Chapter 2

Callie Fry POV:

The pounding in my head was a vicious, relentless drumbeat against my skull. For two days, I had been lying in this lumpy, unfamiliar bed, a fever raging through my body as if trying to burn away the last three years of my life.

A crash from the living room, followed by my mother' s hysterical shriek, ripped me from my feverish haze.

"Robert, get down from there! For God's sake, get down!"

I forced my aching limbs to move, dragging myself out of bed. The room spun. This wasn't my spacious, sun-drenched bedroom overlooking the park. This was a cramped, water-stained box in a rundown apartment building in Queens. The air smelled of damp and desperation. This was our new home.

I stumbled into the living room and my blood ran cold. My father was perched precariously on the windowsill of the open fourth-floor window, one leg dangling over the edge.

"I can't do it, Maria!" he wailed, his face blotchy and swollen with tears. "It's over! Everything is gone!"

"If you jump, I'm jumping with you!" my mother sobbed, clutching at his arm.

"Dad, stop!" I croaked, my throat raw. "Get down. Please."

He turned his wild eyes to me. "Callie! My little girl. It's all my fault."

"It's not your fault," I said, the lie tasting like ash in my mouth. "We'll figure it out."

His face suddenly hardened. "There's one way. You have to go to him. Go to Kane."

I froze. "What?"

"He'll help you," my mother chimed in, her voice desperate. "He has to! After everything our family did for him, giving him a place, a wife... he owes us! He must still have feelings for you, Callie. No man endures what he did without being in love."

A bitter, hysterical laugh tried to claw its way up my throat. Oh, if only they knew. If only they knew he' d handed me divorce papers with a smile while talking about his true love. If only they knew he was the one who bought our penthouse just to watch me pack my bags.

"He won't help," I said, my voice flat. "It's over between us."

"Don't be a fool!" my father roared, his body swaying dangerously. "You're his wife! Go to him, Callie! Use your looks, your charm! Do whatever you have to do! If you don't, I swear to God, I'll end it right now!"

The threat hung in the air, heavy and suffocating. I looked at my mother's terrified face, my father's deranged one. I was trapped.

"Fine," I whispered, the word a surrender. "I'll go."

My mother, with what little cash she had left, bought me a dress. It was tight, black, and ridiculously short. "You look beautiful, darling," she said, her eyes shining with a feverish hope. "He won't be able to resist you."

I looked at my reflection in the cracked bathroom mirror. I didn't look like a woman asking for help. I looked like a hooker. The thought made my stomach churn. What a joke. Kane had a beautiful, perfect new "true love." He wouldn't even look at me twice.

Why had he married me in the first place? I'd always assumed it was for the money, the status. But he' d signed that prenup without a fight. Was my mother right? Had he been in love with me? The thought was absurd. He had spent three years paying for one night of what he must have considered a drunken mistake.

But I had to go. I had to let my parents see for themselves that it was hopeless. I had to let them watch me be humiliated so they would finally give up this insane fantasy.

They insisted on coming with me, waiting in the car across the street from his new, gleaming skyscraper like hopeful vultures. The look on their faces as I got out of the car, a mixture of pride and desperate expectation, was a fresh stab of pain.

Walking into the lobby of Chandler Innovations was like walking into a lion's den. Everyone knew who I was. The disgraced ex-wife. The fallen socialite. I could feel their eyes on me, hear their whispered comments. I held my head high, my back ramrod straight, and walked to the elevator, my cheap heels clicking an embarrassingly loud rhythm on the marble floor.

His office was on the top floor, a sprawling space with floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a god's-eye view of the city. He was sitting behind a massive desk, not looking up as I entered. The power in the room was a physical force, pressing down on me, squeezing the air from my lungs. The quiet, awkward man I had tormented for three years was gone. In his place sat a king.

Finally, he looked up. A slow, lazy smile spread across his face, but it didn't reach his eyes. Those were as cold as a winter sky. "Callie. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

My carefully constructed bravado crumbled. "Kane, I... I need to ask you for something."

The words came out as a pathetic whisper. I felt my cheeks heat with shame.

His smile vanished. His eyes narrowed. "Ask me? Why on earth would you think you have the right to ask me for anything?"

I flinched. Of course. This was pointless. I was a fool for even coming here.

"You're right," I said, turning to leave. "I'm sorry I bothered you."

I thought of every cruel word I had ever said to him, every public humiliation, every private act of contempt. He had every right to hate me. I deserved this. The shame was a physical weight, crushing me. I just wanted to disappear.

"Wait."

His voice stopped me at the door. I turned back slowly.

He had risen from his desk and was walking toward me, his movements fluid and predatory. "I didn't say I wouldn't help. But everything has a price. It's a transaction, Callie. What do you have to offer me in exchange?"

I stared at him, bewildered. What could I possibly have that a billionaire would want? My body? The thought was laughable. This was the man who had slept on a cot at the foot of my bed for three years, never once trying to touch me.

I tried to leave again, but he was suddenly in front of me, blocking my path. He leaned in close, his scent-sandalwood and success-filling my senses. His voice dropped to a low, suggestive murmur. "You're a beautiful woman, Callie. You know what I want."

The implication was so vile, so unexpected, that I gasped. I shoved him away, my hand striking his chest. "You're disgusting! You have a girlfriend! Your 'true love'!"

I was shaking with a mixture of rage and hurt. He wanted to buy me, like some cheap commodity, just to humiliate me. Because he couldn't have the one he really wanted? Was that it?

