9 | The Gilded Cage

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A/N Just over two hundred thousand reads! I can't believe it, I am honestly shaking! Thank you guys so much, here's to more chapters and to continuing this journey with you all! 🤍

Love, C

 I'm here

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I'm here.

My new home.

My new gilded cage.

Thunder booms in the distance and rain drums like a cruel melody. A complete contrast to yesterdays dry weather. Though, I find it's perfectly fitting with the circumstances. I stand silently on the driveway, gaze locked on the modern building, ignoring the frigid water pelting my clothes and the man by my side.

I can feel his gaze on my profile before he decides to head straight for the house, out of the downpour. I don't move because I know when I do, when I walk in that house, it will somehow make this real. It will finalise my fate just as walking down the aisle will. And though I'm desperate to find that loophole in the prenuptial, I need to be honest with myself and stop denying the inevitable: I'm not going to find one.

Anthony is too thorough with everything: business. Training. Threats. Torture. Killing. Punishments. I expect no less from the self-made mobster—no less for this prenuptial.

I continue to stand here until I can feel the November chill deep in my bones and I have little choice but to walk through the still open door.

Rowan's mansion is modern elegance. Upon entering I can smell dark spice and cedar wood. Pure male. Him. There's a symmetrical set of two staircases that start at different ends before winding up and meeting at the top. Railings black, and the rich wooden stairs match the panelled flooring. On either side of the staircases are open living rooms. The one on the right larger and grander, though that's not to say the smaller one on the left isn't just as luxurious. Straight ahead the house leads down a couple of steps into a large open area that I will explore later.

Floor-to-ceiling glass windows throughout the home provide the perfect ample of natural light to the dark neutrals. The modern and openness is the complete opposite of my childhood home, and some part of me sighs in relief for that.

Rowan and a woman in her mid-fifties stand beside the circle black marble table in the centre of the foyer.

The woman stares at me with steel grey eyes and brow raised. "Did you swim here?"

Rowan runs a thumb over his bottom lip, face impassive as he observes my soaked clothes.

The woman inclines her head to me, her sharp eyes on Rowan. No longer interested in my drenched state. "She has good hips. Good for carrying."

I blink, then slowly say: "I'm not cattle. You should mind your tongue, too. I don't take kindly to disrespect, especially coming from an old bat."

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