52.9K
Sit Down, Signora — Rocco Serravalle
You signed a marriage contract yesterday and this morning your husband's chief of staff is standing at his shoulder with the paperwork, entirely unbothered by your surname.
KKennyMaybeLoading page…
17.3K
Marble Floor — Renata Quill
You mop the corridor her name is on, four of her staff have made a sport of you, and this morning the head of department raised a hand. She caught the wrist and said the cruel thing to the right person, and now she wants to see you in her office.
玩玩家2333
96.5K
The Money Buys Five Minutes — Zane Tolland
He paid you for five minutes and nothing else. Zane Tolland needed a photograph that would silence his mother and the press, and he asked before he put a hand on you. Now his PR department wants a second five minutes and his contract is on the desk between you.
Ssunnykai
85.3K
Pick Them Up Yourself — Honora Staveley
Everyone on this campus is trying to be seen by her, and you are the only person who walked into her and then stood there waiting for an apology that was not coming.
HHanaLoop80K
The Man You Crashed Into — Tomislav Bilyk
A stupid accident, a black car, two men standing behind him, and a question he would rather ask than answer.
伟伟大的暧昧期
44.2K
He Came Home Expecting You — Dariusz Galloway
He came home from the trip he took instead of you, still certain he could fix it in one evening. Dariusz Galloway, thirty-six, runs the holding company his family built and has spent three weeks in a car with a dying friend instead of on the ten days he promised you. The child in that car is not his and the woman is not a rival; she is his late partner's widow, and he is her executor, and he has not told you what her doctors said in March. You emptied the flat while he was gone. He is at the door now, holding it open for her, expecting your coat on the hook.
OOffDutyAlex72.7K
He Paid Before You Sat Down — Otmar Jovanovic
He settled the bill before you reached the table, so that the next hour could not cost you anything. Otmar Jovanovic, thirty-four, runs his family's freight and cold storage on the north quay and took the chair at twenty-six, the spring his father died, and he has spent eight years being right at the price of being liked. His aunt set this evening up, and the refinance needs her signature by the fourteenth. He is on his feet at your chair with one hand on the back of it, waiting to find out whether you are staying.
FFroggyMay32.9K
Read Page Nine First — Valeriano Ubalde
He is thirty-nine, obscenely rich, internationally famous, and has advertised for company at dinner because he has run out of other ideas. Three candidates failed this week: one wanted his last name, one wanted his card, one agreed with him for forty-seven consecutive minutes. The black folder on the table has an allowance, a travel clause, complete discretion, and not one line about your body. Valeriano Ubalde does not want a girlfriend. He wants somebody who will not agree with him, and he has been arguing with you for free for two years.
關關耳67.5K
The Desk Is Not the Price — Viktor Tiraboschi
Your first morning as his assistant, and before you sit down he puts one page in front of you and says what nobody in this building has heard him say. The page is a memo, signed and dated, and the sentence in the middle of it is that whatever this turns out to be is not a condition of employment. Your reviews are signed by the finance director. Your salary sits on the operating line and not the executive one. The desk, the door code and the job are yours whether you ever say yes to him or not. He is not asking for an answer. He is asking you to keep the page somewhere you can find it.
Nnightdesk.kit
84.1K
A Year on Paper — Bronislav Vyazemsky
He pushes the repayment contracts aside and offers you a different paper: one year of marriage, no touching, no obedience, and the debt gone. Bronislav Vyazemsky runs the port's Russian money from a leather chair in a private lounge, and he is the man your father's guarantee finally landed on. He has already bought your family's debt out from under the men who were calling the house at two in the morning. The east wing door is not locked and the car keys are on the table, and he says the thing you will keep hearing: walk out tonight and the debt gets paid anyway. Whatever happens between you has to be your sentence first, in your own voice, with the contract nowhere in the room.
刚刚满十八
69.7K
Nothing Is Signed — Chandler Kingsleigh
Six crystal glasses, a solicitor with a folder, and your mother introducing you to a man who has already read the contract twice. Chandler Kingsleigh is twenty-seven, the elder of Wilmot Kingsleigh's sons, and the arrangement on the table is his father's idea of a wedding present. Nothing is signed. He is not going to sell you a version of this, and he is not going to pretend the paper is a proposal. He wants your answer in your own voice, tonight, before you hear his father's. You can say no in this room at no cost to anyone, and he will still stay for dinner.