His expression shifted, the predatory gleam replaced by a familiar, chilling coldness. "Get out," he said flatly.

I didn't need to be told twice. I fled his office, my heart pounding a frantic, painful rhythm.

My parents rushed toward me the second I stepped out of the building. "What did he say? Did he agree?" my mother asked breathlessly.

I just shook my head, unable to speak.

"That ungrateful bastard!" my father exploded. "After everything we did for him! The white-eyed wolf!"

"No," I said, finding my voice. "You don't understand. He doesn't owe us anything. We were awful to him. I was awful to him. He has every right to hate me."

My parents just stared at me, their faces a mask of confusion and despair. My father started muttering about finding a bridge, and my mother burst into tears. My head throbbed. The immediate problem wasn't Kane. It was money. We were being hounded by creditors.

Back at the apartment, the weight of our situation crushed me. My brother, who had always been so popular, called every friend he had. No one answered. He hurled his phone against the wall, screaming about fair-weather friends. I just sighed. When you're at the top, everyone wants to be your friend. When you fall, you fall alone.

"Callie, please," my father begged again, his voice weak. "Go back to him. You must have gotten some of his property in the divorce, right?"

I couldn't tell them I' d signed a prenup that left me with nothing. I couldn't add that final failure to their mountain of sorrows.

"I won't let her go back there to be humiliated!" my brother, Julian, snapped, ever my protector.

My mother looked at me, her eyes filled with concern. "Did he... did he humiliate you, sweetie?"

"No," I lied, the word scraping my throat. "He didn't."

She seemed to relax, a flicker of that insane hope returning to her eyes. "See? He still cares. He's just playing hard to get."

I couldn't take it anymore. I stood up. "I'm going to find a job."

I didn't have a resume. I didn't have any skills, other than spending money and planning parties. But I was beautiful. And in this world, that was a currency of its own.

I knew a place that paid well. A place I had spent countless nights, dropping thousands of dollars without a second thought. "Elysium."

The manager, a man named Marcus who I' d tipped generously for years, looked shocked to see me at the service entrance. But when I told him I needed a job, a flicker of pity crossed his face. He hired me on the spot as a bottle girl, assigning me to the most exclusive VIP room. "The tips are insane in there," he said with a wink.

My heart pounded with a nervous mix of shame and hope. Maybe I could do this. Maybe I could save my family.

I pushed open the door to the VIP room, a bottle of ludicrously expensive champagne in my hand, my face fixed in a practiced, charming smile.

And then I saw him.

Kane.

He was sitting in the centre of the plush velvet sofa, a woman I didn' t recognize draped over his arm. He was surrounded by men I knew-sons of billionaires and hedge fund managers, my old crowd. Men who used to trip over themselves to get my attention.

He looked... different. The quiet, awkward scholar was gone. In his place was a man who radiated a dark, magnetic confidence. He was laughing, a low, rumbling sound that I had never heard before. It hit me then, with the force of a physical blow: the quiet, gentle man I had married was a character. A role he played with masterful skill. And I had been his fool.

My face burned with shame. I wanted to run, to disappear. A whistle cut through the air.

"Well, well, look what the cat dragged in," sneered a voice I knew. Leo Vance. His family had been trying to get in with mine for years. Now, he was looking at me like I was something he'd found on the bottom of his shoe. "The fallen princess. Come to serve us peasants?"

The other men laughed. I felt their eyes on me, stripping me bare. I knew what was coming. The humiliation was just beginning.

I took a deep breath. I needed the money. For my father, for my mother. I could do this. I could swallow my pride.

My smile felt brittle, like it might shatter. "Leo. Good to see you. Can I get you gentlemen another bottle?"

Another man, Mark, a pig I' d always despised, smirked. "I've got a better idea. I'll give you five thousand dollars if you get on your knees and bark like a dog for us."

The room erupted in laughter. I stood frozen, my blood turning to ice. I glanced at Kane, a desperate, silent plea in my eyes. Help me.

He just watched me, his expression coolly indifferent, a silent spectator to my degradation. He wasn't going to save me.

My heart shattered. He really did hate me.

"Just selling drinks, Mark," I said, my voice surprisingly steady.

"Come on, Callie," Leo taunted, waving a black credit card. "Ten thousand. Just one little bark. For old times' sake."

Another man chimed in. "I'll make it twenty, if you crawl over here and lick the champagne off my shoes."

I stared at them, my former friends, my circle. Why were they being so vicious? Then I understood. It wasn't about me. It was about him. Kane must have told them we were divorced. He must have told them how much he despised me. This was their way of currying favor with the new king.

I thought of my father on the windowsill. I thought of the eviction notice. What was my pride worth now?

"You know, Leo," I said, my voice dangerously sweet. "You're notoriously cheap. I've seen you haggle over a tip. There's no way you'd part with twenty grand." I looked him straight in the eye. "But you know what? Fine. One hundred thousand. Put it on the table, and I'll do it."

I knew he wouldn't. He was all talk.

He flushed, rage and embarrassment warring on his face. "You bitch! You think you're still in a position to make demands?"

I was losing. I was out of moves. The money they were offering... it could solve so many problems. It could keep my father off that ledge.

I took a deep, shuddering breath. "Fine," I whispered, the word tasting like poison. "Twenty thousand."

I closed my eyes, my spirit cracking, and began to lower myself to the floor.

Just as my knee was about to touch the carpet, a strong hand gripped my elbow, halting my descent.

"Stop."

It was Kane.