Over the next few days, things settle down a little into a routine for us.

Owen works a lot, and while he’s gone, I make my calls to social services, bank loan officers, and the expensive lawyer I’ve hired with the money from my new escort contract. I touch base with my brothers and sisters to assure them that I’m still here and I haven’t forgotten them.

But I also take some time to go shopping for more beautiful clothing just as Owen suggested, because I know that will please him.

Last of all, I dance in the music room, laughing until my happiness echoes off the high, sterile walls.

Whenever he comes home, we eat together, our discussions never straying from the nice, civil tone we established that first night of our newest agreement. I learn more than I thought I ever would about the medical robotics and artificial intelligence his company is developing, and my art history-major imagination can’t help but paint all of his avid descriptions into complicated yet beautiful designs and practical sculptures.

The incredible, mind-blowing sex doesn’t change either, and I’m get deeper and deeper into him. Is he doing the same with me? Because, some nights during our afterglow, he stays to cuddle with me, stroking my hair, making me feel cared for and so very safe.

Sometimes he stays an hour. Sometimes most of the night. But I always wake up to him being gone.

Tonight starts off the same as it always does after he gets home—with a lovely dinner from Chef Thomas (roasted cod with a ratatouille), a little bit of wine (I’ve definitely learned how much I can handle.), and then I go straight to my room.

I ready myself for Owen, using all those lotions and soaps he’s bought me, and then I wait.

Sometimes I recline in bed for him covered only with a sheet.

Sometimes I pose in a chair, feeling sexy in the sheer, delicate lingerie he bought for me.

Whatever he asks for, I give him, and he always responds with an intensity that makes me come for him with noisy, unrestrained fervor.

Tonight I’m lying face-to-face with him long after we’ve gotten it on. He’s stayed with me and has fallen asleep with his burly arm possessively curved over me. I can’t get to sleep myself because I’m edgy, hoping that this will be the night that he doesn’t leave me for his own bed. I want him to stay, to finally cross that flashing red line that separates casual sex from real sex, the kind I want with him more than anything.

The curtains are open, fully letting in the bright moonlight. Shadows from the trees dance over Owen’s face as I risk touching his cheek.

My fingertips scratch against his skin. Lately he’s started to come to me with a bit of stubble on him, and it makes me think that he’s loosening up around me.

I touch his hair, which has grown out ever so slightly, as if he’s letting his inner wildness come out a little there, too.

Night by night, it seems that he’s slowly turning into my dirty guy—or at least dirtier than the man I initially met. I doubt he knows what’s happening to him though, because by day, he goes right back to being rigid and impeccable.

But at least I have this Owen after dark.

I continue touching his hair, his face, stroking him, half afraid he’ll open his eyes and catch me. Half afraid that he won’t.

Then, out of nowhere, he jerks in his sleep, and I brace myself, because sometimes this happens with him—bad dreams. Only twice so far, but I think this is one of the reasons he never stays the entire night.

His expression tightens, and he takes his arm from around me, rolling to his back while pushing one hand away from him in unconscious agitation. It’s as if he’s fighting something off, and I can’t help but think that he’s in a shrinking room that’s suffocating him. As sweat emerges on his tanned skin, I wish I knew what really haunted him.

I wish I knew what to do.

He hauls in a choking breath, startling upward. His breathing is heavy as he remains sitting there, tensed up and clearly confused.

I sit up, too, but I don’t touch him. I made that mistake once, only to be brusquely shrugged off. And even though he looked at me as if he regretted it, the damage to my heart was done.

Now he looks around while fisting his hands, then lowering them as if he finally realizes that the dream is over; he sees the calm, orderly room he’s actually in. As he shakes his head, he draws up his knees and harshly runs his fingers through his dark hair, putting himself back together again.

I don’t say anything. Instead, I let him get out of bed. His bared muscles are taut all over his massive body as if he’s coiled, stressed and ready to spring.

Please don’t go anywhere tonight, I think. Please stay and let me make you happy.

By some miracle, all he does is move toward a silver velvet chair near the window. He slumps into it, controlling his breathing, looking outside at the crooked tree branches silhouetted against the moonlight.

I know he’ll probably get the chair cleaned tomorrow because of naked skin and germs and all the subtle messes he’s making by sitting there.

Then again, whenever he’s with me in the bedroom, he never seems to mind being that way, at least in the heat of the moment.

Still in bed, I lean toward him, silent but wanting oh-so badly to help. He looks absolutely lost, and my heart aches for him.

I let a minute pass, then another until he finally glances over at me.

I don’t think I need to say anything, because that dark look is an acknowledgement of what just happened. I only know that it’s okay now if I slide out of bed and slip onto his lap.

As I cuddle against him, my flesh against his, he pulls me close. I nestle my face into his neck. The sweat on his skin feels cool against mine, his body hard against my soft one.

I feel his heartbeat knocking against my lips, and I kiss his tensed vein. He holds me tighter.

What makes you this way? I want to ask. What happened to you in the past?

“I woke you up,” he finally murmurs.

“I wasn’t sleeping anyway.” Before your nightmare I was watching you, wishing you’d wake up and tell me everything about you and how you feel about me.

