Chapter 2

A few nights later, Ethan came back to the apartment. He smelled faintly of Chloe' s expensive perfume.

He was distant, preoccupied, but his physical desire for Ava hadn't waned. It was a possessive, almost perfunctory act.

Afterward, as he lay beside her, scrolling endlessly on his phone, he finally spoke.

"You mad I had to let you go from the firm?" he asked, his tone casual, his eyes still fixed on the screen.

Ava thought of her father, whose life-saving surgery and ongoing care Ethan' s money had covered years ago. Her family, pulled back from the brink of financial ruin by his intervention. The unspoken debt that bound her.

"No, Ethan," she said, her voice carefully neutral. "I understand. Business is business. You needed to make changes."

He finally looked at her then, a small, self-satisfied smile playing on his lips. "Good. You're my treasure, Ava. My sensible girl. I can't bear to lose you."

His words, meant to soothe, felt like another link in the chain that kept her tethered to him. His "treasure," kept locked away.

The following week, the gossip columns were filled with Ethan and Chloe.

"Ethan Hayes and Chloe Davenport rekindle romance on Parisian getaway!" one headline screamed.

Photos of them, laughing by the Seine, holding hands near the Arc de Triomphe. Chloe, looking every bit the perfect society partner.

Ava stayed in the apartment, the silence pressing in on her.

She pulled out her laptop and began meticulously working on applications. Columbia Law. NYU Law. Her secret escape hatch.

One rainy afternoon, as Ava tried to focus on a personal statement in a quiet Upper West Side coffee shop, a shadow fell over her table.

Tiffany "Tiff" Brewer. Chloe' s fiercely loyal, brash best friend. Chloe' s enforcer.

"Well, well, if it isn't little Miss Nobody," Tiff sneered, her voice dripping with contempt.

She held up her phone, angling the screen so Ava could see. Screenshots.

Ava' s private, pleading text messages to Ethan from the past few weeks. Messages Chloe had clearly shared with Tiff.

"He shows Chloe everything, you know," Tiff said, her smile malicious. "She finds you utterly pathetic. Desperate."

Ava felt a flush of humiliation and anger. She stood to leave, her coffee untouched.

Tiff grabbed her arm, her grip surprisingly strong. "Where do you think you're going?"

Then, Tiff shoved her. Hard.

Ava stumbled backward, her heel catching. She fell, her head cracking against the hard tile floor.

A blinding flash of pain, then darkness.

She woke up in a sterile white room. Liam' s worried face swam into view.

"Ava? Can you hear me? You have a concussion. A nasty one. And your autoimmune markers are dangerously elevated from the stress."

Hours later, Ethan arrived. He didn' t look worried. He looked irritated.

"The police are waiting outside," he said, his voice clipped. "Chloe is very distressed. This kind of public incident… it could reflect badly on her."

Not, "Are you okay, Ava?"

Not, "What happened?"

Just, "This is inconvenient for Chloe."

The last fragile pieces of Ava' s heart seemed to shatter.

"Tell them it was an accident," Ethan instructed, his gaze cold. "A misunderstanding. You tripped. For Chloe's sake. We need to protect her."

Ava nodded numbly. What else was there to do? She was trapped.

"And Ava," he added, his voice dropping to a low, warning tone. "Chloe is… different. She' s sensitive. From a good family. You need to behave yourself around her. Understand?"

Behave. As if she were an unruly pet he was struggling to control.