Chapter 2 THE LOCKED DOOR

The car didn't stop at a hotel.

It drove straight through the gates of Vance Mansion and didn't stop until it was inside the private garage. The garage door closed behind them with a heavy metal thud.

Seraphina was still in the wedding dress. The scar on her shoulder was still showing.

Ethan got out and opened her door himself.

"Out."

Her legs were shaking so badly she couldn't stand. The cheap white heels broke.

Ethan looked at her feet, then without a word, he bent down and picked her up.

Seraphina gasped.

He carried her like she weighed nothing. One arm under her knees, one arm around her back, careful not to touch the scar. Her arms automatically went around his neck to hold on.

He smelled like cold winter and expensive cologne. His chest was hard.

"Put me down-"

"No."

The maids in the mansion hallway stared when they saw him carrying a bride in a torn veil. A girl crying, with a scar showing.

"Mr. Vance-"

"Everyone out of the east wing," he said coldly. "No one comes up until I call."

He carried her up the grand staircase, past portraits, past chandeliers, to the top floor. The master bedroom.

He kicked the door open and put her down on her feet inside.

The room was huge. Black and grey. Cold like him. A giant bed in the middle, untouched.

Then he turned and locked the door.

_Click._

Seraphina's heart stopped.

Two locks. He locked both.

"Why... why did you lock..."

"Because if I don't," he said, taking off his tuxedo jacket and throwing it on the chair, "your mother will try to take you back. And I will kill someone if they try to take what's mine tonight."

He was in a white shirt now. His sleeves rolled up, showing strong forearms, veins. He looked less like a groom and more like a man who was about to go to war.

Seraphina backed away until her back hit the wall. "You said you would ruin them... are you going to ruin me too?"

Ethan stared at her. At the small girl in the too-big wedding dress, shaking against his wall.

Slowly, he walked toward her. But he stopped one foot away. He didn't touch her.

"No," he said quietly. "I'm going to ruin them for ruining you."

He reached out, not to her face, but to the strap of her dress that had fallen.

"May I?" he asked.

It was the first time anyone had ever asked permission to look at her scar.

Seraphina's tears fell. She nodded, tiny.

He gently, with two fingers, pulled the white fabric down just one inch more. The full scar was revealed. It was large, pink, twisted, from her shoulder down. Old. The skin pulled.

Most people looked away. Her mother said it was ugly, disgusting, unlucky.

Ethan didn't look away. His jaw tightened so hard a muscle jumped. His grey eyes turned black with anger.

He knelt down.

Seraphina froze. The cruel tycoon, the man worth billions, kneeling in front of the attic girl.

He didn't kiss it. He didn't touch it with lust. He just looked at it, his breathing heavy.

"Does it still hurt?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

"Sometimes... when it is cold..."

Without warning, he stood up and punched the wall next to her head. Hard.

Seraphina screamed.

His fist left a crack in the concrete wall. His knuckles were bleeding.

"She did this to a six-year-old child," he said to himself, his voice shaking with rage. Not at her. At them. "She burned you."

He turned away from her, trying to control his anger. He went to the bathroom and came back with a first-aid kit and a silk robe.

"Take that dress off," he ordered, then immediately corrected himself. "Please. Take it off. It is her dress. You will not wear her things again."

Seraphina held the dress. "I... I have nothing..."

"You have everything now."

He turned his back to her. Completely. Facing the locked door, giving her privacy. A monster who gave privacy.

With shaking hands, Seraphina let the wedding dress fall. She was in her underwear, shivering. She quickly put on the black silk robe he left on the bed. It was huge, his robe, smelling like him. It covered her scar, covered everything, but it was soft.

"You can turn... turn around..."

Ethan turned. When he saw her in his robe, swimming in it, his eyes darkened, but not with cruelty. Something else. Something possessive and soft at the same time.

"Better," he whispered.

He walked to the bedside table and picked up the phone. "Send up the trunk. The one I prepared."

Trunk? Prepared?

Two minutes later, a knock. Ethan unlocked, took a large black trunk from a maid without letting her see inside, and locked again.

He opened the trunk in front of her.

Inside were not Sienna's clothes.

Inside were new dresses. All in her small size. Not white. Colors. Soft blue, blush pink, black. All with sleeves that would cover or show her scar beautifully, not hide it shamefully. And jewelry boxes. And flat shoes because he noticed her feet hurt.

Seraphina covered her mouth. "You... you bought these... before?"

"I have known about you for three weeks," he said quietly.

She stared.

"My investigator told me Margaret Vale has two daughters, not one. One perfect, one hidden in the attic with a burn. I saw a photo. From the attic window. You were reading."

Seraphina remembered. She used to sit by the tiny attic window to read old books.

"I was supposed to marry Sienna for a contract," Ethan said, sitting on the edge of the bed, looking up at her. "But when I saw your photo..."

His eyes met hers.

"I told my assistant, if the twin tries to run, let her run. I will keep the other one."

Seraphina's knees gave out and she sat on the bed.

"You... you wanted me? Even before..."

"I wanted the one who reads in the attic while the family parties downstairs," he said. "I wanted the one with grace."

Silence. The room was so quiet she could hear the clock.

Then Ethan stood and went to the other side of the huge bed. He pulled back the covers on one side.

"Sleep," he said.

"What?"

"You are my wife. You sleep here. I sleep there," he pointed to a long couch by the window. "No one will touch you tonight. Or ever, until you ask me to."

It was not what she expected from a cruel tycoon on a wedding night. No forcing. No cruelty to her.

"Why are you being... nice to me?" she whispered, tears again.

Ethan looked at her, lying in his huge robe in his huge bed, small and scarred and beautiful.

"Because," he said, his voice low as he turned off the main light, leaving only a soft lamp, "everyone has been cruel to you for twenty-two years. Someone has to be cruel to them for you."

He walked to the couch, took off his shoes, and lay down, still in his shirt and pants, like a guard dog.

Seraphina lay in the softest bed of her life, in a mansion she never dreamed of, wearing the robe of a man who was supposed to be a monster.

Her shoulder didn't burn for the first time in years.

"Mr. Vance..." she whispered in the dark.

"Ethan," he corrected from the couch. "In this room, you call me Ethan."

"Ethan... will you really not send me back?"

A pause. Then his voice, firm, absolute, in the dark:

"You are Mrs. Ethan Vance now, Seraphina. Try to leave, and I will lock this door for real."

It was supposed to sound like a threat.

But to a girl who had been locked in an attic for twenty-two years, being locked in a mansion where someone finally saw her scar and called it grace...

It sounded like being saved.