If you are looking for the usual slow-burn seduction, be warned: this chapter is uncomfortable. It asks you to watch your heroine become the very thing she once feared. But if you stick with it, you will witness the most mature iteration of Emma Marx yet.

In this chapter, Emma and William draft a new contract to define the evolving parameters of their relationship. Emma quickly discovers that William is unpredictable; the new rules push her beyond her previous emotional and sexual limits into a whirlwind of erotic discovery.

She left the apartment the next day and walked to the neighborhood where she used to take morning coffee, a place that still felt like an old map she had outlived. People nodded. The barista asked about a case. Emma deflected. She found her old mentor, Lyle, at a table near the window, an oversized blazer like an armor he rarely took off.