“Work is stressful right now,” he says. “It carries over into my personal time.”

I’m pretty sure he’s making excuses, but I don’t question him. I only want to lighten his load.

“Well,” I say while easing my arm around his wide chest and hugging him, “that’s why I majored in art history. Low stress, high reward.”

I already feel his muscles getting looser, like ropes that have been given some slack. “Are you sure about that? I don’t think any serious career is absent of stress.”

“In my naïve, optimistic mind, yes. I’m very sure that I’ll have the best of both worlds. Eventually.”

He laughs a little, as if testing to see if it feels right.

It must, because he strokes a finger over my hip. “And what do you think the rewards will be in your future?”

Do you mean after I get my siblings back in our family home? But I rub my face against his neck instead of saying it out loud.

“Eventually,” I repeat, “I want to be a curator, either for museums or private art collectors. Or I’ll teach.”

“I can have Nat put together a list of my business associates who could use a good art advisor.”

His generosity stuns me. But then I parse out his words.

Business associates. Not friends. I’m not sure this man has the time or inclination for those, and I hold him tighter. In response, he brings me even closer to him.

I sigh. I could stay here forever, in his secure, iron-banded arms.

“Owen,” I say, “you’ve done enough for me already. You don’t have to start a client list, too.”

“It’d be anonymously done.”

It’s like a splash of cold water on the moment, a reminder that I’m still his Highest Bidder escort and there’ll be no future between us.

He seems to realize that, and he rocks me slightly, pressing his lips to my head and consoling me as if I’m the one who had the bad dream. But isn’t that true? Isn’t that my life in a nutshell? A nightmare that’s only been interrupted by this wonderful yet perplexing time with him.

Through the air vents, the heat blows on, white noise that sounds so comforting as he continues to cuddle with me. We don’t need to say anything else—for now, this is enough for me, and I think it’s enough for him.

It’s almost as if the bad dream never happened.

At least I think that for a while, because eventually I feel him start to tense up again. I think he’s becoming aware that our cuddling is too intimate. Or maybe he’s getting agitated about our naked skin on his velvet chair. Both that and our intimacy are two big messes that will need to be cleaned up.

He rises to his feet with me in his arms then carries me to the bed. He gently lays me down on the mattress. As he draws the sheet and bedspread over my body to tuck me in, my blood sings a sad tune. From the look on his face, I know that he’s disturbed, and it’s not only because of the germs we’ve left behind on the silver velvet chair.

His emotions were messy in front of me, and it’s time to wash that away.

He glances back at the chair, as if battling the urge to start cleaning it now, but in a fit of need, I grab his hand.

As he looks back down at me, I see the war going on in his dark eyes—compulsion versus me. Which one will win tonight? And even if I’m the winner for now, will I come out the loser in the end?

When he entwines his fingers with mine, my hopes soar. I know my gaze is asking him a question I don’t dare say out loud.

Will you stay with me?

The war continues in him, but the longer it goes on, the more my chest wells with sorrow. Maybe I can’t win this. Maybe he isn’t capable of letting go of whatever haunts him.

He bends down to kiss my forehead, then tucks me in a little more. All the while my heart breaks.

“Goodnight, Juliet,” he says against my forehead.

And then he’s gone, just as he always is.

I don’t fall asleep. My head is foggy with memories of how it used to be with us, back when I thought he was an ogre, back before our new contract went into effect.

I’m once again bewildered and stinging because of him.

But somehow I make it through the night. The next morning begins my usual routine.

Get out of bed and prepare for the day.

Eat breakfast.

Get ready to work with the bank, make calls to social services and ancillary organizations, my lawyer, etc., try to get in touch with whichever of my siblings is available to speak.

But when the afternoon rolls around, my routine is thrown off course.

Owen comes home from work much earlier than usual.

Nat is the one who tells me he’s here, and I excitedly leave everything at the desk in the den where I’ve been working.

He’s home! Early. What does that mean?

I’m almost out of the room when my phone rings, stopping me cold, because it’s the ringtone I assigned to my lawyer.

Torn, I stand there for a second, but I know what I have to do.

I go back to the desk to take the call. Just as I lift up the phone, I see Owen appear in the doorway.

He’s actually smiling a little, dressed in one of his perfect suits and filling it out with every hard muscle on his amazing body. He looks happy to see me.

But I’m already answering. “Hello?”

“Juliet? This is Edgar. I’ve got some troubling news.”

Owen’s smile fades as he watches me. He must see the terror on my face, because he tenses up. He still doesn’t want the chaos of my emotions, but I can’t hide them as my lawyer goes on.

“The foster parents who are taking care of Jasmine are trying to stop you from getting her back.”

Jasmine, my youngest. My eleven-year-old sister. The one who called me on the jet because she missed our parents and me so badly.

As the news sinks in, I feel sick, and I slump down into the nearest seat because my legs won’t hold me up. I lose my cool in front of Owen, whose expression has gone blank as he folds his hands behind his back.

Then my lawyer puts the nail in the coffin. “They want to try and adopt her, Juliet.”