“Adrian needs a woman with a backbone in the boardroom, but he prefers his wives compliant,” she continued, leaning in close enough for me to smell her cloying, heavy perfume.

“He gets so easily bored with soft, weeping things. Try not to embarrass him.”

Adrian had swaggered into my private dressing suite mere minutes after she left, his mood darkened by alcohol and his own towering ego.

When I quietly asked him to speak to Vanessa about boundaries, he didn’t argue. He simply laughed.

A hollow, chilling sound.

Then came the sudden grip on my shoulders. The harsh shove against the oak wardrobe.

Then his voice, dropping an octave, calm and devastatingly cruel, laying out exactly what my future held.