Chapter 1

All of New York was talking about it --- Lucas Hale, the guy who once won an international gold medal on the piano, was now nothing more than Serena Caldwell's pet.

The day the Hale family went bankrupt, I signed a three-year contract and sold myself to my ex-girlfriend, Serena Caldwell.

Everyone assumed we'd rekindled our romance. Only I knew the truth --- I was a servant she'd bought for three million dollars.

She went through seventeen boyfriends, and every single breakup, she took it out on me.

Slapping me across the face. Pouring champagne over my head. Leaking photos of me on my knees scrubbing her heels to the media.

Spreading rumors that I'd sleep with anyone, that I'd clawed my way up by using my body.

I fell from the top to the gutter and became the laughingstock of all New York. I endured all of it.

Until one night, drunk and reckless, she made a bet and lost me to the girl next door --- the one I'd watched over since we were kids, the one I loved like a little sister.

Three days and three nights. The fingers I'd spent eighteen years training on the piano were broken, one by one. A deep, permanent scar was carved across my cheek from one side to the other.

When I finally crawled out, Serena was sitting on the couch touching up her makeup, smiling like nothing had happened.

"It was just a little joke. Don't tell me you can't take a joke."

Then she held the rest of the Hale family's debt over my head, just like she had on every one of the previous one thousand and ninety-five days.

I didn't say a word. I just lifted my eyes to the clock on the wall.

Seventy-two hours until the three-year contract expired.

Serena Caldwell. Game over.