Chapter 1
Valerie
I pressed my hands against my own breasts.
My fingernails sank into the soft flesh, the yielding warmth spreading through my palms.
The man sitting across from me on the sofa looked to be in his early thirties. His features were sharp and defined — a strong jawline, sleeves casually rolled up to reveal forearms traced with prominent veins.
His posture was relaxed, yet something about him radiated a pressure that was difficult to name. A pair of blue eyes watched me the way a predator watches prey.
"Begin."
His voice was low and rough, as rich as a cello string drawn slow.
My face burned so hot I thought I might bleed. I felt stripped bare, exposed in a way that filled me with shame.
But I needed this job.
My three-month-old was waiting for me at Ellie's, and my bank account had less than two weeks left in it.
The Wolfe family had posted the opening at exactly the right — or wrong — moment: a lactation consultant position, generously compensated, with a selection process that was, to put it charitably, deeply difficult to speak of.
There was no model for the demonstration.
I was the model.
Following what I had been taught in training, I began working from the outer edge of each breast inward toward the areola, slow and deliberate.
Press, and press again — both hands moving against the fullness of my chest.
For ease of the interview, I had worn only a thin white blouse today. No bra underneath.
The fabric was nearly transparent.
Transparent enough that the shape of my breasts was visible through it with every motion — flesh trembling softly, rhythmically, with each pass of my hands.
"This technique is called spiral massage…"
My breath came unevenly. I tried to ignore the man's gaze, heavy as a hand pressed against my back.
God. I couldn't do it.
His eyes were too hot. They made my whole body go soft, and my hands lost their rhythm.
The pressing became kneading.
My breasts yielded between my fingers, soft flesh spilling through the gaps, and my breath came out shaking.
And then, worst of all —
I had been at this too long.
The warmth was already building. Milk was beginning to seep through.
No.
Not now.
I scrambled to stop, but it was already too late.
The stain spread slowly across the front of my blouse, my areolas darkening through the wet fabric, every curve of my nipples outlined in perfect, humiliating clarity.
Heat rushed to my face in an instant.
"I'm sorry, I — "
I was on the verge of tears, eyes glistening as I looked at him, silently begging him not to send me away.
Please. I needed this job so badly.
Magnus said nothing. He simply stared at the two wet patches on my chest — openly, without apology.
After a long moment, he spoke.
"Continue."
I exhaled, bit down hard on my lower lip, and brought my hands back to my chest.
But the situation had deteriorated badly.
Every motion now came with a soft, wet sound. Milk continued soaking through the fabric. The full shape of my breasts was visible through the soaked blouse — nothing left to the imagination.
My eyes burned.
Eventually — I had no sense of how much time had passed — Magnus seemed to have seen enough.
He crossed one long leg over the other. "Lydia. Inspection."
A uniformed maid stepped forward without hesitation and pulled my blouse up without ceremony.
My upper body was suddenly bare to the open air.
The room was cold. Goosebumps rose across my skin instantly.
Freed from any covering, my breasts hung heavy in the air — pale, swollen, full with milk.
Lydia cupped one breast in her hand and weighed it.
A jet of white milk shot out.
She leaned in and smelled it.
"Ducts clear, no lumps detected. Milk supply is abundant. No off odor."
She then rubbed her thumb directly across my nipple.
"Ah — !"
A shudder tore through me. The sound that escaped my throat was soft and broken — a moan I couldn't hold back — and the shame of it made me want to bite through my lip.
"Nerve sensitivity normal."
Lydia withdrew her hand without expression and turned toward the man on the sofa.
"Sir, all indicators are satisfactory."
Magnus lifted his eyes. His long fingers tapped a slow, idle rhythm against the leather armrest, as though he were keeping time with my heartbeat.
I felt myself beginning to come apart.
God.
I was standing here — bare-breasted, fully exposed — in front of a complete stranger.
Just as the tears threatened to spill over, Magnus rose from the sofa.
He was tall, the fabric of his shirt pulled taut over the muscle beneath. The full weight of his presence hit me like a wall.
"Clean yourself up and follow me upstairs."
He turned without waiting for a response and walked toward the staircase.
I stood there staring at his retreating back until Lydia told me — quietly, matter-of-factly — that I had passed.
The tension drained from my spine all at once. I clutched my blouse to my chest and burst into tears.
Jonathan and I had been together since university.
After graduation, he said he wanted to open his own firm. I gave him every cent I had saved.
For the first two years, when the firm had almost no clients, I was the one keeping us afloat — working at the hospital during the day, pulling night shifts at a care home, doing private postpartum care visits on weekends. I held our lives together with my bare hands.
And then, at the hardest point of all, I got pregnant.
Even then I didn't stop. When the anxiety kept him up all night, I went with him to business dinners — belly and all — smiling at men I didn't know for deals I'd never benefit from.
The firm eventually found its footing. And I gave birth to our child.
I thought the worst was behind us.
Then I found out Jonathan was having an affair.
When I confronted him, he told me — without so much as flinching —
"Darling, I've fallen in love with someone else."
"Maria's family has connections across the entire East Coast. She can open doors for me that you never could."
"And you — you're just a stay-at-home mother."
I had believed, after five years of marriage, that he would at least leave me with something.
Instead, he informed me that the firm had always been registered solely in his name. Every dollar it had ever earned was a company asset.
I had not thought him capable of something so vile.
The tears came before I could stop them.
But I had no time to fall apart. I wiped my face, buttoned my blouse back up, and breathed — once, twice — until I could stand straight again.
Then I climbed the stairs to the second floor.
The door to a nursery stood open.
I stepped inside and found a baby — three, maybe four months old — lying in a crib, waving chubby little fists at the ceiling.
I stopped.
A baby?
I looked around the room. There was no sign of a woman. No sign of a mother.
I turned to Magnus, puzzled.
"Mr. Magnus — where is your wife?"
Magnus had his back to me, his silhouette swallowed by shadow. A long moment passed before he turned around.
When those gray-blue eyes settled on me, the look in them was predatory — deliberate, enclosing, like a trap clicking shut.
The hair on my neck stood up. A cold unease moved through me.
He crossed the room toward me.
I stepped back on instinct, twisting toward the door — but Lydia had already closed it.
My heart seized in my chest.
"Mr. Magnus — what are you — what are you doing?"
He kept coming. The scent of cedarwood and leather reached me before he did.
A large, rough hand closed around my chin, his thumb stroking slowly along my jaw, the corner of his mouth curving into something cold.
"My dear Valerie." His voice dropped. "There is no wife. There never was."
His gaze dropped to my chest. Something moved through those gray-blue eyes — dark, and unmistakable.
"What I want," he said, "is your milk."
