The debt

The black silk felt like a mockery. It was too soft, too expensive, sliding over my skin with a fluidity that made me feel more naked than when I had actually been undressing. It was a slip dress-thin straps, a low back, and a hemline that stopped just high enough to be dangerous.

It wasn't a garment. It was an invitation.

Elena had left me in a room that looked like a high-end vault. No windows. No clock. Just a sprawling, king-sized bed with charcoal sheets and a single door made of heavy, dark wood.

My stomach gave a sickly twist as the door clicked open.

Adam didn't enter with a flourish. He just walked in, his tie discarded, the top two buttons of his white dress shirt undone to reveal the hollow of his throat. He looked exhausted, but it was the kind of exhaustion that made him look even more lethal-like a predator that had been hunting all day and was finally ready to eat.

He didn't say a word. He walked over to a small bar in the corner, poured two fingers of amber liquid into a crystal glass, and downed it in one go. The ice clinked against the glass-the only sound in the suffocating silence.

"Come here, Abigail."

The way he said my name... it wasn't a request. It was a tug on a leash I didn't even know was there.

I stayed rooted to the spot by the edge of the bed. "The contract said 'social collateral.' It said 'private assistant.' It didn't say I was your-"

"Don't finish that sentence," he interrupted, finally turning to look at me. His eyes swept over the black silk, and for a split second, I saw it-a flash of raw, unfiltered hunger that made my knees go weak. Then, just as quickly, the mask of the billionaire was back. Cold. Professional. "I'm not interested in your clichés. I'm interested in your presence."

He gestured to the floor in front of his leather armchair. "Sit."

"On the floor?" I felt the heat of indignation rise to my cheeks. "I'm a Sterling. We don't-"

"You were a Sterling," he corrected, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous vibration. "Now, you are a woman whose father is one phone call away from a life sentence. Sit. Down. Abigail."

I swallowed hard, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. Slowly, I lowered myself onto the plush rug at his feet. The humiliation was a physical weight, heavier than the debt itself. I felt small. Diminished.

Adam sat in the chair, leaning back and resting his hand on the armrest. His fingers were inches from my shoulder.

"Tonight isn't about the gala," he said, staring at the empty glass in his hand. "Tonight is about the ledger. Your father's embezzlement didn't just hurt my firm; it insulted my intelligence. He thought I was too busy to notice three million disappearing into a shell company in the Caymans."

"He was desperate," I whispered, staring at the floor.

"Desperation is an excuse for the weak," Adam snapped. Suddenly, his hand was in my hair, his fingers tangling in the dark strands and forcing my head back. I gasped, my eyes meeting his. "I don't tolerate weakness in my orbit. If you're going to be my collateral, you're going to be the strongest thing I own. Do you understand?"

I couldn't breathe. The proximity was too much-the scent of him, the heat radiating off his body, the terrifying strength in his grip. "I understand."

"Good." He let go, but he didn't move away. He leaned down, his face inches from mine. "Tomorrow, you will attend the board meeting with me. You will sit behind me. You will take notes. And when the men in that room look at you-and they will look at you-you will look back at them like they are nothing more than bugs under your heel. You are a Thorne asset now. Act like it."

He reached out, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw, moving slowly toward my ear. He leaned in, his breath hot against my skin.

"Now, get in the bed."

My blood turned to ice. "What?"

"In the bed, Abigail. On the left side," he said, standing up and heading toward the bathroom. "I don't sleep well alone, and as of tonight, you're the most expensive pillow I've ever bought. Don't worry. Touching you isn't on tonight's agenda. But being within my reach? That's non-negotiable."

The bathroom door shut, leaving me shivering on the floor.

He didn't want to love me. He didn't even want to sleep with me-not yet. He just wanted to own the space I occupied. He wanted to prove that even my sleep belonged to him.

I crawled into the massive bed, the silk of the sheets feeling like cold water. As the light from the bathroom flickered off, I realized with a jolt of terror that I wasn't just paying back a debt.

I was becoming the debt.

Abigail wakes up to find Adam already gone, but a new "Instruction" waiting on her pillow: a list of every person she is no longer allowed to speak to, starting with her own father.