The guest bedroom door clicks shut behind us, and I learn something new about fear: it has texture. It coats the inside of my throat like honey gone rancid.
Frank's hand closes around my neck before I can take another breath. Not squeezing—not yet—just holding. A reminder of what he could do. What he has done. What he will do again if I give him reason.
"Your father warned me about you," he says, his breath warm against my ear. "He said you were headstrong. Willful. That you'd need a firm hand."
I force myself to stay still. To not claw at his fingers, not kick, not scream. Resistance only makes it worse. I learned that lesson early.
"I was trying to help," I manage, my voice thin and reedy against the pressure on my windpipe. "The critics would have noticed, and your reputation—"
"My reputation." He laughs, soft and dangerous. "You mean the reputation you've been building for yourself? The one where you make all the decisions while I stand around looking like a fool in front of my own staff?"
His free hand moves to my waist, fingers digging into the silk of my dress. The fabric bunches under his grip as he pushes me backward toward the bed.
"That's not what I meant." I swallow hard against his palm. "I would never try to undermine you. Everything I do is for the company. For us."
There is no us. There hasn't been an us since our wedding night, when I realized the man I'd married was nothing like the charming family friend who'd courted me with expensive wine and empty promises.
"Your father told me something else before he died." Frank's grip tightens on my throat, just enough to make my vision blur at the edges. His other hand yanks at my zipper. "He said that you'd forget your place unless someone reminded you."
My father. Of course. Even dead, François Pasquier finds ways to control me.
I remember the day Grand-père died. I was seventeen, still young enough to believe that grief was the worst thing that could happen to a person.
I didn't know yet that my father's hatred of women ran so deep he'd rather hand his empire to a stranger than see his own daughter succeed.
I didn't know that within five years, he'd arrange my marriage to his best friend—a man twenty-five years my senior—just to ensure I'd never hold power in my own name.
"I know my place," I whisper as Frank shoves me onto the mattress.
The bed receives my body with the soft indifference of expensive linens.
Frank looms over me, already loosening his belt, and I feel the familiar dissociation begin—the way my mind floats up and away, observing from a safe distance while my body endures whatever comes next.
"Do you?" He crawls over me, pinning my wrists above my head with one hand. "Because to me, it looks like you've forgotten who owns this company. Who owns this house. Who owns you."
His mouth finds my neck, wet and demanding. I turn my face away, staring at the elaborate crown molding, counting the decorative ridges.
Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen.
"We have guests arriving," I say, keeping my voice neutral despite the revulsion crawling up my spine. "The caterers need supervision. The wine service—"
"The wine service can wait." His hand pushes my dress up my thighs, rough and impatient. "I've been tracking your cycle, Renée. You should have bled three days ago. Either you're pregnant, which would be the first useful thing you've done in eight years, or there's a pill hidden somewhere in this house that explains your empty belly."
The marital contract. My father's final masterpiece of misogyny.
Frank owns nothing without me—the document ties his position to our marriage, and our marriage to an heir. No child, no dynasty. No dynasty, no justification for stealing what should have been mine.
It's why he tracks my cycle like a farmer tracking livestock.
It's why he'll never let me go.
His fingers hook into the waistband of my underwear, and panic surges through the dissociation.
There is a pill in this house. The blister pack is tucked inside the hollowed-out spine of Terroir and Tradition: A Winemaker's Guide, third shelf from the bottom in the study, behind the door he never opens because he finds reading tedious.
If he takes me now, he'll know. He'll feel the string of the tampon I'm not wearing, discover the lie before it leaves my mouth. And then he'll tear the house apart until he finds what I've been hiding.
"I'm bleeding," I blurt out. "It started this morning. I'm bleeding right now."
Frank freezes. His face hovers inches from mine, eyes narrowing as he searches for the lie. I hold his gaze, willing my heartbeat to slow.
"You're bleeding," he repeats flatly.
"Heavy flow. First day is always the worst." I keep my voice steady. "I didn't want to mention it before the party. I know how these things disgust you."
For a long moment, he doesn't move. I can see him calculating—whether to check, whether to call my bluff, whether the potential mess is worth satisfying his need to dominate.
Then he pushes off me with a sound of pure revulsion, like I've somehow betrayed him by having a body that functions on its own schedule.
"Three days late." He stands, refastening his belt with sharp, angry movements. "Three days, and still no heir. Your father warned me you might be barren. He said your mother had difficulties too."
My mother. The woman who drank herself to death when I was five, probably because living with François Pasquier was its own kind of slow suicide.
"I'm not barren," I say, sitting up carefully, tugging my dress back down. "These things take time. The doctors said—"
The slap comes without warning.
My head snaps to the side, the crack of his palm against my other cheek sending white sparks across my vision.
Great. A matched set now. At least the swelling will be even.
"The doctors said." Frank's voice drips with contempt. "The doctors don't know that you spend more time in that office reviewing spreadsheets than you do fulfilling your actual purpose."
I press my hand to my cheek, feeling the heat spread beneath my fingers. He doesn't know that every month, when he forces himself into my room with his grunting demands, I've already ensured his efforts will amount to nothing.
It's the only rebellion I have left. The only part of myself I've managed to keep.
"I'm sorry," I whisper, because there is nothing else to say.
Frank checks his watch, dismissing my apology like he dismisses everything about me that doesn't serve his purposes. "You have forty minutes to make yourself presentable. The guests are arriving, and I have an important announcement to make tonight. You will love it."
A tendril of hope unfurls in my chest despite everything. The award tonight is for my work—the distribution network I built, the international partnerships I negotiated, the quality improvements I implemented while Frank took meetings and long lunches.
Maybe he's finally going to acknowledge my contributions. Maybe after a lifetime of invisibility, I'm finally going to step into the light.
Or you are just a desperate fucking fool.
"What kind of announcement?" I ask anyway.
Frank smiles, and the hope withers as quickly as it bloomed. There's triumph in that smile.
"You'll find out with everyone else," he says, opening the door. "Forty minutes, Renée. And fix your face. You look pathetic."
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