Night descended, wrapping the penthouse in a heavy, velvet shroud. Mia Clarke stepped out of the bathroom, rubbing a towel through her damp hair. The suite was a tomb of silence. Tonight, it seemed, would be another night spent alone.

Damien Lancaster's movements were always a cipher. Aside from Gideon Vance, almost no one in this house knew where the Sovereign truly was at any given moment. Vanishing for two weeks was a standard rotation in his world.

Mia rarely called him. In the beginning, it was because she didn't want to; she only felt safe in the void of his absence. But lately, the resistance had turned into a fragile, glass-like fear. The feeling of walking on thin ice was exhausting, especially when she began to suspect she was developing a feeling for him that she couldn't name—a dangerous dependency on her captor.

She retreated into her own silence. If I don't offer up my heart, she told herself, it cannot be discarded.

She climbed into the large, silk-sheeted bed—a sanctuary of manufactured warmth—and picked up a book from the nightstand. It was a volume she had scavenged from Damien's study, filled with dense, archaic Greek. It felt like a window into a primal culture that seemed at odds with a man who dealt in blood and offshore manifests.

Previously, she thought he was a man of zero sentiment—a creature of bullets and balance sheets. But time had eroded that certainty. He was an Amazonian jungle—a labyrinth of shadows where he used his own lethal brilliance to lure her deeper into the trees.

Walter Benjamin once wrote that the only way to truly know a person is to love them without hope.

Mia realized then that Damien was more ruthless than she'd imagined. He hadn't just bound her body; he was laying siege to her soul.

The Greek philosophy was a headache. As Dr. Alistair Sterling often joked, Damien's brain functioned on a wavelength that didn't coincide with normal humanity. Mia finally sighed, reached for the remote, and clicked on the television.

Damien's face filled the screen.

It was the late-night financial news. In the "white world," Damien Lancaster was a titan of industry and a premier taxpayer whose philanthropic reach made even his enemies hesitate. The report was a replay: he had just closed a massive multinational merger and signed a new face for the Lancaster luxury line.

The camera focused on the Sovereign standing beside a stunning spokesperson. Under the high-definition lens, his beauty was undeniable—a sharp, symmetrical elegance that transcended the word "handsome". The woman clung to his arm, her fingers lingering on the sleeve of his tailored suit in a way that telegraphed her adoration to the world.

Mia couldn't tell if the coldness in his eyes had softened into tenderness for the girl on screen.

She clicked the TV off. She needed to do something else. She climbed out of bed, her mind drifting to the nature of men like Damien. He spent half his life traveling the globe; to a man with his capital—technique, beauty, and bottomless wealth—the world was an all-you-can-eat buffet of dewy romances and one-minute stands.

I wonder, she thought, staring out the window, just how many women he has waiting in the shadows…

"Are you wondering how many other women I have out there...?"

The voice was a low, cool rasp against the back of her neck.

Mia nearly jumped out of her skin. She hadn't heard the door. She hadn't heard a single footstep. He moved like a ghost—or a predator. Before she could turn, his arms were a cage around her, his head dipping to press a lingering kiss into the crook of her neck.

"When did you get in?" she gasped, her heart hammering against her ribs.

"Five minutes ago." He answered with a languid indifference, his lips grazing her skin. "What were you thinking about?"

"You already guessed."

"I want to hear you say it."

Mia realized there was no point in arguing with him. When she tried to turn away, she felt his hand slip beneath the hem of her pajama top. She froze, then sighed in surrender.

"Fine. I was wondering... if every Lancaster contract requires the CEO to personally sell his body to the spokesperson?"

Damien let out a short, genuine laugh.

He swept her off her feet, carrying her across the room before dropping her onto the silk duvet. He followed her down, pinning her with his weight, his knees braced on either side of her hips. The hunger in his pale gray eyes was primal—the raw, possessive desire of a man claiming what was his.

"You only came back for this...?" she whispered, trying to push against his chest.

"A man's body, when starved for too long, stops listening to reason," he murmured, his fingers unbuttoning his shirt with methodical grace. "This is what we call the Era of Instinct."

He was quoting philosophy to justify his lust. Mia felt a flicker of desperation. She suddenly remembered a piece of advice from Catherine Winters—the lovely girl they called Kitten. She had taught her: With a man like Damien, you have to be more shameless than him.

"Let's play a game first," Mia challenged, her voice trembling slightly. "If you win, I'll do whatever you want."

Damien paused, a wicked, intrigued smile curling his mouth. This wasn't her style. This smelled like Julian's "little brat" had been whispering in her ear.

He leaned down, biting her earlobe softly. "Deal. But if I win... I want double payment."

It was a simple draw of cards.

Mia watched in horror as Damien casually flipped over the Ace of Hearts from the scattered deck. Her heart sank. She had lost—completely and utterly.

"Did you cheat?" she asked, her voice weak.

Damien laughed again, the sound dark and musical. "For a level like yours? I don't need to cheat."

Mia felt like a fool. Kitten had promised her this trick was foolproof, a secret taught by a grandmaster. She swore she'd used it on Julian Lancaster a dozen times with success.

Damien reached out, tipping her chin up with two fingers. "Mia, a word of advice: never believe a word Catherine Winters says. She lies nine times out of ten."

"But Kitten said it worked on Julian every time..."

Damien's eyes sparked with a predatory cunning. "Julian has a soft heart; he lets her win because he is spoiling her. I'm the one who taught that game to Julian and Alistair when we were children. Kitten learned it from Alistair and thought she'd found a key to win."

Mia felt as if she'd been struck by lightning. Kitten was a disaster.

Damien suddenly scooped her into his arms again.

"Hey! What are you—"

He began walking toward the bathroom, his grip iron-tight, his smile devastatingly beautiful and entirely wrong.

"Like I said," he murmured against her lips, "I won. Now, I'm here to collect double."