The Pretty Little Bargain

Hazel Voss

"Richard agreed to marry you, Hazel."

My father’s words fell into the room like a gunshot. I froze, the silver fork in my hand halfway to my plate. I wasn’t sure if I’d heard him right.

I looked up from the untouched steak on my plate to the man sitting beside me—Richard Langston.

Late fifties. Wrinkled hands and a receding hairline he tried to hide with a slick comb-over. His cologne was sharp and suffocating, clinging to my skin like oil. And his eyes—god, his eyes—they lingered on my thighs, on my chest, anywhere but my face.

I shifted slightly in my chair, trying to create distance between us, but it was no use. The table was small. The seats were close. His arm brushed against mine, and I felt the hairs on my skin stand up in protest.

"This is a good match," my father, Victor Voss, said calmly, cutting into his steak like we were discussing a business deal—because to him, that’s exactly what it was.

A business deal.

My marriage.

I tried to look calm, poised, composed—everything I’d been trained to be—but inside I was screaming.

I was still reeling from the shock of it all. The sudden lunch he’d asked me to attend. The pale blue dress his assistant laid out for me this morning, short and sleeveless—"something youthful, something delicate," she said. I should’ve known.

"She’s a real beauty, Victor," Richard said beside me, his voice deep and leering. I flinched as he leaned in slightly, his hand grazing my back like he had the right to touch me. "Soft voice, soft skin... I can’t wait to have her in my home. A girl like this will make a fine mother."

I stared at my plate, my chest tight. I couldn’t speak. I wouldn’t speak. Not in front of my father. I’d learned a long time ago that silence was safer.

"I’m honored you’re giving her to me," Richard added, fingers brushing my wrist. "She’s just what I imagined—a quiet, obedient little wife."

His words made bile rise in my throat.

I glanced toward my father. My father sat across the table, wine glass in hand, his expression unreadable—cool, professional, detached. As if this wasn’t his daughter. As if I wasn’t real.

“She understands what’s expected of her,” he said simply. “The wedding will be held next Saturday. You’ll have full arrangements by this evening.”

I wanted to scream. To tell them I was a person, not property. To run out of the room and never come back. But I didn’t move. I couldn’t.

Because in my father's world, obedience was survival.

And then—I felt it.

Him.

Leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, a storm contained in a human body—Tristan Wolfe.

He stood like a monument carved from stone. His suit was black, tailored to the ridges and edges of his muscled frame. A jagged scar curved beneath his right cheekbone, a souvenir from a war he never spoke about. But it didn’t mar his beauty—it magnified it.

He was fifteen years older than me. Maybe more. But nothing about him was old. He was lethal, alive, sharp. His jaw was stubbled and tight, his mouth drawn in that ever-present frown that somehow made my heart beat harder.

His eyes—cold, grey, and unreadable—were locked on me. Or maybe on Richard. I couldn't tell.

Tristan never smiled. Never touched. Never crossed the invisible line between protector and prisoner.

But right now, I was desperate for that line to break.

Richard leaned closer, his breath brushing my ear. “I’ll take real good care of you, darling. You’ll be happy with me—you’ll see.”

I snapped to my feet so fast my chair screeched back.

Both men looked up. My father raised a single brow. “Hazel?”

“I—just need to use the restroom,” I said quickly, forcing the words out.

Victor nodded once. “Be quick.”

I turned toward the hallway, my heels clicking against the marble. My pulse pounded in my ears.

I passed Tristan, and for a breath, I swore the air between us shifted. His body tensed. I didn’t dare look at him, but I felt him follow, silent and steady, like a shadow stitched to my feet.

I didn’t know what scared me more—Richard, who saw me as something to own…

…or Tristan, who saw me.

And I didn’t know which of them I needed more right now.

But I knew one thing:

I would rather die than become Richard Langston’s wife.

The corridor was quiet.

Too quiet.

My heels clicked against the marble in sharp, frantic rhythm—like the panic tapping against my ribs. I walked faster, my pulse racing, vision tunneling. My lungs screamed for air, but every breath I took felt too shallow, too tight.

He was behind me.

I didn’t have to turn around to know.

Tristan’s footsteps were quieter than mine, deliberate and smooth, but the weight of his presence wrapped around me like static. I could feel it—feel him—hovering just close enough to catch me if I fell.

And god, I was about to fall.

I rounded the corner near the powder room, the golden sconces on the walls casting a warm glow over the polished ivory floors, and suddenly—I couldn’t go any farther.

I couldn’t pretend anymore.

My knees buckled.

My shoulder hit the wall with a thud as I slumped against the cold marble, chest heaving, fingers trembling.

“Breathe,” I told myself.

But I couldn’t.

I pressed a hand over my heart, squeezing my eyes shut as everything from the table replayed in my head—Richard’s hand on my thigh, my father’s voice like a blade, the word wife ringing in my ears like a death sentence.

My breathing grew sharper, more uneven.

Then—

“Hazel.”

His voice.

Low. Rough. Controlled.

I hadn’t heard him speak in months. Maybe years. Not to me.

I didn’t look up. Couldn’t.

A second later, I felt the warmth of his hand at my elbow. Then his other hand came around my waist, anchoring me gently—so gently I almost collapsed into it.

“Breathe,” he said again, firmer now. “In through your nose. Out through your mouth.”

I gasped.

“Look at me.”

My eyes fluttered open.

Tristan was close—closer than he had ever been. His storm-colored eyes locked onto mine, his face unreadable, but his voice—his voice—was steady and sure.

“You’re okay. You just need to slow it down. Focus on me.”

I did.

Because I couldn’t focus on anything else.

He guided me with his hands—one firm at my back, the other light beneath my chin.

“Match me,” he said softly. “Inhale. One… two… three…”

I breathed with him.

The air burned at first. But then, little by little, it started to come easier. The tightness in my lungs eased. My fingers stopped shaking.

He didn’t let go.

And I didn’t want him to.

I stared at him, too stunned to speak, barely aware of how close we were. His cologne was sharp but clean—nothing like Richard’s—and his heat seeped through my skin.

His eyes flicked down to my mouth, then quickly back up. He stepped back like he’d been burned, the contact broken.

“Better?” he asked.

I nodded, throat still tight. “I… I didn’t know where else to go.”

“You don’t need to go anywhere,” he said quietly. “I’m here.”

Something inside me cracked.

And for the first time since I sat at that goddamn table, I let myself feel something that wasn’t panic.

Safety.

Because Tristan Wolfe—silent, unreadable, untouchable Tristan—had just become the only person in the world who seemed to care whether I could breathe.