When she stopped with her jeans round her knees, looking up at me with those plaintive eyes of hers, I was ready. I took a step towards her, clenching my hand into a fist. It worked like a charm.

She winced, as if she thought I might strike her. Then she looked down again, continuing to peel her jeans down to her ankles.

It was different to last time. Even at the beginning, they were always so eager to please, racing to get their clothes off, awaiting my approval. She wasn’t like that. She was acting as if it would be the worst thing in the world to be naked in front of me. Maybe it was. But I couldn’t stop now. I’d broken my own rules by not giving her the safe word, it was too late to turn back.

I felt an excitement with her that I hadn’t felt with any of the others. She was the first one who might actually do it, might actually break and let me walk out of life with the final victory I craved.

A tiny pang of guilt appeared deep inside me as she struggled with her jeans. She was innocent. She had not done anything to deserve any of this. I was going to ruin her life and she had done nothing.

The only thing I can say in my defence is that she wasn’t a person to me at the time, she was a tool, a tool to help me achieve what I wanted, which was to get revenge on Emilia.

If I’m honest, that’s what all of this was about. I was empty inside and the rot had set in when she broke me. I had tried to ignore it, throwing myself into the only thing I knew how to do, making money.

At first that was enough but as the rewards got greater, so did the darkness until I realised there was no reason to keep going. I had made a billion. I had an empire that stretched around the world. I had nothing to do but sit on my wealth or watch it get leeched away. Neither idea suited me.

Trying to break women on the other hand, now that suited me. That was a challenge. A real challenge.

For a little while, I was able to forget the emptiness inside me, focus on the work, on twisting and shaping their minds until they were beholden to me, dependent on me.

The trouble, if I’m realistic, was that they came into things too eager to please me. All I had to do was click my fingers and they’d obey. I didn’t want that. Where was the challenge?

The previous ones had all failed and as Zoey stood in front of me, those slender, pale legs of hers gradually revealing themselves, I had my first real spark of excitement, genuine, pure, true.

It was amusing to watch her try and kick off her shoes with her jeans in the way. She almost fell, having to balance on the wall to manage it.

When her shoes were finally off, she tugged the jeans off her legs and then stood up again. “Wow,” I muttered, cursing myself for saying the word out loud. It had just slipped out. I hadn’t intended to tell her how good her legs looked, that wasn’t part of the process.

I covered myself by scowling at her when she looked at me. “Get the rest of it off,” I said, “my patience wears thin.”

With her face resigned, she pushed her jacket from her shoulders, the blouse going with it, leaving her in just her bra and panties.

I managed to resist saying anything this time, though she looked stunning to behold. “Can I keep my underwear on?” she asked, her voice timid.

“Call me Sir.”

“What?”

“Call me Sir,” I repeated.

“Can I keep my underwear on, please, Sir.”

“Good girl. No, you can’t. I want to see what you look like naked.”

“Don’t make me do it,” she said, shaking her head. “Please, let me go.”

“Not for a week,” I said, taking a menacing step towards her. “Last chance. Strip.”

“I can’t,” she whispered, shaking her head.

I turned and opened the door, picking up the pot from the landing outside, sliding it across the floor to her.

“What’s that for?” she asked as I scooped up her clothes.

“You’ll soon find out. This door will not be opened again until you’re naked.”

Then I walked out of the room and locked the door behind me, ignoring the screaming coming from inside. The sound was good, the sound made me feel alive. I could smell her on the clothes draped over my arm. It was a good smell.

“Let me out,” she cried over and over again, her fists thudding into the wood on the other side. “You can’t keep me here.”

Yes I can, I thought as I patted the contract in my pocket.

The others had undressed all too readily, desperate to gain my approval. Not her. She was shy.

The thought made me smile. It turned out that what I had needed wasn’t someone from the agency, it was someone innocent. I was an idiot for not realising it sooner but it made perfect sense.

She would be harder to mould, to twist into the shape I wanted. It would break her all the more when I tossed her aside afterwards. I could go to my grave with a smile on my face. I’d have won. Emilia would have lost.

I walked away from the room and along the hall, turning the corner before unlocking another door. Stepping inside, I pulled back the chair by the desk. I slumped down into it. In the drawer next to me was everything on Emilia.

Making the motion I’d done so often before, I reached down to the drawer then away, my thoughts a curse, don’t torture yourself, don’t do this to yourself.

Then back to the drawer, unlocking it, reaching inside, pulling out the metal tin. Onto the desk, resting it in the usual space. Open the tin. Inside was waiting for me, like an injection of pure pain into my veins.

The photo. The only photo I kept of her. The smile on her face, about to break into laughter as I made faces behind the camera. I only had to close my eyes to remember taking that photo, the smell of the ocean, the crashing waves, her friends in a huddle a few yards away. Cornwall, ten years ago. A county I had refused to visit since. No matter where my business took me over the intervening years, I never went back.

A week’s holiday. Christ, I could write an entire novel about that week. Emilia and me. Me and Emilia. The girl I’d loved for so many years I couldn’t count them was by my side, her hand slipped into mine as the world faded away.

I made so many plans that week. Then the end of the holiday. The plans crushed. My love crushed. Finding out she had only done it for “a joke.”

It might not sound like much but imagine being in love with the woman you considered your soulmate, then finding out everything you thought you knew was a lie.

It took ten years to make myself a billionaire. It took a cold heart to make it happen. It took a week for her to break me. That took a cold heart too.

I put the photo of her back in the tin and took out the letter. Her apology. She hadn’t meant me to get too attached. So many platitudes but I knew the truth. I was a game to her and her friends.

I didn’t have the letter I sent back to her. The one that told her exactly what I thought of her game, how I was going to make it as a businessman and when I did, the first thing I would do was put her father out of business.

I did that two years later. I expected it would give me some satisfaction, revenge well earned. But all it did was increase the darkness inside me. A darkness which kept growing until I became the man who put the tin back in the drawer and returned to the room where Zoey was locked away.

She had given up screaming. “Ready to strip?” I asked through the door.

“Go to hell,” she replied.

“Already there,” I muttered as I walked away for a second time.