Chapter Four: The Morning After
1587 Words
She woke to sunlight and a warm weight across her waist.
Damian's arm.
Lena's heart slammed against her ribs so hard she thought she might vomit. The force of it was violent, sickening, a wild animal clawing at the inside of her chest. She had never felt anything like it — not fear, not panic, not the cold dread of signing the contract. This was worse. This was the terror of having something to lose.
Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.
She turned slowly, carefully, afraid of what she would see. Every movement was a betrayal. Every inch of her body screamed at her to run, to flee, to pretend this had never happened.
But she couldn't run. His arm was heavy across her waist, possessive even in sleep. His body was warm against her back. His breath was soft against her hair.
He was still asleep.
His face was relaxed — no mask, no walls, no coldness. The sharp lines of his jaw were softer in sleep. His dark hair had fallen across his forehead, messy and unkempt, nothing like the polished CEO who greeted her with ice in his eyes. His lips were slightly parted. His breathing was slow and even.
He looked younger like this. Less like a monster who had bought her for the price of her father's life. More like a man. A broken man, maybe. A lonely man. A man who had once hidden a dog-eared copy of Wuthering Heights behind a row of law journals because he was too ashamed to be seen reading about love.
Lena's chest ached. She hated him for making her feel that ache. She hated herself for feeling it.
No. No, no, no.
She remembered everything.
The library. The wine. The way he had looked at her when she said "What if I don't want to forget?" His eyes had been raw, hungry, terrified — a man standing on the edge of a cliff, trying to decide whether to jump.
She remembered his hands.
The way they had trembled when he touched her face. The way they had fumbled with the buttons of her dress, impatient and desperate, as if he were afraid she would disappear if he didn't move fast enough. The way they had gripped her hips like she was the only solid thing in a world that had turned to water.
She remembered his voice.
"Lena."
Not Mrs. Thorne. Not my wife. Not the cold, distant stranger who sat across from her at corporate dinners and pretended she didn't exist.
Lena.
Soft and desperate and broken. A prayer. A confession. A man drowning and reaching for a hand.
She remembered the way he had said "stay" afterward, in the dark, when the wine was gone and the fire had burned down to embers. His voice had cracked on the word. His arms had tightened around her. His face had been buried in her hair, and she had felt his tears — actual tears, wet and hot — soaking into the strands.
"Stay," he had whispered. "Please. Just for tonight. Stay."
And she had stayed.
She had wrapped her arms around him and held him as he shook. She had pressed her lips to his chest, to his throat, to the sharp line of his jaw. She had whispered things she couldn't remember now — soft things, gentle things, lies and truths all tangled together.
"You're not alone."
"I see you."
"You don't have to be cruel forever."
She had held a monster in her arms and tried to remind him that he was human.
And now — now, in the cold light of morning — she realized what she had done.
She had broken every rule.
Rule one: no love.
She didn't love him. She couldn't. He had bought her. He owned her. He had offered her father's life in exchange for her freedom, and she had signed. That was not love. That was not even respect.
But she had felt something. In the dark, with his hands on her skin and his voice in her ear, she had felt something dangerous. Something that could grow. Something that could destroy her.
Rule two: no questions.
She had asked him about the photograph. She had asked him about his mother. She had asked him why he kept Wuthering Heights hidden behind law journals, as if love were something to be ashamed of. And he had answered. He had told her things she was sure he had never told anyone — about his mother's death, about his father's cruelty, about the stepmother who had sent him away.
She knew him now. Not everything. Not nearly enough. But more than she should. More than the contract allowed.
Rule three: no children.
She pressed her hand to her stomach. It was flat. Empty. But somewhere inside her — in the dark, in the quiet, in the secret places she couldn't see — there might already be a life.
No. It's too soon. One night. What are the odds?
But she knew the odds. Her mother had been a fertility nurse. She had heard the stories. It only took once. Once was enough. Once could change everything.
I could be pregnant with his child.
The thought was a blade. It cut through her, sharp and deep, leaving a wound that would not close.
His child. Damian Thorne's child. The man who put a clause in the contract saying I had to terminate on his request.
She would not do it.
The thought came to her fully formed, absolute, unshakeable. She would not terminate. She would not sign that paper. She would not let him pay her to kill their baby.
Even if it cost her everything. Even if it cost her father's treatment. Even if it cost her freedom, her safety, her life.
She would not do it.
She slipped out of bed.
Her body screamed in protest — every muscle ached, every joint burned. There were marks on her skin she didn't recognize. A bruise on her collarbone where his mouth had been. Red scratches on her back where his nails had dug in. Her thighs were sore. Her lips were swollen.
She looked like she had survived a war.
She gathered her clothes from the floor — her dress, her underwear, her shoes — and fled.
The east wing hallway was cold. Her bare feet made no sound on the marble floor. She didn't turn on the lights. She didn't want to see herself reflected in the mirrors that lined the walls. She didn't want to see the woman she had become.
Her room was dark. She locked the door behind her. She leaned against it, pressed her forehead to the wood, and tried to breathe.
In. Out. In. Out.
Her hands were shaking. Her whole body was shaking. She couldn't stop.
She made it to the bathroom before she vomited.
Nothing came up — her stomach was empty — but her body heaved anyway, convulsing with dry sobs that had no sound. She clung to the toilet bowl, her knuckles white, her hair falling in her face, and she prayed.
She didn't know who she was praying to. God. The universe. Her dead mother. Anyone who might be listening.
Please. Please don't let me be pregnant. Please don't let him have that power over me. Please don't let me lose everything I have left.
She didn't know if anyone answered.
An hour later, she heard his door open.
His footsteps in the corridor. A pause outside her room — so close she could see the shadow of his feet beneath the door, could hear the soft exhale of his breath.
She held hers.
Knock, she begged silently. Please knock. Say something. Anything. Tell me last night meant something. Tell me I'm not alone in this. Tell me you feel it too — this terrible, beautiful, impossible thing that I can't name.
The silence stretched.
One second. Five. Ten. Thirty.
The shadow didn't move.
She imagined him standing there, his hand raised to knock, his knuckles an inch from the wood. She imagined him fighting with himself — the part of him that wanted to stay, that wanted to feel, that wanted to be human — and the part of him that had been trained since childhood to feel nothing at all.
Knock, she begged. Please.
His footsteps moved away.
The sound of his door closing was soft, almost gentle. But to Lena, it sounded like a gunshot. Like a door slamming on her heart. Like the end of something that had never really begun.
He regrets it, she thought. He regrets me.
She sat on the floor of her bathroom, her back against the tub, her arms wrapped around her knees, and she cried.
She cried for her father, who was dying while she made deals with devils. She cried for her mother, who wasn't here to hold her. She cried for the girl she used to be — the one who believed in love, who believed in happy endings, who believed that contracts were for lawyers and not for hearts.
She cried for the baby that might already be growing inside her.
And when there were no tears left, she stopped.
She stood up. She washed her face. She looked at herself in the mirror — red eyes, swollen lips, bruised collarbone.
You survived, she told herself. You survived him. You can survive this.
She didn't believe it.
But she said it anyway.
- Writer
