Daddy's Best Friend Bought Me

CHAPTER FOUR: The Penthouse

The darkness resolves into light as motion sensors activate. I step out of the elevator into a space that doesn't feel real.

Too much glass. Too much emptiness. Too far above everything.

The penthouse sprawls in front of me, all sharp angles and clean lines. Floor-to-ceiling windows wrap around three sides, and Boston glitters forty stories below like something I can't touch anymore. The floors are marble, gray and white in patterns that probably cost more than four years of college. Everything is sleek and modern and cold.

It smells like expensive nothing. No cooking, no laundry, no signs anyone actually lives here.

Just silence and money.

"This way." Marcus touches my lower back, guiding me forward. I jerk away from his hand.

He doesn't comment, just walks ahead. I follow because the elevator doors have already closed behind me, and I don't have his fingerprint to reopen them.

The living room could fit my entire childhood home. Leather sofas in charcoal gray, a coffee table made of glass and steel, abstract art on the walls that probably has meaning I'm too poor to understand. A fireplace that's never been used. Everything positioned to face those massive windows, like the view is the real furniture.

"Kitchen." He gestures to an open space with marble countertops and appliances that look like they belong in a spaceship. "Feel free to use anything. Or I can have meals delivered."

"How thoughtful. A well-fed prisoner."

His jaw tightens, but he keeps walking. We pass a hallway with several closed doors.

"Guest rooms. My office." He nods toward a door at the end that's clearly locked, a keypad beside it glowing red. "Private."

"Let me guess. That's where you keep the surveillance equipment?"

"That's where I work." He turns down another hallway. "Your room is here."

My room. Like I'm a guest. Like I chose this.

He opens double doors, and I step into a space that makes my stomach turn. Everything is white and cream and soft gray. A massive bed with a canopy of sheer fabric. Plush carpet. Delicate furniture that looks like it came from a French château. Soft lighting from lamps with crystal bases.

It's a virgin's fantasy bedroom. Or what a forty-year-old man thinks a twenty-year-old girl wants.

"You decorated a room for me." My voice sounds hollow.

"Three years ago." Marcus stands in the doorway, watching my reaction. "I've been patient."

The word patient makes my skin crawl. Three years of planning. Three years of preparing this cage.

"That's not romantic. That's stalking."

"I prefer the term 'long-term planning.'"

I move through the room, touching nothing. There's a vanity with an ornate mirror. A reading chair by the window with a small bookshelf—empty, waiting for my books. Everything carefully chosen. Everything wrong.

Then I see it. A door in the side wall. I cross to it and try the handle.

Locked.

"That connects to my room," Marcus says.

Of course it does.

"I have the key." He produces it from his pocket, crosses to the door, and unlocks it from my side. "You can lock it from here whenever you want. I won't come in uninvited."

"How generous of my owner."

Something flashes in his eyes. Irritation, quickly controlled. "I'm not a monster, Isabella."

"You bought a human being."

"I bought time." The words come out sharper than he intends. His careful control slips for just a moment, and I see something underneath—something raw and almost vulnerable. "Time to show you we could work. That this could be—"

"What? A relationship?" I laugh, and it sounds bitter even to my ears. "You think buying me is the start of something healthy?"

"I think you've been alone for too long. I think your father failed you. I think you deserve better than a shabby dorm room and struggling to pay for textbooks." He steps closer. "I can give you everything, Bella. Everything you've ever wanted."

"Except freedom."

"Freedom to do what? End up like your mother?"

The words hit like a punch. I stare at him, and he has the grace to look away first.

"That was beneath me," he says quietly. "I apologize."

I turn away, wrapping my arms around myself. The room is temperature controlled, but I'm freezing.

Marcus moves past me to another door. "Your closet."

He opens it, and I see racks of clothes. Designer labels. Everything in my size. Jeans and sweaters and dresses I'd never buy myself because I check price tags first. Shoes lined up like soldiers. Drawers that probably contain lingerie I don't want to think about.

"I had my personal shopper handle it," he says. "Based on your style. If you hate anything, we can exchange it."

We. Like this is a partnership.

"And the bathroom." He opens a third door.

It's bigger than my old bedroom. Marble everywhere. A tub deep enough to swim in. A shower with multiple heads. Heated floors. A mirror that probably costs more than a semester's tuition.

"Everything you need is here," Marcus says. "Toiletries, towels, whatever you want. Make a list, and I'll have it delivered."

I stand in the middle of this perfect, horrible room and try to process what my life has become in the span of two hours.

"The rules are simple," Marcus continues. "Viktor drives you to campus in the morning. You attend your classes. You come home by six. We have dinner together. You're free to use the library, the gym, anywhere in the penthouse except my office."

Home. He keeps using that word like it means something.

"What happens if I don't follow the rules?" I ask.

He moves closer, and I'm suddenly aware of how much bigger he is. Not threatening, exactly. Just present. Taking up space. Reminding me that he's six-three to my five-four, that he works out while I survive on coffee and denial, that he could stop me from leaving without even trying.

"Let's not find out," he says softly.

I hold my ground even though every instinct says to step back. I won't give him the satisfaction.

"I want to see the contract again," I say. "Read every word. Tomorrow."

He studies my face, and something like respect flickers in his eyes. "Agreed. Tomorrow morning. I'll explain any section you don't understand."

"I understand plenty. You bought me. The rest is just legal dressing."

"You're angry. That's fair." He moves toward the connecting door. "Your belongings arrive in the morning. Get some sleep, Isabella. Things will look different tomorrow."

"They'll look exactly the same. I'll still be your prisoner."

He pauses in the doorway between our rooms. Through it, I can see his space—darker, more masculine, everything in blacks and grays. His bed is enormous, positioned to face the connecting door.

Of course it is.

"I've waited years for you to be here, Bella." His voice is quieter now, almost gentle. "I can wait a little longer for you to see this differently. To understand that I'm not your enemy."

"You're not my friend."

"No," he agrees. "I'm something else entirely."

He closes the door between us. I hear the soft click of his lock engaging on his side.

I stand frozen for a long moment, then move to my door to the hallway. The one that should lead to the elevator, to escape, to anywhere but here.

The handle doesn't turn.

Locked. From the outside.

I'm not a guest. I'm not even a tenant. I'm a possession in a very expensive box.

The windows. I rush to them, searching for a latch, a lock, any way to open them. But they're sealed. Forty floors up, glass walls, and not a single way out. Even if I broke one, what then? I'd fall to my death or set off alarms that would bring Marcus running.

My phone buzzes in my purse. Finally. I grab it, hope surging—

One bar of battery. A text from Lily.

Where are you? Your dad said family emergency?

I start typing a response, fingers shaking. Lily, I need help. I'm—

The phone dies.

"No. No, no, no." I find my charger in my purse, plug it into the wall. The charging symbol appears, then disappears. I check the port.

It's damaged. Recently. The metal contacts bent just enough that it won't charge.

Deliberately.

I sink onto the pristine white bed and stare at my useless phone.

Marcus thought of everything.