1 It was day three hundred of my captivity under John Porter, the brilliantly unhinged billionaire, when a car crash wiped his memory. His personal secretary, upon finding me in the basement wearing solid gold ankle cuffs, practically shrieked in terror. He threw a cool hundred million dollars and a private jet my way just to keep me quiet: "The Porter Group's global offices are yours to command, ma'am. Just please, for the love of God, don't call the police!" So, I happily spent the next three years flying around the world. But the moment I set foot back in the country, I ran straight into my former captor at the airport. Before panic could even set in, his eyes drifted right past me. Just as I let out a breath of relief, a black sack was shoved over my head the second I walked out of the terminal. When I opened my eyes again, I was staring at a very familiar, floor-to-ceiling glass wine cellar. Right next to it was a handwritten note in sharp, elegant cursive: "Little bird, it was love at first sight. I will give you the world, on one condition: stay by my side." I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Even with amnesia, this man still had a type, and apparently, it was still me. I ended up laughing anyway. John, that beautiful psycho, had fully restocked the wine cellar. The last time I was here, I had drunk my way through his 1982 Lafite collection, leaving only three bottles. Now, the wall was packed to the brim. I even spotted a bottle of 1947 Cheval Blanc, a legendary vintage that had vanished after failing to sell at auction years ago. Next to the rack, a note was taped to the glass. His handwriting, sharp and pressing into the paper, read: "Don't even think about running. Be a good girl and wait for me to come home." A dry chuckle escaped my throat. I was actually amused. Three hundred days of being locked up by a madman, only for him to lose his memory in an accident. His panicked secretary handed me a fortune and a private jet just to keep the cops out of it. I spent three years living the high life across the globe, yet within three hours of landing back home, I was bagged, tagged, and brought right back to this gilded cage. I didn't need three guesses to know who ordered this. Accepting my fate, I walked over to the cellar, pulled out the '47 Cheval Blanc, and began searching for a corkscrew. If I was going to miss my welcome-home dinner because of a kidnapping, I might as well enjoy the finest wine on earth. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" A sharp, grating voice shattered the silence. I turned around. A woman dressed in high fashion, perched on red-soled Louboutins, stood at the double doors. She glared at me, her chin tilted so high she was practically looking down her nose. Her eyes treated me like a piece of absolute trash. "Did you hear me?" she snapped, her brow furrowing. "I heard you," I replied, slowly working the cork. "You asked what I'm doing." "John is my fiancé. Our families are finalizing the alliance." She stepped into the room, a smug, triumphant smile playing on her lips. "The match was handpicked by his grandmother, Mrs. Porter herself. Who do you think you are, lounging in this villa and touching his private reserve?" Ah. A match arranged by his family. No wonder she was acting like she owned the place. But accusing me of seduction? That was just uncalled for. I was the victim here. Before I could explain, she kept going. "If you know what's good for you, take a check and get out. Touch what doesn't belong to you, and you'll find out how painful life can get." I agreed instantly. "Deal. Let me out, and I'll be gone before you can count to three." I had millions in the bank and a jet waiting at the hangar. The world was huge, and there was plenty of good wine out there. But my cooperation only seemed to make Bianca furious. She slammed her hand against the glass of the wine cellar. "Leave? You wish. You crawl into his bed, and now you think you can just walk away?" "Kneel," she demanded, drawing out the word. "Apologize. Right now, in front of the entire staff. Bow your head three times." The smile faded from my face. I wasn't angry, just a bit sorry for her. "About the kneeling..." I said, choosing my words carefully. "I wouldn't push it if I were you. It won't end well." "Oh? And why is that?" I looked at her with pure, honest concern. "Because he will lose his mind." "Who?" "John," I sighed. "He's obsessed with me. Pathologically so. The last time a chauffeur looked at me for a second too long, he disappeared the next day. His very name was wiped from the payroll." "So, if you force me to kneel, and he comes home to see that..." I let the threat hang. "I honestly don't want to think about what he'll do to you. I'm telling you this for your own good." Bianca stared at me in disbelief, then burst into a harsh, mocking laugh. "He'd lose his mind over you?" She laughed so hard her expensive jewelry clinked, her sharp nails nearly poking my cheek. "Look at yourself. Who do you think you are?" I kept quiet, letting a tiny, undeniable spark of anticipation settle in my chest. Meanwhile, the housekeepers standing near the door turned pale. One of them quietly slipped away, pulling out a phone and whispering urgently: "Mr. Harrison, you need to get