BOUND BY DESIRE

CHAPTER TWO.

Rain poured harder as Isabella hurried down the empty street, her bag clutched tight against her chest. Her shoes splashed through puddles, soaking her socks, but she barely noticed. Every step carried the echo of his voice in her head.

A contract marriage.

She almost laughed again, except it wasn’t funny. Who even said something like that? Who looked at a stranger across a café table and decided, yes, this woman should be my wife?

Only a man like John Snow.

She turned the corner toward her apartment, the building looming in the distance like a reminder of her failures. Paint peeled from the walls, the stairwell lights flickered when they bothered to work, and the landlord had left another bright orange notice on her door that morning. FINAL WARNING. She hadn’t opened it. She didn’t need to…she knew what it said.

Her key scraped against the lock before it finally turned. Inside, the apartment smelled faintly of damp plaster and cheap detergent. She shut the door and leaned against it, her chest rising and falling. Silence wrapped around her, heavy and unkind.

“Isa?”

A small voice drifted from the bedroom.

Isabella straightened immediately, brushing rainwater from her hair. She forced a smile as she stepped into the room. “Hey, baby girl.”

Her little sister, Elena, lay curled beneath a blanket, her skin pale against the dark sheets. The oxygen machine hummed softly beside her, tubes tangled like vines. Elena’s big brown eyes blinked open, trying to stay awake.

“You’re late,” she whispered, her voice scratchy.

“I know,” Isabella said gently, sitting at the edge of the bed. She tucked the blanket tighter around her. “The bus was slow. And it started raining. But I brought you something.”

She pulled out a chocolate bar from her bag one she had been saving for days. Elena’s eyes lit up just a little.

“You’re spoiling me,” Elena teased weakly, but her smile betrayed her excitement.

Isabella broke off a piece and fed it to her. “You deserve it. More than anyone.”

For a few minutes, Isabella forgot the weight pressing on her. She laughed softly at Elena’s little stories about the nurse who kept mispronouncing her name, about the TV show she was obsessed with. It was their bubble, fragile but warm.

When Elena drifted back to sleep, Isabella sat quietly, watching her chest rise and fall. The machine beeped, steady but terrifying. Every time it beeped, Isabella thought of hospital bills, prescriptions, surgeries. Money she didn’t have.

Her phone buzzed again. She grabbed it quickly, afraid the sound would wake Elena.

Another email.

This one from the hospital. “Urgent: Outstanding Balance.”

Her stomach twisted. She couldn’t open it. She already knew the numbers inside would make her cry.

She slipped out of the room, shutting the door gently, then collapsed on the couch. Her laptop sat on the coffee table, mocking her with its glow. She opened it again, scrolling through job listings. Waitressing. Data entry. Babysitting. Every one of them paid too little, too late.

Her mind kept dragging her back to that café, to the man who looked at her as if he had already decided she belonged to him. His words replayed in her head.

“Every bill. Every debt. Every hospital charge. In exchange, you’ll be mine for a year.”

She shivered, hugging herself.

“No,” she muttered. “I’m not that desperate.”

But weren’t you?

The thought was sharp, unkind. She shook her head, burying it under the sound of the rain.

Hours passed. She couldn’t sleep. She lay awake on the couch, staring at the ceiling, the cracked plaster lines forming patterns that reminded her of cages. Somewhere between midnight and dawn, exhaustion pulled her under.

Morning light crept into the apartment, thin and gray. Isabella woke to the sound of her phone buzzing nonstop. She grabbed it groggily, only to see five missed calls from the hospital. Her stomach sank.

She called back immediately.

“Miss Alvarez,” the receptionist said briskly. “We’ve been trying to reach you. We need a payment of at least two thousand dollars by Friday, or your sister’s treatment will be delayed.”

Isabella’s heart dropped. “Delayed? She can’t afford delays.”

“I’m sorry, but that’s policy.”

Her throat tightened. “I…I’ll figure something out. Please, just… don’t stop her treatment.”

The call ended, leaving her shaking. She pressed her hands against her face. Two thousand dollars in three days. It might as well have been two million.

Her laptop dinged. Another email.

This time, it wasn’t a rejection.

It was from Snow Enterprises.

Her eyes widened as she read it: “Mr. John Snow requests your presence at his office. Noon. Don’t be late.”

The words blurred as she read them again.

Her first instinct was anger. How dare he? He must have pulled her name from some file, tracked her down like she was already his property. He had no right.

But underneath the fury, another feeling crept in. Fear. Curiosity. And maybe..just maybe..hope.

She slammed the laptop shut. “No. I’m not going.”

Yet as the hours crawled by, the weight of the hospital call pressed harder, suffocating her. She tried to distract herself by cleaning, by rereading job ads, but the truth was clear: no job would give her two thousand dollars in three days.

Her eyes drifted to the clock. Eleven forty-five.

Her heart hammered.

“No,” she whispered again, pacing. “Don’t do this, Isa.”

But at eleven fifty, she found herself putting on her only decent dress. At eleven fifty-five, she was rushing into the elevator of a skyscraper that stretched into the clouds.

The receptionist greeted her with a polite smile. “Miss Alvarez, he’s expecting you.”

Her legs felt like they didn’t belong to her as she walked down the polished hallway. The air smelled of leather and money. Her reflection flashed in the glass walls, small, nervous, out of place.

She stopped in front of a massive door. Her hand trembled as she pushed it open.

John Snow stood at the window, overlooking the city. His suit was flawless, his posture relaxed, like a man who owned not just the view, but everything beneath it. He turned slowly, and his eyes locked onto hers.

“You came,” he said simply.

Her throat tightened. “Only to tell you no.”

The faintest smile curved his lips. “We’ll see.”