Page 13 of His By Contract

She kept her lips pressed tight, refusing to break first. This small resistance felt like the only control she had left, the ability to maintain her silence, to keep her thoughts her own even as her body had betrayed her. She would rebuild her defenses, find new ways to protect herself in this gilded cage. She had to.

The vegetables tasted like ash in her mouth, each bite a mechanical action she forced herself through. Steam still rose from the plate, time frozen in this strange aftermath where nothing felt real anymore. She focused on the simple act of eating, using it as an anchor in the storm of her emotions.

Such an ordinary dinner scene, yet everything had shifted beneath her feet. Nothing would be the same after tonight. Not her relationship with Adrian, not her understanding of the contract, not even her perception of herself.

The woman who’d sat here earlier, full of quiet defiance and desperate pride, was gone. In her place sat someone new, someone whose body had betrayed her with each calculated strike of his hand. Someone who’d gasped not from pain, but from something darker, something she couldn’t face. The transformation terrified her more than Adrian ever could.

Her thighs pressed together beneath the table, trying to contain the lingering sensations that refused to fade. There was no fighting this, no clever strategy to reclaim what she’d surrendered. He owned her reaction, owned the way her pulse still raced at the memory of his touch. The knowledge sat heavy in her stomach, inescapable and damning.

Dread pooled in her stomach as she thought about next time. Because there would be a next time. The contract guaranteed it. Her fingers trembled around the fork as anticipation curled through her veins, hot and shameful. She didn’t want to need this, didn’t want to crave the moment he’d break her resistance again. Yet some treacherous part of her wondered what it would be like to surrender completely, to stop fighting what seemed inevitable.

Adrian’s gaze brushed over her, brief but knowing. A small shift in his expression told her he’d already unraveled every thought she was trying to hide. He didn’t just see her. He understood her. He read every conflicted thought in the tension of her shoulders, every lingering trace of defiance and submission warring inside her. He knew exactly what she was feeling. And worse, he knew she did too. The realization left her feeling naked in ways that had nothing to do with clothing, her very soul exposed to his calculating eyes.

CHAPTER 4

Georgia pushed open her apartment door, and memories rushed at her like ghosts. The familiar scent of lavender detergent mingled with fabric glue and settled dust, a perfume that had once meant safety, creativity, home. Now it felt foreign, like walking through someone else’s life. How strange that the same smells that once welcomed her now made her feel like an intruder in her own space.

Boxes lined the walls in neat rows, their cardboard faces blank and waiting. Most of her belongings had already been packed away by the moving company Adrian hired. The space echoed with emptiness, stripped of the warmth and chaos that had made it hers. She resented how efficiently her life had been dismantled, categorized, and contained.

Her fingers traced the edge of her sewing table, catching on loose threads and forgotten pins. Half-finished sketches lay scattered across the surface, dreams frozen mid-creation. A wedding dress design peeked out from beneath a stack of fabric swatches, the last commission she’d lost after Celeste’s attack. That dress would never exist beyond these lines on paper, another casualty in the wreckage of her career.

The apartment felt smaller now, its walls closing in with each breath. But her gaze fixed on the corner where her real treasures waited. Sketchbooks filled with years of designs, each page a piece of her soul put to paper. Bins of carefully curated fabric samples, collected from markets and specialty shops. The tools of her trade: scissors that fit her hand perfectly, needles worn smooth from use, spools of thread in every shade imaginable. These, at least, couldn’t be taken from her without her permission.

These weren’t just supplies. They were proof of her journey, physical evidence of every sacrifice and triumph. Adrian might own her time, her body, even her name. But these belonged to her alone. The thought gave her a flicker of defiance, a tiny flame she cupped protectively in her mind.

Georgia moved through the space with steady steps, gathering her creative arsenal. Each sketchbook felt sacred in her hands, alive with everything she hadn’t yet made. She stacked them carefully, adding her favorite tools and most precious materials. If nothing else survived this transition, these would. They had to.

Georgia surveyed the remnants of her life, scattered across the apartment like fallen leaves. The IKEA furniture she’d assembled during late nights between projects. Dishes from the clearance section at Target. Clothes bought on sale, each piece a small victory in her fight for independence.

These things should have felt precious. Each represented hours of work, careful budgeting, dreams of building something real. But as she stood among the cardboard boxes, they felt like props from someone else’s story. A story that ended the moment she signed Adrian’s contract. She couldn’t decide if that made her foolish or brave. Perhaps both.

The pressure built in her chest, a physical weight that threatened to crush her. But instead of collapsing, she straightened her spine. This weight wouldn’t drag her down; it would forge her into something stronger. She’d endured worse; she would endure this too.

Her fingers curled around the box of sewing supplies, knuckles white against the cardboard. These tools weren’t just objects. They were extensions of her creativity, her passion, her soul. The only things worth salvaging from this wreckage. They were her armor against whatever came next.

Something thick and heavy rose in her throat. She forced it back down. Tears wouldn’t change anything, and she couldn’t afford to waste time on grief. Not when there was so much ahead to navigate, to survive.

Adrian’s world loomed ahead of her: a maze of marble halls and crystal chandeliers, every surface polished to perfection. A gilded cage where even the air felt regulated. She could already feel it suffocating her, that pristine environment where nothing was allowed to be messy or real.

Georgia turned away from the apartment. She didn’t look back as she walked through the door. Her past lay sealed in cardboard boxes, waiting for strangers to cart them away. She wouldn’t be the one to sort through the pieces. Better to face forward than to watch as everything familiar disappeared behind her.

The elevator doors slid open, and Georgia stepped into Adrian’s penthouse. The space consumed her, vast and cold, a monument to power rather than comfort. The marble floors stretchedendlessly, reflecting light from windows that framed the city like a painting. Everything gleamed with an untouched perfection that made her skin crawl.

Her footsteps echoed through the silence as she carried her box of supplies toward her room. The sound felt wrong, like a smudge on an otherwise flawless canvas. This place belonged to Adrian. Every surface, every shadow bore his mark.

Georgia set her box on the desk by the window. Her hands hovered over her sewing machine before she lifted it out, her fingers tensing around its edges as she placed it with care on the polished surface. The familiar weight anchored her, a piece of her old life in this sterile new world.

She unpacked her supplies slowly, deliberately. Each item claimed its space: spools of thread rolling into formation, their colors bold against the desk’s dark wood. Fabric swatches spread like fallen petals, their textures a rebellion against the room’s harsh edges. Scissors, pins, measuring tape, each tool a small declaration of identity.

This corner, at least, would remain hers. A tiny island of chaos in Adrian’s sea of control. The sight of her supplies, arranged and ready for creation, loosened the vise around her chest. For the first time since signing the contract, air filled her lungs completely.

She exhaled, watching the fabric swatches flutter in the breath of her release.

She wouldn’t ask his permission. The thought of explaining herself, of justifying her need for this space, made her jaw clench.

The fabric beneath her fingertips whispered of possibilities, of designs waiting to break free. Each swatch held a promise, a reminder of who she was before signing that contract. The cool metal of her scissors, the delicate pins lined up like soldiers—these belonged to her world, not his.

For the first time since entering the penthouse, something felt right. In this corner, she could breathe. Create. Remember. The tension in her shoulders loosened as she arranged her supplies, claiming this small territory in Adrian’s vast domain.

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