Chapter 16 FIRST PAYMENTS.

Chapter 16 FIRST PAYMENTS.


Isabel’s POV.

Two days. Two endless days since I walked out of Damien’s room.

I felt like I was wearing a bomb waiting for the signal to activate. I was just waiting, marking time until the moment Damien decided to make his first claim.

I tried to be the perfect wife. I sat at the breakfast table with Adrian, forcing a smile that felt brittle Adrian, oblivious as ever, talked about his golf game and the latest market numbers. He was bright, loud, and warm, and being near him made the secret I carried feel  colder. I wanted to tell him to stop smiling, to realize he was sleeping next to a debtor but I couldn't risk the storm that would follow.

Damien was barely here. I didn't see him at meals. I didn't cross his path in the halls. I knew he was in the house, working in his library or in his study, and I knew he was waiting for the right moment to call me to him.

My phone, usually a simple object, became an enemy. It sat on my nightstand, I checked it a hundred times a day, terrified it wouldn't ring, terrified it would.

I was in my dressing room, putting away a dress from last night’s charity dinner—a dress that felt suffocatingly proper and far too expensive. My phone buzzed once.

A text message. No name, just a number I already knew.

The text was simple: Tonight. Nine.

Nine o’clock. The time when Adrian usually poured himself a second brandy and settled into the sitting to watch a movie or talk business on a long call. 

My hands started shaking so violently I dropped the dress. It pooled at my feet, a silk puddle of guilt.

Tonight. The first payment. The reality of the deal slammed into me, knocking the air out of my chest. I hadn't been able to cry since that night at the club. Now, the tears pricked my eyes, hot but I blinked them back. Crying was a weakness I couldn't afford.

I spent the next four hours in a fog. I didn't eat. I moved around my room, tidying things I’d already tidied, trying to burn off the frantic energy trapped inside my bones.

At 8:45 PM, I went into the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror. I was pale, my hazel eyes wide and dark. I was still wearing the clothes I’d changed into after dinner—simple, soft gray cashmere trousers and a cream silk top. It was an appropriate wear.

But the deal wasn't about appropriate. It was about untamed. It was about the girl he had seen dancing.

With shaking fingers, I pulled off the silk top. I chose a plain black camisole, thin and close to my skin. I didn't bother changing the trousers, but I pulled my hair out of the neat braid I’d worn all day. I dragged my fingers through it, loosening the waves until they were messy and slightly wild, the way Lena had styled them for the club.

I looked in the mirror again. I didn't look like a wife anymore. I looked like a woman who was ready to break a rule.

I was ready.

At 8:58 PM, I left my room. I didn't check on Adrian; I didn't dare. I just slipped out and closed the door carefully.

The long walk to Damien’s wing felt exactly like the walk I’d taken two nights before, but worse. Before, it was a plea. Now, it was a payment.

My soft slippers made no sound on the floor, every step an admission of what I was doing.

When I reached his door my entire body was trembling. 

I raised my hand, but I didn't need to knock.

The door opened just as my knuckles brushed the wood.

Damien was standing there. He was fully dressed this time, in dark trousers and a  deep-gray shirt that was open at the collar. The calm severity of his expression was a cold slap to my nervous energy.

His eyes, moved over me instantly, taking in  the black camisole and the loose hair. He didn't smile, but he gave a stiff nod.

“You’re on time,” he said, stepping back and I walked in.

His room was exactly as I remembered. It looked less like a bedroom and more like a study designed for strategic thinking.

He closed the door, the latch clicking with that same, terrible finality.

I stood there, waiting, my arms wrapped around myself again, a nervous, defensive gesture. I expected him to move, to demand, to start enforcing the physical part of the deal.

He didn't. He walked over to a leather armchair by the massive window, the city lights a distant, scattered shimmer behind him. He sat down, crossing one leg over the other, and picked up a book he had left open on the side table.

He didn't speak. He didn't invite me to sit. He just opened the book and started to read.

I stood in the center of the room, burning with confusion and panic. My heart hammered against my ribs, a loud, frantic protest in the silence. My palms were slick with sweat. I felt ridiculous, exposed, standing there in my  top and loose hair, ready to surrender, while he read.

Minutes ticked by, each one a  deliberate point of torture.

Finally, I couldn't take the silence.

“Damien,” I whispered. My voice sounded tight. “What do you want me to do?”

He didn’t look up from the page. 

“Nothing,” he said.

I frowned, bewildered. “I don’t understand. I came here. You asked me to come at nine.”

He marked his page with a finger, slowly,  before finally lifting his eyes to mine. 

“You came here, yes. You came here because you are in debt to me,” he stated. “I want you to stand there, Isabel. And I want you to look at me, and remember exactly why you are here.”

He wasn't demanding my body yet. He was demanding my surrender. He was making me stand defenseless while he remained clothed, closed off, and  in control. He wanted me to stand as the living proof of his ownership over my secret, over my shame, over my freedom.

He lifted the book back up, his eyes returning to the page, dismissing me completely.

“Wait,” he ordered simply.

I stood there, trapped in the light of the  chandelier, my breath catching in my throat. I felt the shame burn.

He wasn’t just claiming me; he was humiliating me. And I was powerless to stop it. I was in his room, under his control, and the first payment for his silence was the complete surrender of my will. I waited.