Paid to Leave, Chained to Stay

You ever fall for your own sex toy? That was Sebastian Thorne, swirling a glass of whiskey, looking at me like I was something he'd stepped in. The whole room howled.

His one great love had walked out on him that week. So he turned to me, his numberone simp, for practice. He took what he wanted. The kissing, and everything after. No tenderness.

No brakes. Everyone watched me humiliate myself. I kept wagging my tail. Right up until the week before college.

His mother wired me the last of my money and gave me that smile. "I do love a girl who'll sell anything for the right price. Run along now." So I took the cash and vanished. Clean.

And that same night, the coldblooded heir who'd raised his glass and called me his toy in front of everyone opened his wrists over me.

Chapter 1 I never thought I'd see Sebastian Thorne again. After I disappeared, the story tore through New York: the Thorne heir had tried to die for love.

For about a day, I let myself believe the love was me. In London, I said it out loud to the only friend I had. Maybe he loved me too? She sent me three screenshots.

Then she popped the fantasy like a balloon. "He didn't do it because you were gone." "Marguerite Sinclair was getting married off to seal some family deal.

Sebastian opened his wrists to force his mother to call it off. He saved Marguerite." Marguerite. Her name literally meant daisy. Everyone found that charming. I laughed.

It stung, a little. At least his mother paid well. I left the country with eight figures in the bank and put myself through school twice over.

Six years later, my firm shipped me back to New York. First gala on the calendar, and there he was. I'd spent the better part of ten years as this man's dog.

I walked over to say hello. Not just for old times. He was a client worth landing. "Mr. Thorne. It's good to—" His eyes slid off me like I wasn't there.

My hand hung in the air, a punchline with no joke. A guy from the office caught my elbow and reeled me in. "Daisy. Come grab a drink?" And just like that, I was fine again.

I turned to go. I didn't notice the look pinned to my back. Dark. Sick. Patient. I don't remember much after the third glass. Someone poured me into the car my firm had sent.

The door clicked shut. An arm hooked around my waist and dragged me back against a chest that ran too warm, too solid, like it meant to fold me in and keep me there.

Something was wrong. I pulled against it. Cold kissed my ankle.

A voice I hadn't heard in years slid along my ear, low and hoarse, the end of every word tipping up with something close to delight. Metal clicked shut.

A thin chain, softlined, still warm from his hand. The arm at my waist drew tighter. "Locked up. Then you can't run, can you." "...that summer.

I should never have let you walk out of it." My heart kicked.

And somewhere at the back of all those memories, the thing that had never quite added up shifted, and showed me its edge. Sebastian Thorne was a prize. Beautiful. Rich. Adored.

The only son. Whoever kept him kept the biggest family in New York. So he was never short on worshippers. Gorgeous ones, clever ones, an endless river of them.

He looked straight through every last one. Except me. Because people are perverse. They crave the flavor that isn't for sale.

The first time he kissed me, he looked like a man walking to the gallows. Then he pulled back and threw up. I'll admit I had no pride. But I wasn't a saint about it either.

Especially at two in the morning, scrolling his story, my throat tight enough to cry. He'd posted: Like eating shit. My eyes started to flood. Payment received: $50,000.

Tears back in the drawer. That was my workers' comp for the job of being Sebastian Thorne's dog. His mother paid people to watch him. To keep the pretty ones off.

One of those people was me. Fifty grand a hit. Best job I ever had. Chapter 2 There was a line of girls up for the job.

His mother picked me. "Ugly, and desperate for money." She said it like a compliment. "Exactly what I need." Not one word I wanted to hear. "Watch him. A hundred grand a month.

Do it well and I'll take you to five." That word, I wanted to hear. I wanted it so badly I could taste it. I was eight.

A nobody fresh off a bus from a town that doesn't make the map. Sebastian was in love with the Sinclair girl. Of course he was.

It reads like a novel, and in every novel the untouchable first love gets on a plane. Years went by. He chased Marguerite to the airport to lay his heart at her feet.

Whatever she said to him in that terminal, he came back with a face like a storm. On the drive home, he finally turned that face on me.

The one that didn't look born so much as designed. "Daisy.