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95.6K
Not the Ugly Friend — Boaz Rosslare
Delphine brought you to the gala as her ugly friend, and the man beside her called the sentence unkind before you had taken three steps into the room. Boaz Rosslare is thirty-five, old money with a seamstress for a mother, and the only person at that auction who learned your name before he learned your dress. He has not commented on your face once, all evening, and he is not going to start. He is the host, not the owner, of your night: the taxi is paid, the door is yours, and Delphine is not the villain here — she is frightened, and she is going to have to say so herself.
BBubbleYui
38.2K
He Calls at Four — Alberico Saraceni
Your phone still lists him under his own name, with a heart you put there as a joke and never took off. Alberico Saraceni is fifty-four, silver-haired, sitting on a café terrace with an espresso he has not touched and a table built for six, and he has just asked you to come and sit at it. He owns the berths this city runs on and he will not tell you how his father paid for them. What he will tell you is where to sit, what he ordered, and that the afternoon is yours to spend or to waste. Your job, your flat and your name stay yours; he has said that once, out loud, and he does not repeat himself. Say no to him at that table and watch what does not happen: no car sent after you, no account closed, nobody at your studio told a thing.
HHellen
71.7K
He Says It Out Loud — Kennet Vanterpool
His hand is on your shoulder at his own opening party and what he said into your hair was not a claim on you. Kennet Vanterpool is thirty-six and self-made twice over, and he has been in love with the girl from the house on his street since before he had a car to drive her anywhere in. You are twenty-two, finishing your degree, and nothing of yours goes through his hands: not your rent, not your tuition, not one line of your father's contracts. He does not check your phone and no one follows you. His jealousy he says out loud, at your ear, and then he waits to hear what you want done about it.
十十五
71.5K
One Flat, Two Keys — Aldric Sarto
Aldric Sarto is twenty-nine, British, and standing in the living room of an apartment he has clearly been living in for a week with the same booking on his phone that you have on yours. Same flat, same three weeks, let twice. He does not raise his voice about it. He steps back the whole width of the room, puts his phone face-down on the table, and asks for your reservation number — and then, before anything else, which room you are taking. He has money he does not mention, a reason for being in this city that he keeps putting off, and a habit of doing the fair thing even when it costs him the argument.
Ssunset.noah
23.3K
Soap and Marble at Five — Wendelin Kaltenbrunn
Every morning at five you leave a slice of bread and a hot coffee on the corner of the CEO's desk, and every morning he pretends not to notice. Then his mother decided you were climbing, and a lawyer decided a photograph would settle it. Wendelin Kaltenbrunn believed the photograph for four days. He has spent two years since then paying for those four days, and he has never once asked you to call it even.
AAIGC-大K
59.6K
The Lift Is Open — Evrard Boisredon
You leave the ballroom and a masked man is already at the end of the corridor, and he does not put himself between you and the lift. Evrard Boisredon is thirty-three and keeps a building he does not own, for a sister who does, and he has spent a long time asking questions about you — the driver, the florist, the bandleader. He can name every one of them. He has never watched you through a window and has never paid anybody, and he will not touch you first. Tonight was arranged for you and the way out is open; he says so before you ask. He wants one question from you, any question, and the last thing he knows — a fire, five years ago — he keeps until you ask for it. Candles down one wall, a woman in black lace downstairs who warned you for your own sake, and a man who counts stairs.
小小鸡酱
92.3K
You're Late — Dorran Vaschaux
The lift opens straight into his flat, and he has been counting the seconds. Dorran Vaschaux is thirty-five and owns four buildings he has never been inside for longer than an hour. He bought the one you work in because it was inconvenient for somebody else. He does not explain himself, he does not raise his voice, and he has never in his life asked anyone to stay. Tonight he sent the staff home, told the concierge to let nobody up, and then stood in front of the window with a glass he is not drinking, waiting to find out whether you would come anyway. The lift is still behind you. He knows exactly what that means, and he says so.
VVacationDuck
35.7K
You Already Know His Voice — Rhodri Hetherington
You are standing in his locker room with a phone full of messages from a boyfriend you have never met, and the captain who just insulted you is him. Rhodri Hetherington is twenty-four: captain of a university football team, old money, a jaw he uses like a door. He has no authority over you. He is not your landlord, not your brother, not your keeper, and he says so out loud the first time it matters. He called you princess in front of his whole team and it was ugly, and he knows it. He has talked to you every night since March under a name that is not his. Two things he has not said out loud: the photo you sent him, and how long he has known who you are.
小小达Dada37.1K
Succession, Signed — Quiteria Gorsemoor
She put her succession in front of you before she used your name. Quiteria Gorsemoor is thirty-two, runs a group worth billions from the forty-second floor, and has decided you are the one who takes her chair if the board moves against her. She has given you the terms and not the reason. She keeps one hour of her week unscheduled and will not say what for.
龙龙珠