Bound By The CEO's Cruel Contract

The rain started at 7:15 PM.

Claire stood on the corner of Fifth and Fifty-Seventh, her camel coat pulled tight against a wind that cut through the wool like it was nothing. The Mosley Tower loomed behind her, its lights burning in the gathering dark, and she thought of the contract in her bag, the weight of it pulling her shoulder down.

She took a step toward the subway entrance. Her hip seized. A sharp, tearing sensation that made her gasp and grab for the traffic light pole, her fingers finding the cold metal, the flaking paint, the rivets that held it to the concrete.

She leaned there, breathing through her mouth, while the rain began in earnest. It wasn't the dramatic downpour of movies. It was worse-a steady, soaking drizzle that found every gap in her clothing, every place where the fabric had grown thin from washing.

Across the street, a family walked past the window of a steakhouse. Father, mother, daughter in a yellow raincoat. The girl was laughing, pointing at something in the window, and her father lifted her onto his shoulders so she could see better. The mother held an umbrella over all three of them, tilting it to keep the rain from the child's face.

Claire watched them until they turned the corner.

She was ten years old again. The rain had been harder that night, a September storm that had turned the streets to rivers. She'd been asleep in the back seat, her mother's sweater pillowed under her cheek, when the world had ended with a scream of metal and the sickening crunch of impact.

She remembered the smell. Gasoline and blood and the particular sweetness of antifreeze. She remembered her father's hand, still reaching toward the back seat, his fingers curled like he was trying to touch her one last time. She remembered the way her mother's eyes had stayed open, staring at the dashboard, the rain falling through the shattered windshield onto her face.

She remembered the funeral. The small coffins, side by side, because her parents had wanted to be buried together even in death. She remembered Adan Tyler's hand on her shoulder, heavy and damp, and the way Brenda had looked at her from the balcony of the mansion, not bothering to hide her disgust at the stray her husband had dragged home.

She remembered Jerrad, two years older, holding her mother's necklace-the thin gold chain with the small pearl, the only thing she'd had left-over the storm drain. "Oops," he'd said, and let it fall.

The pain in her abdomen brought her back. She was doubled over, her forehead pressed against the traffic pole, her breath coming in short, panicked gasps. She couldn't do this. She couldn't walk to the subway. She couldn't climb the stairs to her apartment.

She fumbled for her phone. Her fingers were numb, clumsy. She typed "private gynecologist upper east side confidential" into the search bar. The first result was a brick building on East Seventy-Second, no sign, by appointment only.

She raised her hand. A yellow cab swerved to the curb, the light on its roof glowing amber through the rain.

"East Seventy-Second," she said. "Between Madison and Park."

The driver looked at her in the rearview mirror. His eyes were kind, worried. "You sure you don't need the ER, miss? You don't look so good."

Claire shook her head. She pressed both hands against her stomach and closed her eyes.

The city moved past her windows, a blur of neon and rain-streaked glass. Times Square. Columbus Circle. The park, dark and empty. When the cab stopped, she paid with cash from the emergency fund she kept in her coat pocket-twenty-three dollars, enough for the fare and a small tip.

The building was exactly as the website had promised. Red brick, four stories, no identifying marks except a small brass plaque that read "Medical Offices" in letters so small she had to squint to read them. She found the side entrance, the one the website said to use, and pressed the intercom button.

"Yes?"

"Jane Doe," Claire said. Her voice was barely audible. "I have an appointment."

The lock buzzed. She pushed through into warmth, into light, into the smell of antiseptic and expensive carpet.

A nurse in pink scrubs met her in the hallway. She took one look at Claire's face and reached for a wheelchair that folded against the wall.

"Sweetheart," she said. "Let's get you to a room."