He told me not to speak unless spoken to. But he never stopped looking. The first time I saw him, I dropped the glass tray. It shattered across the marble floor, loud and wrong in that silent house. Everyone flinched. I froze. Everyone except him. He didn’t yell. He didn’t blink. He just stared. Cold grey eyes, cut from stone. A suit that clung to him like sin. And lips that barely moved when he spoke the first words he ever said to me: “Leave it. Walk away.” But I couldn’t move. Not when my knees were trembling. Not when my throat was dry. Not when he stepped closer. He crouched down, picked up a shard of glass, and ran his thumb across the edge—slowly. “Next time,” he murmured, “don’t break something that doesn’t belong to you.” His thumb was bleeding. But he didn’t care. He was looking at me like I did belong to him. That was the beginning. Before the rules. Before the threats. Before the first time he pressed me up against that cold granite counter and whispered, “I told you not to tempt me, maid.” I should have run then. But how do you escape a man who owns the world... and now wants to own you?