back here right now. There's going to be a bloodbath!" Bianca took my silence as submission. Her arrogance swelled, and she waved over two burly bodyguards. "Since she won't kneel on her own," she said, her tone as casual as ordering a salad, "make her." "Break her legs if you have to. No one is going to miss a piece of trash like her." The guards stepped forward, grabbing my shoulders with a grip that made me wince. I didn't bother fighting back. They were professionals, and struggle was pointless. Besides, I caught the terrified look on the housekeeper's face. The person on the other end of the line had clearly issued a severe warning. I wouldn't have to lift a finger. "At least you're smart enough not to struggle," Bianca sneered, pacing around me as the guards forced me down. "Recognize your place yet?" "Listen to me. If you behave, maybe I'll throw some pocket change your way after this so you can buy some dignity on your way out." The guards pressed down, forcing my knees toward the cold marble floor. My knees hit the stone with a dull, painful thud. It hurt. I had spent three hundred days in the basement of this very house; I could handle a little physical pain. What truly amused me was Bianca's increasingly dramatic performance. "Tell me," she demanded, looking down at me. "How did you seduce my fiancé? Give me every detail. Leave one thing out, and my men will add another bruise." I looked up, my expression perfectly flat. "Are you sure you want to hear it?" "Spit it out!" "Fine," I said, my voice as dry as a financial report. "He kept me locked in the basement of this villa for three hundred days." "He went through three different sets of ankle chains. The first was too heavy and chafed my skin, which broke his heart, so he replaced them with custom, velvet-lined gold cuffs." "He hand-fed me every single meal. If I refused to eat, he would stay until he coaxed every bite down. When I said I wanted a drink, he moved his entire collection of vintage Lafite down to the cellar for me." Bianca's sneer flickered. I kept going, taking my time with each word. "Then he got into a car crash and forgot who I was. When his assistant found me, the poor man almost had a stroke. He bribed me with a hundred million dollars and a private jet just to keep me from calling the cops." "So," I looked her dead in the eye, "does that sound like seduction to you?" Her face went pale, then flushed with anger. But she quickly clung back to her pride. "What a ridiculous fairy tale. John Porter would never lower himself to do those things for someone like you." "You're just taking advantage of his amnesia to spin some wild fantasy!" I smiled. I really, truly wanted to laugh. Amnesia. So she knew about his memory loss. Then she must also know that during his recovery, the Porter family was an absolute circus, with every social climber and self-proclaimed fiancée trying to claim a piece of him. I had been back in the country for barely three hours before I was thrown into a sack. I knew exactly who had put me there. "I'll give you one last piece of advice," I said, my voice softening with genuine pity. "Walk out of that door before he gets home. You still have time." "Otherwise..." "Otherwise what?" Bianca shrieked. She raised her hand, aiming a vicious slap at my face. "You cheap little..." A hand clamped onto her wrist, stopping her mid-air with enough force to turn her fingers white. Bianca gasped in pain, turning to yell, "Which idiot dares to... Thomas? What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be with John?" Thomas, the personal secretary, looked at me kneeling on the floor, his face drained of color. "Miss Bianca, let her go! Please! If the boss finds out you made her kneel, he will destroy us all!" But before he could even reach me, Bianca's guards blocked him. "Are you in league with this trash, Thomas?" she sneered. "No wonder she had the nerve to slip into his bed!" Thomas looked like he was about to have a heart attack. "Miss Bianca, Mrs. Porter chose you, and I respect that. But this woman... the boss has been tearing the world apart looking for her for three long years. You cannot touch her." "Three years?" Bianca scoffed. "Since his accident, he's mistaken a dozen women for someone else. Why would she be any different?" "Because..." Thomas stammered, unable to speak the unspeakable truths of John's obsession. "You're just a glorified errand boy," Bianca said, her chin tilting up again. "The match was blessed by Mrs. Porter. Why don't you go complain to her? If she gave me her blessing, who are you to tell me no?" Thomas shut his mouth, defeated. He was just an employee, after all. Bianca had the matriarch's backing, and he couldn't override that authority. He looked at me with a helpless, pleading expression that said, I can't stop her, please just hang in there. I sighed, offering Bianca one last olive branch. "Miss Bianca, you should listen to the secretary. While you still can." "Shut up, you bitch! How dare you threaten me!" Bianca snapped, breaking free and striking me across the face with a resounding slap. Thomas looked as if he had just watched a bomb go off. "Miss Bianca... you struck her." "So what if I did?" "The boss cannot stand to see a single scratch on her!" Thomas's voice was