SOLD TO AUGUST CHILDE

020

CAMILLA

My throat closed since the words refused to come.

I swallowed hard, but it did nothing to ease the burning behind my eyes. I stayed quiet, staring at the sheets, afraid that if I spoke, I would shatter completely.

The door opened again, and a young man stepped inside. Tall. Extremely tall. I think he was the driver.

August acknowledged him with a short nod, barely sparing him a glance, before turning back to me as though no one else existed in the room.

“This will be your new guard,” he said.

I pushed myself upright immediately, panic rushing through me in a hot, dizzy wave.

“No,” I said quickly. “No. Absolutely not.”

August pressed me back against the pillows with one hand. Firm, controlled, not rough, but strong enough to make it clear that resistance was pointless.

“No what?” he asked calmly. “You don’t want to be watched?”

The tears came instantly. Hot, fast, uncontrollable. They spilled down my cheeks before I could stop them, humiliation mixing with fear until my chest ached.

Without looking away from me, August motioned to Conrad. The man turned and left just as silently as he had entered, the door clicking shut behind him.

“Hey,” August said, his voice softening slightly. “Please don’t cry.”

I shook my head, and the words poured out of me in a rush, desperate and unfiltered.

“I don’t like being watched,” I said. “Please. What do you want from me? I can’t stay in your house all day. I can work. I can clean. Wash clothes. Do anything. I can’t just sit there and never go out.”

The tears broke loose fully then. My chest shook as I cried, my hands trembling against the sheets. I felt small and exposed, like everything I was trying to hold together had finally slipped through my fingers.

August sighed. Long and heavy, like my crying weighed on him more than my fear did.

“Can you stop crying?” he asked.

I sniffed, wiped my face with the back of my hand, and forced myself quiet. My body obeyed before my heart could catch up.

“Good,” he said.

He leaned closer, his face inches from mine now. His eyes locked onto mine, intense and unyielding, the kind of gaze that demanded submission without raising his voice.

“I want you to be my good girl,” he said. “I want you to f**k me when I ask. I want you close, and always ready for me. I want your fire, but only when I allow it.”

My breath paused and my head spun. “What are you saying?” I whispered.

He did not look away.

“Can you do that for me?”

I nodded slowly, numb, my body reacting before my heart could make sense of what was happening.

“Good.”

He stood and pressed a kiss to my forehead. Soft. Almost kind, which somehow made it worse.

“It will not be forever,” he added. “Just for three months.”

I nodded again, my throat too tight for words.

He paused at the door and looked back at me one last time.

“If you’re good enough,” he said, “I might give you a phone. Maybe even let you leave the house sometimes.”

Then he was gone, leaving the room drowning in silence, heavy and suffocating, pressing down on me until I could barely breathe.

AUGUST

EARLIER THAT DAY

“Did she truly faint?”

The question left my mouth the second I stepped into the room, sharp and clipped, like I was afraid that if I softened it even a little, the truth would slip through my fingers.

The doctor glanced down at his chart, adjusted his glasses, then looked back at Camilla.

She lay on the hospital bed with her eyes closed, lashes resting against her cheeks, hands folded neatly over her stomach like she was posing for sleep instead of being dragged here in the middle of chaos.

“I’m pretty sure she was just tired,” he said carefully. “Likely exhaustion. She fell asleep. Her vitals are stable. No signs of distress.”

Fell asleep my foot.

I stared at her for a long second longer than was appropriate. Long enough for the doctor to shift his weight, uncomfortable. Long enough for something dark and restless to coil tight in my chest.

That sharp little mind of hers never stopped working. Never rested. Never surrendered.

She’d pulled this stunt to escape.

To get away from me.

From the penthouse.

From the cage I’d built around her without even realizing how tight the bars had become.

The realization hit harder than anger ever could.

It twisted low and brutal in my chest, something closer to panic. The kind that made your hands tremble if you didn’t breathe through it. The kind that made control feel like a lie you told yourself to survive.

I nodded once at the doctor. “Thank you.”