You really like me that much?" I leaned in on reflex, all eager eyes. "I love you." He handed down the verdict like a god, calm as anything. "Then let me play with you." Stars in my eyes, I nodded. "Does this mean I get to be your girlfriend?" He reached out.

One long, pale knuckle dragged along the shell of my ear. His face warmed, his mouth curling. "Idiot. So easy to fool.

Can you imagine how ugly our kid would turn out." Top down, the wind wrecking every curl on his head. God. No real person should look that much like a doll somebody built in a lab.

I lifted my hand and wound it up his arm like a vine. "That's okay. I still love you." "You've got a girl, and I love you. The kid would be ugly, so we won't have one.

I only love you." I looked at him and pictured a fat gold toad that coughed up coins. I looked so moved I cried. He'd probably never met anyone that shameless. It delighted him.

His mouth tipped up, one careless glance thrown my way. "Quit bawling. Don't die of joy on me." But I couldn't help it. His mother had just wired me a million dollars. All at once.

For years I was a junkyard dog guarding its bowl. I stood between Sebastian and the world and ran off everything that came sniffing, the good prospects and the bad.

I made a lot of enemies. Once word got out that I was his, the beautiful ones formed a committee to laugh at me. "You don't actually think he likes you?" "No mirror at home?

No shame?" I nodded. "My pee's been dark all week. Can't see a thing." Sebastian was off to my right. Sunk into the couch like a lifesize doll, he broke into a laugh. "Daisy.

Come here." If I really were a dog, here's the picture the room saw: He crooks a finger, the mutt comes flying, tail spinning like a rotor. I climbed into his lap and got bolder.

Nothing like borrowed teeth. I locked both arms around his waist and bared mine over my bowl. "He's mine." The laughter rolled up around us in waves, each one louder than the last.

The beauties who didn't take me seriously drifted over to try their luck anyway. Sebastian let me sit there and burrow into him.

He opened one hand, brow raised, smile lazy. "Come closer, if you're not scared of the dog." He was never short on company. He was short on quiet.

The ones who'd sharpened their knives, who'd sworn up and down they'd be the one to land him, fell back a thousand miles.

Every eye stayed fixed on me, pouring out the purest venom it had. Every polished shark in that room had run the numbers on him.

Somehow the stray nobody had trotted off with the whole prize. It was almost funny. The crowd thinned. Sebastian's big hand came down on my head. "Good dog." Good dog.

I leaned into it and did the math on my balance. Nobody thinks to check the dog that's counting.

Chapter 3 I pushed my luck. "Do I get a reward?" That halfdead look crossed his face again. A face like a painting leaned in. Closer.

In the end the kiss didn't land. "Next time." He set me aside like a coat and went to go race cars with the guys. Marguerite Sinclair was off studying music somewhere in Europe.

People praised her. They never missed the chance to grind a heel into me on the way past. "You probably don't even know how many keys a piano has." I typed back: "Nope.

Sebastian and I just use it as a bed. When it gets dirty we buy a new one." The group chat went dead quiet. None of these people had Sebastian.

That was the only reason I could run my mouth like that. The man threw up every time he kissed me, after all. So what. I took that round. By nightfall I had to hand the round back.

Because someone sent me a screenshot. Marguerite, maybe, going public with someone. Then someone sent a video. The caption read: [Sebastian's never drunk like this.

Her announcement gutted him.] In the video, he was crying into a bottle, choking out a name. "...daisy. My daisy..." His daisy. Right. Everyone knew who that was.

Even sobbing, he was a picture. The kind of face that makes strangers want to gather it up. Bet he'd be an even better show crying with his clothes off. That was as far as I got.

A glass bottle caught me square in the head and burst. Blood ran into my eyes. My mother shoved into my room and slammed the door. "You think it over yet?" I shook my head.

She backhanded me one way, then the other, until my face swelled. I ran my tongue over a back molar and smiled up at her anyway. "Ma.

Are we really out of men in the whole world?" A sixtyeightyearold geezer, or a twentyfouryearold with a rap sheet and a temper. Either way I was eating shit.

