Sienna slammed the door to her bedroom hard enough to rattle the frame.
She stood in the centre of the room, her chest rising and falling too fast, hands clenched so tightly her nails cut into her palms. The silence after the slam felt louder than the argument itself.
What the hell had just happened?
She could still see Tom’s face - calm, steady, almost cold as he listed those filthy, impossible terms. She could still hear her own name coming out of his mouth like an order. She had nodded. She had actually nodded and walked out.
A short, incredulous sound escaped her throat.
"Who the fuck does he think he is?" she muttered to the empty room.
"Giving me orders in my house?"
She paced once, then again, the heels of her shoes striking the floor in sharp, restless rhythm. The deal sat in her mind like something rotten. No interference. No questions. No walking into his room. Letting him bring whoever he wanted into her house and use it however he pleased until the launch.
She stopped in front of the full-length mirror and stared at her own reflection as if it might offer an explanation.
She had agreed.
That realisation made her stomach turn.
Sienna dragged both hands through her hair and exhaled hard through her nose. The launch. That was the only reason. Four more weeks. Maybe less. Once the collection was out, the interviews finished, and the sponsors satisfied, the quiet little marriage could end without a single headline. Tom Harlow would be gone, and this entire humiliating Chapter would close.
She only had to endure it until then.
She closed her eyes, forced her breathing to slow, and repeated the thought like a mantra.
Four weeks.
Then he would be out of her face forever.
When she opened her eyes again, the woman in the mirror still looked furious but underneath the fury something colder and more unsettled had taken root. She hated that it was there.
Sienna turned away from the glass, kicked off her heels with more force than necessary, and reached for her phone. There were emails to answer, calls to return and a launch to protect.
She would not think about the way Tom had looked at her when he told her to get out of his room.
She would not.
Sienna told herself and blinked.
~~~~~~~~~
Tom was still sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at the closed door Sienna had walked through, when the System’s voice slid into his head - light, almost playful.
[Host has been very quiet since the deal. Forty-seven thousand dollars and formal authority inside these walls... and yet you are sitting here like a man who is still waiting for permission.]
Tom exhaled through his nose. "I’m thinking."
[Thinking is free. Authority is not. It expires if it is not used.]
He dragged a hand down his face. "Where exactly am I supposed to use it? She already left the room."
[The house is large, Host. Dinner is about to be served. The dining table has a seat that has never belonged to you. That seems like an excellent place to begin.]
Tom was silent for a long moment. He was not hungry. The argument, the money, the memory of two soft bodies grinding against him earlier in the day - all of it still sat heavy in his chest. But the System’s words kept circling.
He stood up.
He changed into a clean black shirt, ran his fingers through his hair, and left the room. The hallway felt different somehow. Longer. Quieter. He took the stairs slowly, each step gentle, as if his body was still deciding whether it believed the words he had spoken to Sienna only hours earlier.
The dining hall was already lit. One of the kitchen assistants - a young woman who usually kept her eyes fixed on the floor was placing the last of the serving dishes on the long table. When she looked up and saw Tom, she froze for half a second. Surprise flickered across her face. She said nothing. She only gave a small nod and continued working.
Tom walked to the head of the table, pulled out the chair that had always been Sienna’s, and sat down.
The leather was cool against his back, the feeling foreign. He rested his hands on the armrests and waited.
A few minutes later soft footsteps sounded on the stairs.
And Sienna appeared in a short, casual dress that clung to her hips and left her thighs bare. She had clearly expected an empty table and a quiet meal. When her eyes landed on Tom already seated in her place, she stopped at the bottom of the stairs.
A short, sharp scoff left her throat.
"This fucking guy!" She gritted under her breath. But she did not speak. She simply walked to the opposite side of the table and sat down hard, her spine straight, chin lifted, as if the sheer force of her posture could push him out of the chair.
The kitchen assistant began to serve. She moved toward Sienna first, the way she had done every evening for months.
Tom’s voice cut across the room, calm and clear;
"Serve me first."
The assistant froze, the platter hovering between them. Her eyes flicked from Tom to Sienna and back again.
Sienna’s mouth fell open. Colour rose hard and fast in her cheeks. The old words - the automatic, cutting ones she had used on him for so long were already forming on her tongue. Then Tom turned his head and looked at her.
The look was not loud. It did not need to be. It simply waited, steady and unblinking, daring her to break the deal she had nodded to only hours earlier.
Sienna’s jaw flexed. The moment stretched until it felt brittle.
Then she shoved her chair back with a sharp, ugly scrape and stood.
"I’d rather starve," she said, voice tight with pure contempt, "than sit at the same table as you."
She turned and walked out of the dining hall without looking back. Her bare feet struck the floor in angry rhythm until the sound disappeared up the stairs.
Tom remained seated. The insult landed in his chest like a hot coal. For a second the old reflex - to stand, to follow, to smooth the sharp edge of her words tried to rise. He crushed it under the memory of forty-seven thousand dollars and the sound of her reluctant nod.
[Does Host intend to be diminished by a single sentence?] the System asked, almost mild. [She is angry because the chair she always claimed is no longer hers. Eat. Your growth is already visible. In time it will be impossible for her to pretend she does not see it.]
Tom exhaled through his nose, slow and controlled. He nodded once to the waiting assistant.
"Go ahead."
The woman served him in silence. The food was warm and carefully prepared. Tom picked up his fork and began to eat, alone at the head of the table that had never belonged to him before tonight.
He ate slowly. And for the first time since he had stepped into this house as a husband, he did not once look toward the stairs to see if Sienna would come back.
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