shaking. "Last time a driver merely stared at her, the boss personally broke his..." He swallowed hard, unable to finish the sentence. "You have no idea what he will do when he gets back." The sheer terror in the room only seemed to feed Bianca's spite. "You're trying to scare me too?" she hissed, glaring at Thomas. "I wouldn't dare lie to you..." "Then shut up." She snatched a heavy metal baton from one of the bodyguards' belts, her eyes flashing with malice. "I want to see exactly how crazy he gets for her." Seeing that she was beyond reason, Thomas backed away, frantically pulling out his phone and dialing. "Sir! Wherever you are, you need to come back right now! Miss Bianca is going to hurt the lady you brought back, and I can't stop her!" A heavy silence hung over the line for a fraction of a second. Then came a voice, low, icy, and so sharp it cut through the room even from several feet away. "Who gave her permission to touch what is mine?" A loud crack followed, the sound of plastic and glass being crushed under immense pressure. Thomas's face went completely grey. He lowered his phone, his knees trembling. "The boss... he just crushed his phone. He said for no one to touch you, and that he's on his way." He looked at me like I was a saint who could save his soul, and then looked at Bianca like she was already in a coffin. For the first time, Bianca's confidence wavered, but only for a second. "Bluffing," she spat, though her grip on the baton tightened. "Who knows what's true from before his accident. Even if he comes back, I am the woman his mother chose. Would he really destroy his own family for a mistress?" "He would," I said softly. "What did you say?" "I said, he would." I swirled the wine in my glass. "Believe me or not. You'll find out soon enough." My calm demeanor pushed her over the edge. "Hold her down," she ordered, thrusting the baton into a guard's hand. "Beat her until she begs." "Miss Bianca! No!" Thomas threw himself to the ground, crawling to block the guard. "He's been searching for her for three years!" "During his recovery, he locked himself in that basement every single day! He searched every flight manifest, every vineyard, every customs record across the globe just to find her!" "If you touch her, someone is going to die today!" The servants in the room dropped to their knees, trembling like autumn leaves in a storm. The collective terror in the room was louder than any warning. Bianca's hand shook, the weight of their fear finally registering. "Are you all... insane?" she stammered, looking around. "Frightened of a common whore?" No one dared to answer. I spoke up, my voice quiet but cutting through the silence. "Every single thing you do to me right now will be returned to you tenfold when he walks through that door. He doesn't forgive." Bianca stared at me, her chest heaving. Finally, pushed to the brink of madness, she threw the baton aside and reached into her designer bag, pulling out a small, gleaming utility knife. "A beating is too good for you," she whispered, her eyes shining with a frantic, unstable light. "John loves this face of yours? Let's see how much he loves it when I slice it open." "Let's see if he still loses his mind for a monster." Thomas shrieked, "Miss Bianca! Stop!" Outside, the violent, screeching sound of tires tearing asphalt shattered the air. Bianca didn't stop. If anything, the sound of his arrival made her panic, driving her to finish what she started before he could walk through the door. "Hold her! Don't let her move!" she screamed. The two guards clamped their hands around my jaw, forcing my head back. The cold, silver tip of the blade drifted inches from my cheek. "Let me go now, and I won't tell him," I said, keeping my voice perfectly steady. "Your last chance." "Too late," Bianca whispered, leaning in close, her breath cold against my skin. "I'll only ruin half. I want to leave enough so he knows exactly what you used to look like." "He'll be devastated," she laughed. "It'll be beautiful." The moment the cold metal touched my skin, a strong, pale hand reached from behind, gripping her wrist with the force of an iron vice. Bianca cried out as her bones groaned under the pressure, the utility knife clattering to the marble floor. John stood behind her. He wore a dark tailored suit, looking disheveled, his tie loosened, his eyes shot through with exhaustion. But those eyes were colder than a winter grave, sending a physical chill through the room. He didn't look at Bianca. He stepped past her, dropping to his knees in front of me. His hands, trembling slightly, cradled my face, his fingers tracing my skin with agonizing gentleness. He was checking to make sure the blade hadn't left a mark. Once he was sure I was untouched, his chest heaved, his breathing ragged. "Does it hurt?" he whispered, his voice cracking. "She slapped me," I said calmly. "And she tried to ruin my face." John's grip on my jaw tightened ever so slightly, his knuckles turning white. He stood up slowly, turning his gaze to Bianca. The words that left his lips made everyone's heart stop cold: "Then I will make sure her entire family begs for death." With a single look, Bianca's legs gave out, and she collapsed onto the floor.
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