We rode the private lift to the hotel suite directly above the ballroom. Levi was already inside, a solitary silhouette against the panoramic window, swirling scotch in a crystal glass. Holden greeted him with a nod and vanished, door sighing shut like it pitied me.

The air was thick with unspoken tension—and with every second the booze left my system, it got thicker. Why the fuck had I let Holden coax me into this gilded cage? I wasn’t drowning in debt, but I was definitely treading water in a sea of unpaid invoices and worse decisions.

Levi settled onto the sleek couch, smoothed an invisible wrinkle from his navy tie, and spoke without looking at me. “Mr. Everett, I don’t know how much my secretary told you, but I need a husband for a finite period. If we don’t terminate early, I’ll compensate you monthly.”

A desperate craving for something stronger than tap water clawed at my throat. I dropped onto the opposite couch and tried to look bored.

He went on. “Your aversion to eye-contact tells me you aren’t ready to say yes. That’s fine. You deserve love, affection, care—this contract won’t interfere with any of that. I’m swamped, and I want…” His gaze slipped past me to the city lights. “I just want to be free.”

For the first time I studied him like a casting director instead of a pissed-off bartender. He was tall—just above my shoulder—lean, and sick-room pale: not porcelain-fair but translucent, as if blood preferred to keep its distance. Black hair slicked back with geometric precision; nose straight out of a bust; eyebrows thick enough to look angry on someone else’s face. No crease in the tux, no crease in the expression. A black-cloud aura hovered over him, heavy, almost wet. Wolf? No. Sheep tangled in barbed wire.

He continued, his voice smooth and even. “Mr. Everett, from the information I gathered, you are not from this country, but you still have citizenship.”

The country we are in right now, Ascaria, is a little bit… How should I say it? Weird

. Ascaria, is a weird country. They have nobility, and royalty and dynasty or whatever; it’s largely ceremonial on paper, but still, the titles persist. They don't necessarily have a class system, not in the traditional sense, but the nobility, from what I have heard, is quite xenophobic towards outsiders. Yet, paradoxically, they have fully legalized gay marriage—an unheard-of occurrence in this conservative region—and consistently uphold disability and minority rights, policies often admired by progressive citizens from other countries. Which is why I find this country weird. You play dress up dolls, saying your great great great great grandfather sucked up to a king and take pride in it, but you are also sensible? How does this work?

“That is true, Ascaria basically let’s everybody in and still has the highest per capita in the continent." I flapped a hand. “Five years here, everyone’s deliriously happy, sure.” The words tasted like tin.

This tale has been pilfered from NovelBin. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“May I ask why did you left your home country?” He asked, politely, his voice devoid of judgment, yet the question felt like an intrusion. Something, something ugly, vile like a tumor bubbled in me, a familiar surge of old pain and resentment. He shouldn’t have asked that.

“My parents sucked.” I replied, the words clipped and flat. He glanced at me, his deep blue eyes seeming to pierce through my pretense, as if saying I know you are lying through your teeth. But he didn’t follow up.

“I understand.” He replied, his tone surprisingly soft, and stood up, moving with an almost liquid grace to a hidden drawer. He returned with a stack of contract papers.

"Mr. Everett, if you decide to go ahead, just sign the first and last page. If you want to change anything or ask questions, feel free to reach out to me or my secretary. Or just come to the next room." He said, laying the papers on the polished mahogany table, alongside two identical business cards.

Intentions were clear. This... is who you are right now. A beautiful doll who's just waiting for a paycheck to be my accessory—it’s sad, really, how easily I fit the mold.

He leaned towards the door, his silhouette framed by the golden light from the city below, “Good night, Mr. Everett.” he said and left before I could even formulate a reply.

I skimmed the contract.

Not a contract but more like, instructions? A detailed blueprint for a performance. How we are supposed to go on a date on Sundays, or which specific restaurant we should be going to, which hours should we be seen by reporters, how much I should share about "our love life" in social media, or how I can basically pounce on him whenever I want and he won’t reject it. Who does that?

He won’t be interfering with me, he won’t be rejecting me, he will say yes to nearly everything. Isn’t it… Supposed to be the other way ‘round? The dynamic felt utterly inverted.

He will live in his house, and I will have my space. Which was good until I read the last clause, a single, stark sentence that froze the blood in my veins.

“The locked room on the second floor, will not be entered any circumstances.”

Remember the lion-in-the-room chill I bragged about downstairs? I felt it again, a prickling sensation across my scalp. Fear. But it was a thrilling fear, mixed with a pull. I was morbidly curious about him. About his locked room. Why he wants to be free. Without thinking, driven by an instinct I couldn't name, I signed the papers. And reached for the business cards. After adding the numbers to my phone, my thumb hovering over his name, I searched his name on the internet.

He owned of a drug company, named Somatol. I wasn’t able to find much information about the company because the search results were buried under the dozens and dozens of articles, all glowing with praise, about how “Levi Blake is a symbol of hope for Ascarians, philanthropist without a smudge of a sin, a saint…”

Same shark eyes I’d met ten minutes ago.

Saint, huh? Saints don’t need locked rooms.

I killed the screen, heart hammering against the cage my own signature had locked.