She crossed her arms and sneered. "I birthed you. I raised you. For what. That match came with a payout.

Who back home is ever going to put that kind of money on the table?" The cold went all the way through me. I dragged out a smile. "Let me go con Sebastian.

I'll squeeze an extra hundred grand out of him. Deal?" She looked me up and down. Scoffed. "You think rich people are blind?

You don't want to eat shit, but the little lord does?" Nothing to say to that. I said, "I've got a way. Give me one month." One more month and the last of my real money would land.

And then, oh, then. Freedom. My mother never knew about that job. She thought I brought home what she brought home.

Every month I put on a crying show, so she'd believe she was skimming every dollar I made. "We'll see what you've got. Your papers are all with me anyway.

Where exactly do you think you'd run to." She left and shut the door. I climbed off the bed and found the mirror. Wiped my eyes while I looked.

Blood and tears smeared the whole ugly mess of my face. Worse than before. Damn it. Once I had the money, I was fixing all of this.

Anybody who tells me I look like a movie star gets eight hundred bucks, cash. Sebastian left the country. Went to find Marguerite, they said. Ended up with her, they said.

All of it forwarded to me by people who wanted a frontrow seat to the show. "Daisy, you're honestly a joke." I sent back nine smug little emojis. "I'm happy. I love him.

A man keeps a rotation, that's normal, as long as he still wants to see me." They wrote: "You're a goddamn pickme. You know that?" I smiled.

Another five million landed in my account. Mrs. Thorne called me in to dinner. High standards, cold, forever looking down at you from somewhere higher up.

For once, she paid me something close to a compliment. "Less ugly than you were. Greedier, too. With grit like that, you'd land on your feet anywhere.

Even without the Thornes." I smiled with my eyes half shut. "Thank you for the chance, Mrs.

Thorne." She took an elegant sip of her wine, certain she had me measured to the last dollar. That was the thing about people who bought other people.

They always thought the price tag told them everything. Chapter 4 "Your new papers will be ready soon. One and a half million for the last payment.

I'll send the code for the card later." A black card slid across the table. I shot to my feet and bowed. Ninety degrees, then again. "Mrs.

Thorne, you're the closest thing to a parent I've ever had!" I smiled until my face nearly split. Something crossed those inkdark eyes of hers.

Half pity, half scorn, gone in a blink. Three million dollars. To buy a person outright. Both sides walked away certain they'd gotten the better end of it. Mrs.

Thorne trusted me completely. She knew her son would never love someone ordinary. And she knew I loved money more than I could ever love a man up in the clouds. I was practical.

I was honest. MidJuly, Sebastian came home. Glowing. In a rare good mood. I knew what that meant. He'd reached up and plucked down the moon.

Soon I'd be off living a life of my own. Over the years I'd thrown punches for Sebastian. Taken a knife for him. Been dragged into a kidnapping because of him.

When a hillside came down, I went in after him and dug him out of the rubble with my bare hands. Came out with a ruined leg and a fingernail peeled clean off.

That was what made my name. After that, everyone in the oldmoney circles knew the story: Sebastian Thorne kept a devoted attack dog. Loved him to the point of sickness.

Wouldn't let a soul look at him sideways. For three million dollars. I licked this man's boots with my life on the line. For me, broke felt worse than dead.

Nobody doubted that I loved him. Him included. That left the rest of the summer. Sebastian was headed up to the Thornwood estate to wait out the heat.

At dinner, he tapped at me, careless about it. "Daisy. Pack your things. You're coming with me." The air froze solid. Mrs.

Thorne's knife and fork hung midair, her thumb pressing down, slow.

Like she was grinding an ant to paste. "Since when," she said, "do you enjoy being alone with her." Fair question. Sebastian said maybe ten things to me on a given day.

Nine were some version of get lost, you're irritating. The tenth: "Daisy. Stop hovering.

You're so ugly I could throw up." Everyone under that roof knew he avoided me like a snake in the grass. So now. The molecules in the air rearranged themselves. Mrs.

Thorne was starting to wonder. About him. About me. I tripped over myself to swear fealty. "Mrs. Thorne, I answer to you and no one else." Sebastian's jaw went tight.

