, pressing a hard, possessive kiss against his lips to reestablish her territory. "Is this ungrateful maid being deliberately defiant again? I told her to clear the west wing hours ago, and she ignored me." Rohan didn't lean into Treas’s embrace, but he didn't pull away either. His obsidian eyes remained fixed on the crown of my head, heavy, dark, and utterly unreadable. "If she cannot perform the basic duties of a maid," Rohan said, his voice dropping an octave, becoming colder than the winter air outside, "then she doesn't deserve the comfort of a bed tonight. Clean the grand staircase, the west wing, and the grand ballroom, Elara. You will not sleep until it is pristine. If it takes you until morning, so be it." "Rohan..." I breathed, the sudden drop in temperature making my voice shake. He stepped back, breaking Treas's hold on him, his expression an unyielding block of granite. "Do your job. I have an empire to run." Without another word, he turned and walked down the grand hall toward his private study, his long strides powerful and unbothered. Treas waited until the heavy doors of his study clicked shut. The exact second Rohan was out of sight, the mask of the elegant wife melted off her face, replaced by pure, unadulterated malice. "You heard my husband," Treas sneered, stepping down until her sharp heels were directly above my face as I sank back toward my bucket. In her hand, she held a crystal glass of dark red wine she had brought from the dining room. With a slow, deliberate tilt of her wrist, she poured the deep crimson liquid directly over the marble steps I had just scrubbed. It splashed violently against the white stone, pooling around my bruised knees, staining my white apron like blood. "Oops," she mocked, a cruel laugh bubbling in her throat. "Dirty again." I stared at the stain, a sudden, dangerous numbness settling deep into my chest. "I have to clean the ballroom, Madam. I will do this last." Madam. My very own step sister, the girl I grew up sharing everything with. It made my stomach burn with a fierce, vengeful fire. I picked up my heavy bucket and stood, intending to walk past her. "Did I give you permission to move?" Treas hissed. Before I could react, her hand flew out, her long, acrylic nails digging brutally into the skin of my chin, forcing my face up. "You think because he pinned you against that pillar, you still have a chance? You are a ghost in this house. If you ever look at my husband like that again, I won't just punish you." She leaned in closer, her hot breath hitting my ear, sending a chill of pure horror down my spine. "I'll take it out on Allegra. I'll make sure your precious little daughter learns exactly what happens to the children of disgraced women." Panic exploded in my veins like gunpowder. "Don't you dare touch her!" I gasped, violently twisting my face to wrench myself from her grip. "Then bow!" Treas shrieked. With all the malice in her body, she shoved me backward. My wet shoes lost all traction on the soapy, wine-slicked marble. My balance snapped. The world tilted violently into a terrifying blur. "Ah—!" A sharp, raw cry tore from my throat as I went over the edge. I hit the first marble step with brutal, bone-crushing force. Pain exploded through my ribs, stealing the air from my lungs. I couldn't catch myself. I was tumbling down, a chaotic nightmare of white stone, tearing fabric, and blinding pain. My shoulder struck. My spine cracked against the hard edges. And then, my head collided violently with the heavy, wrought-iron banister at the very base of the stairs. A sharp, sickening c***k echoed through the empty foyer. White-hot light burst across my vision, followed instantly by an all-consuming, freezing darkness. As my consciousness dissolved into nothingness, the very last thing I heard was the heavy thud of the study doors being thrown open so hard the glass rattled, and a deep, suddenly panicked voice roaring across the hall: "Elara!"