Chapter 4 : The Rules of the Cage

Rowan awoke to silence and the prickling sensation of being watched.

Emma was still asleep against her, the little one's breathing warm and steady against her shoulder. But the feeling remained, crawling up and down her spine, telling her eyes open. Eyes open.

Something is watching.

Rowan blinked, eyes adjusting to the dark room around her. The room had been a bower of luxury while they slept but now seemed more sterile. Spotless, untouched. Different.

A small bell sounded from somewhere in the room, and Emma stirred in her sleep. "Good morning, Ms. Hayes." The voice was slick, impersonal. "Mr. Vance would like you in his office. Breakfast will be served there."

Rowan ground her teeth together. Even sleep wasn't sacred in this place. There was nothing in this tower that didn't go through Asher Vance's filters.

Twenty minutes later, showered but still in the rumpled clothes she'd slept in, Rowan was being shown through a series of vast, whispering corridors to the office where she and Emma were to have breakfast with Asher.

The office itself took up an entire floor of the tower, all glass walls and a bird's-eye view of the cityscape below.

Asher was behind a desk so huge it could have been a landing strip for light planes, with his back to the door talking on the phone.

"—containment is the primary objective. No leaks. No exceptions." There was steel in his voice. Finality. "Handle it."

The line clicked off with a snap. Asher turned, startling her with his size even in the weak morning light. Taller than her, dark hair cropped close to his head, storm-gray eyes beneath thick brows.

He was still dressed in his charcoal suit but it was different from the one in her memory, and it somehow made the effect worse—power woven in expensive cloth, danger wrapped in civilized tweed.

"Sit," he said, gesturing to a chair whose height made her suspect it was imported from somewhere other than Earth.

Rowan stood her ground. "I'm not your employee."

"Not yet."

His casual arrogance was enough to make her blood boil. "Not ever."

He smiled. But it was the smile of a cat as he said, "We'll see."

Silently, a server appeared, setting a tray of food on the glass surface of the vast desk. Fruit, fresh from some indoor orchard, pastries that looked like miniature works of art, coffee with the smell of heaven in it. Rowan's stomach rumbled with the treachery of it.

"Eat." Asher sat with fluid grace, his movements making her aware of the precariousness of her own stance. "We have some things to talk about."

"Like what?"

"Like the fact that you are now in Emma's life and, by extension, part of mine." He leaned back in his chair, eyes storm-gray and unyielding. "There are rules in my world, Ms. Hayes. Protocols. Lines that will not be crossed."

Rowan sat, if only to put something between them. "Like what?"

"You do not leave this building without security. You do not speak to media of any kind. You do not discuss Emma, me, or any of the things you see or hear in this tower with anyone." His voice was calm, even conversational, which somehow made it more sinister. "Your phone will be replaced with a secured device. Your apartment will be cleaned out, your belongings moved here."

Her fork clattered against her plate. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

"You can't just—" She paused, chest heaving with indignation. "You can't just uproot my life because your daughter likes me!"

"I can do anything I want." The words were so flatly delivered that it was like being slapped.

"The question is whether you'll be cooperative or make this difficult for everyone."

Rowan sprang to her feet. "This is insane. I saved your daughter's life, and you're treating me like a criminal!"

"No." He rose as well, walking around his desk with feline grace. "I'm treating you like a security risk. Because that's what you are."

Rowan backed away from him as he advanced, hating herself for it but unable to stop. He was power on such a massive scale that it was invisible, turning the cavernous room suddenly small and cramped.

"I'm not a danger to Emma."

"Maybe not intentionally." He paused just close enough that she could smell his cologne—male, expensive, a subtle undercurrent that made her heart race in spite of herself. "But you're a fool, Ms. Hayes. You have no idea what kind of world you've stepped into."

"Then let me in on it!"

"Some things come with a price you're not willing to pay."

The words reverberated in the space between them, freighted with more implications than she wanted to address. This close, she could see details that the media photos never conveyed, some of which were striking—the thin white scar cutting across his temple, the depths of shadows in his eyes, the suggestion of tattoos under his collar.

"What happened to Emma's mother?" she found herself asking.

The question was a blow he caught full in the face. His expression went blank, but she saw the fight—subtle, suppressed, but very real.

"That's none of your business."

"It is if it's why Emma keeps saying not to let 'her' come back."

The silence stretched between them taut and unbearable. Asher's jaw worked as if he was fighting back some internal response, and Rowan thought for a moment he might actually answer.

Then his phone vibrated. He glanced at it, and whatever he saw there sent his face hardening like flint.

"We are done here." His voice was ice. "Jason will escort you back to Emma."

"Asher—"

"Mr. Vance." The name was clipped with disgust. "And this conversation is over."

Rowan wanted to fight, to push, to demand the answers Emma's terror made her deserve. But there was something in his expression that told her she'd gone farther than most people would be allowed to go in a lifetime.

The silent Jason materialized at Asher's elbow, signaling that it was time to leave the questions with no safe answers.

Rowan turned once at the door, watching as Asher Vance stood like a dark blotch on the windows against the bright sky.

"She trusts me," she said softly. "That has to count for something."

He didn't turn, but his voice was a promise and a threat across the room: "Trust is a luxury we can't afford. For any of us."

As the elevator descended back to Emma, Rowan knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that this was not a simple childcare arrangement.

She was not a guest in Asher Vance's world.

She was a prisoner.

The worst part was how much she wanted to stay.