The bread was burnt. Amelia felt it first sitting at the gigantic dining table. Not the gleaming wood, not the ridiculous chandelier hanging above her head, not the amount of food spread out as if she were supposed to feed an army. Just the taste of just too dry bread. And for no reason at all, her stomach tightened up tight.

She pushed the plate off. Not so much off the edge, just barely, as if she was pushing hard enough maybe her hunger would creep its way back to her. It did not. Her stomach was wound too tightly, knotted up so that even the scent of fruit was shameful.

Her fork balanced across her fingers, slippery from how much she'd handled it. Tap. Tap. The echoes off the air and return to her in the big huge empty house. Every sound echoed in this house. She didn't like it. Nothing was regular here, not even silence.

Then she heard it.

Footsteps.

Slow. Even. Sure.

She stiffened her whole body before she even looked up. She did not have to. She knew the voice.

Alexander.

She wanted to curse the way her chest reacted, the way her heart strained against her ribcage as though it was desperate to break free. Her eyes were locked on the unbroken eggs. If she couldn't see him, if she just remained perfectly motionless, he would probably just walk past her. She almost ridiculed herself for even thinking the possibility existed. Men like him did not walk past.

He pulled the chair across from her and sat like the room was his throne, like she was just another piece of furniture that happened to be in the way. His suit was different today: charcoal gray, open collar, no tie. Casual, in his world at least. In hers, it looked like intimidation wrapped in fabric.

“You’re not eating.”

His voice sliced through the space, quiet but impossible to ignore. Amelia’s hand jerked, the fork slipping against the plate. The clink echoed louder than it should have, and she felt heat creep up her neck.

“I’m not hungry,” she said. Too fast. Too soft. She tried again, steadier this time. “I’m not hungry.”

His eyes didn’t blink. “That wasn’t a choice.”

The words hit her like a slap. Cold. Matter-of-fact. Her grip tightened around the fork until her knuckles ached.

“Well,” she snapped, pushing the plate further away, “I’m choosing not to care.”

A brush in the corner of his mouth. Not a smile, exactly, but a give perhaps between mocking and paper-thin patience. He leaned back in his chair, fingers drumming on the armrest with brusque rapidity, as if it were all an act.

"You entered into a contract," he said at last. His voice made the words absolute, the final word in every debate. "My conditions are non-negotiable."

Her chest hurt. That single word again. Contract. It tightened around her throat like a noose.

Something danced before her eyes to her father in the hospital, half-medicating him with the machines and tubing, his barely audible voice when he had pleaded: Please, Amelia. Do what you have to do.

Her heart closed. She could refuse the memory, but Alexander's voice invoked it, naked and biting.

"I signed to rescue him," she sneered, her voice shattering. "Not to follow you."

Staring stiff for a moment. Then he tilted his head to the side, looking at her like one of his works of art that he didn't have much desire for in his collection.

"You're wrong," he breathed, almost softly, and that was bad. "Sacrifice comes at a price. You pay me in obedience."

Her stomach the whole thing writhed in on itself. "Submission." The flavor was bitter in her mouth. "You don't get to have me down to some something you can order about."

"Yes," he answered, voice ice. "I do."

Her chair scraped across the floor when she pushed it back, a gritty sound making her flinch, but she didn't stop. She stood up, shaking hands, fury burning so hot she thought she'd nearly burst.

"You don't own me!"

Alexander didn't change. Didn't blink. His eyes a fraction wider, glint of interest, like a predator circling its prey who'd emerged with bared teeth.

"Not yet."

Her whole body hummed. Nails bite into the palms until it hurts. She hurt to hurl the orange juice at him, hurt to have it splatter off his immaculate suit, to have anything go awry with him. But she paused halfway to the glass.

Not yet.

Her throat ached. She spoke the words out anyway. "You can buy hospitals, you can buy contracts, you can buy anything that you want. But you can't buy me."

His eyes didn't falter. Calm. Logical. Fatal. "Each wall you build, Amelia, I will take down. Brick by brick. Until you belong to me."

Her legs were shaking, but she wasn't going to fall down. She wheeled around quickly, the scrape of her feet against the marble as she headed for the door.

And then, like a blade cut between her ribs, his voice fell behind her.

"You can struggle all you like. You'll still lose."

She paused on the edge of the archway. For that one moment. Long enough to sting in her heart. Her clenched fists squeezing harder. She did not glance around. Could not. She pushed herself to step, and step again, heavy, his words adhering to her like unrepairable shackles.

Amelia did not go to her room. She could not. Her body vibrated with too much adrenalin, too much anger. So she walked through the large house, her hand tracing along the icy banister as she ascended the stairs.

Every corner of this place screamed with opulence. An opulence that seemed unreal, shining marble floors, chandeliers that looked like they belonged to a children's fairy tale picture book, paintings on the walls that she knew had cost her childhood house. Too perfect, too artificial, like a set. And she the unwilling performer thrust into the spotlight.

She stood before a tall window for a moment, forehead against the glass for an instant. Below, in the city, it stretched out, cars creeping in slow but steady steps like ants, spires piercing up into the sky. She remembered when that sight delighted her, when she was new and green and came with her father into the city, sketching all the bright spires in wonder in her tales.

Now it just looked like a cage. A big one, all concealed in glass and gold.

Her writings shut away. She covered her eyes before they could fall. He would never see her tears. Never.

There was a knock. Soft. Anxious.

"Miss Amelia?"

It was a maid. Maybe Lydia. Amelia hadn't learned their names yet. The maid's voice was smooth, but Amelia's heart was still tightening. She knew the maid hadn't just happened by. She knew who had sent her.

"Whatever?" Amelia growled out before she could curb it.

There was a pause on the other side of the door. "Mister Alexander invited you down to lunch later."

Amelia laughed. Bitter, broken laughter. "Of course he did."

"Would you prefer that I have food brought to your room, miss?"

Amelia ached to say yes. To bundle herself up and lock the world away. But then she imagined Alexander's face if she gave in, if she let herself be tucked away safe where he liked. The image revolted her.

"No," she told them, shocked at the emptiness of her own voice. "I'll decide whether I eat or not. Not you. Not him. Me."

There was a pause, then the maid sighed, "Yes, miss," as footsteps moved away down the corridor.

Amelia fell over onto the edge of the bed, fists clenched in her hair, struggling to catch her breath. She hated him. God, she hated him. But under the anger there lay something she refused to admit to herself. Something that frightened her more than his threats.