Lucian Thorne Contract Bride

Of course she would do anything

Frederick’s Thorne’s office smelled like “aged leather and quiet violence.”

The scent of polished mahogany and starched money clinging to the air.

The walls were lined with degrees from institutions that had his privileges and family affluence I guess guaranteed his seat, their gilded frames glintingc like trophies in the low light.

She perched on the edge of the chair he’d pointed her to, her thrift-store blazer itchy wool, two sizes too big sticking to her back with sweat. It was the next morning and she somehow found herself here. After the sleepless night going back and forth with her thoughts and possibilities of solving her problems without taking the contract. She arrived at non. This would save her father and secure her sister’s future.

The silence was a live wire, humming between them. He paid her no attention while going through his laptop.

His gaze dragged over me, lingering on the scuffed heels Mom had bought me for graduation.

The last gift before the funeral home’s invoice had arrived in the same week as my law school rejection letters.

With a flick of his wrist, he tossed a folder between towards her. It landed with a slap, the sound echoing like a judge’s gavel.

“Clause 7.4” he pointed out. “Hope you have gone through the contract .” He said glancing over her.

He didn’t just say it; he “savored” it, the syllables dripping with the same condescension he’d used in court when dismantling Dad’s defense. I flipped the page. The words blurred, then sharpened into a blade.

Frederick didn’t smile. Didn’t gloat. Just watched as she initialed each humiliating clause:

"Wife will attend all the social events on Husband’s arm."

"Wife will reside in Husband’s primary residence."

"Wife will provide heirs"

Her hand shook. A drop of water hit the page.Not sweat. Not yet I consoled myself, I could not show weakness to an enemy.

Frederick’s gaze snapped to my face. I turned away before he could see the tear.

Across the room, Dad’s antique clock ticked the one he’d pawned last winter, now somehow restored on Frederick’s bookshelf.

Another calculated move.

“Wife will provide heirs upon request.” She read this line again.

Her lungs seized. The air turned to glass. She shoved the paper back, her voice is a whip-crack.

"I’m not a broodmare." Tamia said with anger.

Frederick leaned back, the sunlight through the floor-to-ceiling windows carving his face into sharp angles, cheekbones like cliffs, jawline like a sharp knife edge.

"No. You’re a Reynolds." His smile was a razor grazing skin. He was enjoying every bit of this silly game he was playing.

And she was at the receiving end. It was horrible feeling this helpless and she hated every bit of it.

“And your family’s bloodline dies with you unless you comply.” Federick continued. The truth uncoiled between them, venomous.

Her father’s failed clinical trial. The one that poisoned six patients. The headlines screamed it. “Reynolds’ ‘Miracle Drug’ Leaves Children in Comas.” It was an eye sore.

The Reynolds name, once stitched into hospital wings and Nobel Prize nominations, now a curse spat over dinner tables.

Frederick’s dead daughter. One of her father's victims. A photo of her sat on his desk a girl with braces and a soccer trophy, frozen at twelve years old.

This wasn’t just business.

It was a funeral pyre, and he’d built it just for her.

She would have given anything to make sure things didn’t happen the way they did or things weren’t the were. But you can’t turn back the hands of time.

She crossed her legs slowly, letting the slit in my skirt reveal a flash of thigh. His eyes tracked the movement, unmoved and unfazed by her charms. sure he wanted to take everything from her including her dignity.

“Counteroffer,” she purred. “No children. Ever”.

The mahogany desk between them might as well have been a battlefield. His pen tapped once. Twice.

“What is now the purpose for this, you have to give back the life your family stole from mine and just having you is not enough. And if you continue with this reluctance, I will withdraw Sophie’s tuition." Federick said without blinking. Ice flooded my veins. “You’d punish a child?”

“Yes” He replied without hesitation.

“I’d erase your family." He looked unperturbed and slid a photo across the table. Sophie’s boarding school acceptance letter, the crest of St. Agnes’ embossed in gold. “Starting with her future.” At least she gets a chance to live. My daughter was denied that chance by your so-called father.

“If you ask me, I am being too generous as it stands. I’m giving you a chance to make up for the life your family stole from mine.” Federick stated.

Everything I’d never afford. Everything she deserved.

Of course he knew she would do anything for her sister. To give her the life she deserved. She too didn’t have to suffer for our father’s sake. And she also needed money for her father’s hospital bills.

Her nails bit into her palms, crescent moons of pain. She could taste blood where she’d bitten her cheek.

She reached for the pen.

His hand shot out, fingers circling my wrist like a manacle.

“One more thing.”

From his drawer, he produced a velvet box the color of a bruise. Inside was not a ring but a USB drive, its metal shell catching the light like a scalpel.

"Your father’s research," he murmured. “The real data that proves he knew the drug was flawed."

The room tilted. The walls breathed in, out. I felt the room closing in on me.

“On that drive” he continued, "The emails. Jacob begged the FDA for more time.” The lab reports. Margins scribbled with “fatal side effects discontinue. The truth. That he’d gambled lives to save his crumbling empire.”

Sign, and I bury this.

Refuse and you have more to lose.

His voice slithered through my skull, though his lips never moved.

Outside, Manhattan pulsed car horns, sirens, the distant thrum of a city that didn’t care. But here, in this tomb of leather and ambition, the only sound was her heartbeat.

The pen glinted between us. She could envision the future branching. She could walk away. Sophie loses her scholarship. The USB leaks. Her father dies worse still in prison. The Reynolds name becomes a footnote in medical horror stories.

If she signs. Three years in a gilded cage. Her body is a bargaining chip. A baby making machine. A child with his eyes and her curse.

Fedrick’s thumb stroked my pulse point. Tick-tock, “Tamia”, thought of Sophie’s laugh. Of Father’s hollow eyes when the verdict came down. Of Mom’s roses choking on weeds in the garden.

Her fingers closed around the pen. With my eyes shut, trying to draw back the tears threatening to fall like a fountain.

“I want amendments,” Tamia protested. “Sophie’s tuition paid in full, today. A trust fund in her name, untouchable by you. And the USB destroyed in front of me.”

His smile widened. “Negotiation. How very Reynolds of you.”

“I stay true to my word and this is the only copy. You will have to take my word for it. I have nothing to prove to you, I will hold onto the USB just incase you need a little motivation in future.” Federick replied though he felt no need to.

And as for the other requests I will see to it once you have signed the contract.

The contract lay before her, it’s s dotted line a cliff’s edge.

Tamia signed.

The ink might as well have been her blood.

“See you at the courthouse tomorrow, you can see yourself out” Frederick dismissed her.