"If you insist on viewing yourself as property, that's your choice." His voice remains controlled despite the increasing tension. "I've offered partnership. You refuse to see beyond your resentment."
"Partnership requires equal power," I snap, my carefully maintained façade finally cracking under accumulated pressure. "What we have is captor and captive, disguised in pretty language to ease your conscience."
"My conscience requires no easing," he replies coldly. "I entered a legitimate business arrangement with your father. The terms were clear. The legal framework sound. Your emotional response to those facts doesn't change their fundamental validity."
"Then why kiss me?" I demand, stepping closer, invading his personal space in deliberate challenge. "If this is merely business, why introduce physical intimacy? Why complicate a transaction with unwanted contact?"
Something flashes in his eyes—frustration, perhaps, or something deeper I can't quite identify. "Because despite your determined resistance to reality, we will be married in two weeks. Physical intimacy will eventually be expected."
"Expected but not guaranteed," I correct sharply. "The prenup may legally bind me to this house, but you can't force me to share your bed."
His expression hardens. "I would never force you. Coercion isn't necessary when time and proximity inevitably create connection. Human beings adapt, Penelope. Even the most resistant eventually seek comfort in their circumstances."
"Stockholm Syndrome isn't consent," I say, my voice dropping dangerously low. "It's psychological survival."
"And clinging to anger that changes nothing isn't freedom," he counters. "It's self-imposed suffering."
I laugh bitterly. "Now we reach the truth. You're frustrated that I won't give up. You want my compliance. My surrender."
"What I want," he says with dangerous precision, "is for you to stop fighting battles you cannot win and focus your considerable intelligence on making the best out of the circumstances."
"What you want," I correct, pushing further into dangerous territory, "is to break me without leaving visible marks. To reshape me into the perfect wife who values your occasional kindness."
Lightning flashes again, the storm directly overhead now, thunder cracking almost simultaneously. Rain pounds against the windows with increasing fury, nature's violence providing backdrop to our escalating confrontation.
"You know nothing about what I want," Gage says, his control fraying visibly now. "You've constructed a convenient villain in your mind, assigning me motivations that justify your continued defiance."
"Then tell me what you want!" I challenge, my voice rising almost to a shout. "Plain language about your actual intentions for this farce of a marriage."
"I want partnership with a woman whose intelligence and strength match my own," he replies, his voice remaining controlled despite the intensity of his words. "I want legitimate alliance with a family name that opens doors my own cannot, despite my financial success. I want children who combine the best qualities of both bloodlines. I want?—"
"Bloodlines?" I interrupt, latching onto the revealing word. "You make it sound like horse breeding. Genetic selection for optimal offspring. Is that how your father viewed marriage? As a stud arrangement for producing superior heirs?"
His left hand flexes, indicating I've struck a nerve. "My father is irrelevant to this discussion."
"Is he?" I press harder, deliberately targeting the vulnerability I'd glimpsed. "Your uncle suggested otherwise. He implied your father's approach to family has shaped your entire understanding of relationships."
"Richard speaks on matters he barely comprehends," Gage says, tension evident in every line of his body now. "My father's parenting has no bearing on our arrangement."
"Except it shaped the man who believes purchasing a wife is acceptable," I continue, pushing toward the breaking point I sense approaching. "The man who keeps me prisoner while calling it protection. The man who?—"
"Enough." The word cracks like the thunder outside, Gage's control finally slipping. "My father was a violent alcoholic who terrorized my mother and treated me as property to be molded through force. Is that what you wanted to hear, Penelope? Does that satisfy you?"
The raw emotion in his voice stops me cold.
"Your uncle said you protected your mother," I say more quietly, testing whether this moment of authenticity might continue. "That you intervened despite the danger to yourself."
Gage turns away abruptly, moving to the window where the storm continues its assault on the estate grounds. "My interventions were inadequate," he says after a long moment, his voice tight with suppressed emotion. "Until they weren't."
The implications of those four words hang in the silence between us.
"Your father is dead," I state rather than ask.
"Yes." His profile is hard against the storm-darkened window. "Heart failure, officially."
The quiet admission rocks through me. I study his rigid posture, the controlled tension evident even in this moment of unexpected vulnerability.
"How old were you?" I ask, my approach gentler now despite my earlier anger.
