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The morning light was soft, filtered through the gauzy curtains in Elias’s suite. I realized now that even his fortress had seams of gentleness. Places where the world could get in.
I lay still for a moment, watching the rise and fall of his chest. He slept like a man who had finally put down his weapons. One arm thrown above his head, the other curved loosely in the space where my body had been just moments ago. He looked peaceful.
I did not feel peaceful.
I felt raw. Peeled back. Like if he opened his eyes right now and looked at me the way he had last night, I might shatter under the weight of it. So, I moved quietly.
I eased out of bed, careful not to wake him. My jeans were still on the chair where I’d left them, but the T-shirt I’d arrived in—his—was a casualty of the night before. Torn down the front, stretched and ruined. No way I was wearing it again unless I wanted to look like the poster girl for emotional reckoning.
I smirked despite myself and padded over to his dresser. The top drawer slid open with a soft groan, revealing a neat rowof T-shirts, all blacks and grays, soft from wear. I chose one that smelled like him—clean, dark, and a little dangerous—and pulled it over my head.
It hung low on my thighs, swallowing me whole in the best possible way. I slid into my jeans underneath, the denim stiff against skin still marked by his hands. The fabric grounded me, reminded me of who I was outside of this room.
I didn’t look at the gowns still hanging nearby. I’d felt guilty even trying them on, like I was faking a life that didn’t belong to me. Pretending I could be polished or perfect or … more.
In the quiet hush of morning, I crept through the halls of Dominion Hall, down the back stairs, through the heavy door Elias had programmed to open with my fingerprint.
My stomach twisted at that.
It was one thing to give a girl champagne and strawberries. It was another to encode her into your life like she belonged there.
Like she might stay.
The drive home wasn’t long. Charleston hadn’t quite woken yet. The streets were wet from a late-night rain, and the scent of salt and brick clung to everything. My tires hissed softly on the pavement, a rhythmic reminder of the world outside Elias’s moneyed cocoon.
Money.
God.
My skin prickled remembering what he’d said last night.
“My riches are your riches.”
He’d meant it. I could tell by the way he’d looked at me when he said it—like he was offering oxygen. Like he didn’t understand why I wasn’t already breathing it in.
And I wanted to. But guilt sat in my throat like a stone.
Because I knew what that kind of money could do. How it could fix things, patch holes, pull people back from the brink. I’d spent years pretending I didn’t care about it, spinningpoverty into poetry, sacrifice into strength. But that was a lie. A necessary one. Because the truth was, money had always been the thing we didn’t talk about. The thing that made everything harder.
And now I was sleeping with a man who had more of it than God.
What did that make me?
A dancer with broken dreams and a bleeding heart, suddenly standing on the edge of a gold-plated offer she couldn’t afford to take.
But I had a problem.
A real one. And no matter how many hours I worked, no matter how many ways I stretched my budget or talked myself out of needing help—I couldn’t fix it alone.
It was my mother.
More specifically, it was the disaster back home swallowing her whole.
Our mother was slipping away, piece by piece. The official diagnosis was dementia. A cruel, creeping thief. She lived in a memory care facility outside New Orleans now, the kind of place that smelled like lemon disinfectant and lost time. It wasn’t fancy, but it was safe. Structured. She needed that. Needed round-the-clock care to keep her from wandering into traffic or forgetting how the stove worked or who she was.
But last month, she’d been scammed. Some predator with a soothing voice and a fake badge had convinced her to wire away every last cent of her savings—said her Social Security number had been compromised, that her pension was in danger, that if she didn’t act fast, she’d lose everything. So she acted. Fast. Desperately. And now? She had nothing.
And the facility didn’t do charity. They gave us until the end of the month. After that, if we couldn’t pay, she’d be discharged.No extensions. No exceptions. Evicted like a tenant behind on rent.