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Until then, he’s my responsibility. I have to look out for him so he won’t go to Oliver or suspect anything. Just until I get my shit together and figure out what the hell I’m doing with Ophelia.

I won’t use her and cast her aside, that’s for sure.

Anyway. Topher.

He doesn’t stop calling. Suspicion and concern rise inside of me. They quicken my steps. I close the door behind me and walk down the hall.

I’m not concerned about Ophelia leaving me or getting out of bed. Or this house. Physically, that’s impossible.

She can steal my clothes. Or she can find the ones I stocked and organized for her in the adjacent room while she’d been in the cell downstairs. Everything was ordered through my personal shopper the morning after I bought Ophelia.

I had no intention of keeping her. No idea what I was going to do with her. How to fix this part of the convoluted plot that was my life.

Regardless, I had it stocked. I hung and placed every piece of clothing on the hangers and drawers myself.

So yeah. She can grab something from there.

But she’ll never make it out of the premises. The farthest she can get is past the round driveway and toward the gates. If she ever gets that far.

Over the years, no one has been in or out of this estate without my permission. And not for lack of trying.

I descend the curved staircase to the main floor, taking the call in the privacy of my den. It shouldn’t take long. He’s a grown ass man, capable of taking care of his own problems.

And I need to be with her.

“Topher.”

“Dad.” It’s early morning in Spain. There’s music surrounding him. Muted, though. He’s stepped away from the party. “We have to talk.”

He sounds worn out. Different. His confidence is missing. I didn’t raise him to be like this. It grates on my nerves that after the initiation, while he’s celebrating, I hear weakness in his voice.

He’s keeping me from Ophelia because he can’t hold it together without me for a week?

“What’s wrong?” Darkness stares back at me from the window. “I told you I’d call.”

“Ophelia.”

Her name on his lips. He pushes it out as if he didn’t mean to say it. I sure as fuck didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t see it coming.

“What about her?” Possessiveness slithers into my voice. I clear my throat. “The auction went well if it’s my approval you’re after. The buyer hasn’t returned her.”

The other one, Miss Johnson, hasn’t complained about Baylor’s mysterious kidnapping. Despite the millions she’d shelled on the girl. She might be ashamed that she’d gotten away. Might be scared to bitch and whine and ask for a refund.

Who cares.

“The buyer,” he hisses, sounding less pathetic than before. My hackles rise. I listen carefully. “Ophelia doesn’t belong to him.”

The urge to shoutthe fuck she doesn’tis intense. Demanding.

She’s mine. Mine. Mine.

I shove it down. Soon, the secret will be out. When I decide it’s time. When the new plan that’s forming in my head is foolproof.

“He bought her, Topher.” I run a hand through my hair, tugging at the roots. “That means she’s his. Is that why we needed to talk? So I can explain to you how auctions work? Did Oliver leave something out?”

“Always so cold, aren’t you, Dad?” A glass breaks on his side.

“Tantrums are beneath you.” If I sound disdainful, it’s because I feel it. Even Ophelia’s sobbing wasn’t so…pathetic. Truthfully, she wasn’t pathetic at all. “Beneath every Hawthorne man.”