Chapter Two

Elle

~SEVEN YEARS LATER~

WHO KNEW TURNING nineteen would be such a sad day?

I sniffed back a stupid tear as I inputted end-of-the-month financial figures into the spreadsheet to prepare for the M.M.M.—also known as the Monday Morning Meeting.

I’d been at the office since seven thirty—just as I had every morning since I left high school at sixteen.

I’d left because I’d learned all the generic life hacks the teachers had in their arsenals and didn’t have the time, or the need, to go to university before my birthright gobbled me up entirely.

Belle Elle was my university, and I’d been attending nights and on weekends my entire life. As far as my knowledge and skills went, I was capable of running this company even before I hit twenty.

My father had made sure of it.

I was no longer a lonely little girl craving the freedom of her peers. But a resigned young woman who carried the livelihoods of thousands of staff upon her shoulders.

It was up to me to ensure Belle Elle ran smoothly and made a profit to fill the pay packets and make sure employment continued.

My hard work and long hours were rewarded with positive yields and exciting business expansions. I earned satisfaction from new contracts and cheaper production costs.

I’d never been to a party or acted out because work began too early to stay up late.

I lived and breathed merchandise and balance sheets.

~And I’m fine with that.~

I knew no other life. I had no right to feel so trapped. I had an amazing father, an incredible future, and everything I could ever want.

I’d been given so much, but the price of such power and greatness was the removal of so many things I’d never enjoyed.

I’d never had friends because who wanted to hang around a geek who didn’t know how to play? I’d never walked around the city on my own because the world was far too dangerous.

I’d never gotten into trouble or done anything reckless. My days were surrounded by bodyguards, drivers, and managers.

The girls I knew from school only pretended to like me when I gave them discounts on dresses and shoes.

In fact, the week before junior prom, I’d suddenly become the most popular girl in school, only to hear them whispering in the changing rooms at Belle Elle about how much they were saving thanks to lying to my face about friendship and the discount I’d given them.

And the boys were afraid of me because I spoke like an adult and crunched real-time spreadsheets in math rather than solved the basic algebra equation on the whiteboard.

I was never alone but forever lonely.

If it weren’t for Sage, I’d probably have run away by now. But I couldn’t leave her, and I ~definitely~ couldn’t leave my father.

They needed me.

~Everyone~ needed me.

Thinking of the little fluff ball made her appear. The sleek, pretty cat hopped up onto my desk, deliberately knocking over the old Tic-Tac holder full of paperclips.

She swatted it again for good measure.

Instantly, the stress of the day and ache in my back from hunching over a desk for too long receded. “Hello to you, too.”

She meowed, her cute gray face scrunching up as if she disapproved of me working past dark once again.

Ever since Dad gave her to me, she’d never left my side. The only time she wasn’t with me was while I was at school, but seeing as that was over a few years ago, she was now my silent silver shadow.

She traveled on my neck like a living scarf and trotted after me when I hosted meetings with men three times my age—who tried to trip me up and belittle me at the start of my reign.

They soon learned I might be young, but I knew this company better than any of them.

Belle Elle was my mother, my best friend, and boyfriend.

It was my world.

Taking off the black-framed reading glasses I’d taken to wearing after staring at a laptop for hours at a time, I scooped Sage up by her middle and dragged her onto my lap.

She purred loudly as she head-butted my chest. I kissed the back of her neck, nuzzling into her.

Her fur was as soft as spun moonlight; her purr the only thing that made me shed the constant feeling of anxiety and despondency.

“You know how I feel, right?”

She purred louder.

“Am I a horrible person for feeling trapped?”

She pulled a face.

“I do everything that’s asked of me. I take over more and more elements of the company with no refusal. I love my father with every bone in my body. I’ve dedicated my life to making him proud.

“I have self-worth, wealth, and the knowledge that I’ll never have to ask for anything.” I pressed my face deeper into her fur, doing my best to stem the unwanted self-pity.

“So why do I feel so lost, Sage? Why can’t I shed the idea so much more is out there besides work?”

She meowed, jumping from my arms to my desk and walking across my keyboard to scatter qwerty keystrokes in boxes where only numbers belonged.

I tried to get mad, to yell at her because she’d just caused another ten minutes’ worth of work to delete her tampering and ensure the numbers I’d inputted were still correct.

But I couldn’t.

Because work was my life, and life was my work. I had nowhere to be, no one to see—nothing demanded anything of me but Belle Elle.

“Maybe that’s my problem?”

Sage flicked her tail.

“Maybe I need to forget about work for a change and do something completely different.” Standing, I moved toward the floor-to-ceiling glass windows and looked upon New York below.

Twinkling lights, cars, and pedestrians appeared and disappeared beneath streetlights like different bugs—some large, some small—but all of them moving with purpose.

What would it be like to be down there with them? To wear jeans (gasp) and eat food from a street vendor (oh, no)? To be on my own, rather than watched by a driver and bodyguard.

~Don’t I deserve to know what else is out there before I give up everything?~

Today, I’d turned nineteen.

I was old enough to have sex but not old enough to drink. I was old enough to run a billion-dollar company but not old enough to wander alone in a city promising such adventure.

My fingers flew to my neck, clutching the beautiful sapphire star necklace my father had presented me with this morning.

We’d both been pressed for time but he’d sent the cook away, and together, we’d whisked up buttermilk batter and created a mismatch of blueberry pancakes before he gave me my gift.

It’d been a wonderful morning, and I’d treasured his company, the pancakes, and my necklace, but I couldn’t help feeling like something was missing.

Mom was missing, of course.

But something else.

~Someone~ else…a friend on two legs instead of four.

After an hour together, Dad and I had headed to work and lost ourselves in the cogs of such a demanding mistress.

I didn’t know if he was still in his office working late, just like he would never know if I snuck out and pretended to be a girl from a different life for the night.

~Wait…what?~

The idea came out of nowhere. The betrayal and willingness to sneak behind my father’s back was a horrid, terrible concept. Yet…so enticingly exciting.

~You could do it…just for one night.

Do what?~

The five points of the sapphire star bit into my fingers as I glanced at the congested street below again.

~Be one of them.

“Do what they do.”

“Go where they go.”

Be free.~

My heart bashed my ribs as the idea slowly manifested into potential.

Tomorrow was yet another day belonging to Belle Elle. But tonight? Tonight was my nineteenth birthday, and I’d yet to give myself a gift.

Could I do it?

Could I be brave enough to leave my world and everything I knew in order to sample what I could never have?

Could I seek something I didn’t know how to find?

Sage wrapped herself around my ankle, head butting me with approval. Or at least, I’d take it as approval because suddenly, I couldn’t imagine ~not~ doing it.

The prison gates I’d lived behind all my life creaked with rust and whined with disapproval, slowly hinging wide.

I had a few short hours before the clock struck twelve and the enchantment of my birthday would vanish.

~It’s now or never.~

Tonight, I would give in to my urges and taste freedom for the first time.

And tomorrow, I would stop these childish regrets and fully embrace my crown as the Belle Elle empress.