He let out a cold breath. "Daisy. Whose dog are you, exactly." "Fine. She doesn't have to come.

Send Marguerite back instead." That was the day I learned Marguerite's little exile had Mrs. Thorne's fingerprints all over it.

When you sit at the top, an uncontrolled feeling, for a person or a thing, is a catastrophe. Sebastian was the work she was proudest of.

A puppet with a preference might notice the strings. Might notice it was a person. Might fight. Mrs. Thorne needed him docile. Always.

I'd seen what he looked like, coming apart over Marguerite's photograph. Wild. Wrecked. A hurricane with a person still trapped inside it. He loved her. "Then bring Marguerite back.

Who the hell wants to be stuck with some backwater nobody!" "You think you can keep me on a leash forever?" Sebastian had an episode in him that was terrifying when it broke.

The whole family used the same word for it. Hysteria. Whatever it was, he destroyed everything around him, and himself along with it.

Everything within reach, he brought down. "Sebastian," Mrs. Thorne said. "You're having an episode again." "Genevieve. You're the sick one!" He stopped.

Both palms flat and hard on the table, eyes locked on his mother where she sat at the head. The whites gone red, a vein standing out at his temple.

Even in a rage, he didn't lose one ounce of that terrible grace. Chapter 5 Like a rose gone wrong. Something beautiful and warped, breathing out cold. "Get Dr. Rourke." Mrs.

Thorne gave the order without a flicker. The family doctor lived on the grounds. One turn down the hall and he was there. The sedative went in through the needle.

They pinned Sebastian down and carried him upstairs. By evening, I went up with his dinner. They watched me go like I was climbing a mountain of knives.

Whatever was behind that door, it wasn't going to let me walk back out. I went up, tray balanced, and pushed the door open.

The room was wreckage. "Sebastian." I said his name. "Lock the door." His voice came out halfhoarse, with a gravity to it that pulled you in. That made you want to step closer.

I turned the lock. I crossed the room. The blanket had slid halfway off the bed. He lay across it, throat tipped back, the jut of it like a cherry that hadn't ripened.

I never got over it. Beautiful people, pink even in the joints. I wondered if he was pink... "Help me out here." He was giving an order. The same tone he'd use for the weather.

For whatever was on the menu. "But I don't know how." His tippedback head shifted a fraction.

Full jaw, a little heart when you caught it upside down, his mouth more like a flower than a mouth. His voice stayed flat. "Like that time I handled it myself and you watched.

You didn't exactly look away." "Or I'll bite you." Sebastian had a lot of quiet habits. He liked to bite. The soft part of my forearm. My shoulder. My collarbone.

An oral fixation he'd never grown out of, he said. "If it isn't you, it's someone else.

My mother keeps me on such a short leash I don't have a single woman within reach." I mumbled it. "I'm a woman." His mouth curled, cold. "Please.

Furniture doesn't have a gender." "Hurry up. You want me to bite you to death?" Petulant. All bark. I weighed it, and moved closer. I eased aside what was in the way. So pale.

He shivered, not meaning to. The muscle down the center of him looked carved, every ridge cut to the same depth. Faint blue veins under skin like paper.

He dragged the blanket up and bit down hard on the corner of it. "...daisy..." The word came out of him, barely there.

I said, "Want me to go get her photo?" His jaw clenched. "Good idea." I started to move. His arm came across me and hooked me in closer.

A pair of amber eyes, gone deep and dark, fixed on me. Ink that wouldn't dissolve. "Forget it. Too much trouble.

I'll picture it myself." "Okay." Like I'd stumbled onto some incredible switch. I listened to him cry, the words stammering out of him, his breath coming uneven. I looked up.

Straight into those sullen, glittering eyes. I'd assumed he'd kept them shut the whole time, somewhere far away with Marguerite. He'd turned his head to the side a long while ago.

Every move I made had been playing out right in front of him. "Daisy." "Mm?" His left hand had nearly shredded the blanket.

His voice came apart at the seams, something unhinged threading through it.

Wet on his lashes, his throat working, a beautiful thing built to lure travelers off the road and drown them. "You want... ice cream