Chapter 1

"Jump. You love me to death, don't you? Didn't you say you'd do anything for me?"

Ethan Hart wanted me to throw myself off the observation deck of the tallest tower downtown, live, in front of the millions of people watching the broadcast.

I stood on the wrong side of the railing. Below me, traffic streamed through the streets and neon flickered in the distance.

His friends clapped and cheered. Vivian Lane laughed softly and curled herself against his arm.

Ethan's grin turned vicious. "Come on, don't waste everyone's time. Jump, and I'll marry you."

He'd made me a promise once. Finish a hundred of his demands, and he would marry me.

When his company was circling bankruptcy, he told me to hand over everything I owned, and I did.

Then he moved Vivian into my house in the suburbs and left me to sleep in a motel.

The night he was tangled up with Vivian at a private party, he sent me over with something for his hangover, and made a point of telling me to bring a box of condoms, the right size.

I stood at the door holding the soup I'd made, and heard him laugh. "She's my ATM. I use her, then I throw her out."

No matter how far it went, I'd done all ninety-nine.

This was the last one: jump.

He thought I'd hesitate, thought I'd cry and beg him to pick something else. I didn't.

I let go and fell. The wind roared in my ears, and the whole lit-up city slid past me.

I heard him shout, heard the crowd scream, and underneath all of it, the one voice I'd waited too long to hear.

[Congratulations, host. Emotional conquest progress: one hundred percent. Reward delivered. Your mother's terminal illness is fully cured.]

Chapter 1

I was falling fast. My bones rattled, my blood seemed to run backward, and my head buzzed.

Somewhere above me Ethan was shouting, panicked. "Nora! Are you insane?"

Just when I was sure I was about to die, I hit something huge and soft, a fire rescue airbag.

Ethan came down too. He pushed through the crowd and stood over me.

His voice was full of scorn. "Huh. Still alive?"

"Nora, you really know how to put on a show. Can't even die from a jump. You did that on purpose, didn't you?"

His friends laughed along. "Yeah, she just wants Ethan to feel sorry for her."

Ethan stood and brushed the dust off his knees. "Even if you'd jumped and actually died, I still wouldn't have married you."

"You die, I marry someone else. You live, don't expect me to pity you."

I opened my mouth. The taste of blood welled up from my throat, thick on my tongue.

I forced it down, and my voice came out shaking. "Ethan, I don't want you to marry me."

"As of today, we're even."

Ethan's smile froze for a second. Then his surprise hardened into anger.

He crouched down and leaned close to my face, a cold smile at the corner of his mouth. "Nora, did the fall knock something loose?"

"You think you can play hard to get with me? That's a cheap trick. You think if you say you don't want me, I'll go chasing after you?"

"Let me tell you something. To me, you're nothing."

Five years, a hundred demands, and in the end it all came down to a single sentence from him: you're nothing.

I wanted to laugh at myself, but the moment my mouth moved it pulled at the cut on my face, and I sucked in a sharp breath.

Behind me came the quick click of heels.

Vivian shoved through the crowd, hair loose, breathing hard, and ran to Ethan's side to grab his arm.

"Ethan, that scared me half to death. I thought she really—"

She broke off with a little yelp and lifted her right hand, frowning.

"My hand's cut. I must have scraped it on something on the way down."

She held her finger up in front of Ethan. There was a thin red line across it, the skin not even broken, not a drop of blood.

But Ethan's face changed instantly.

He cradled her hand, his brow knotting tight, his voice all tenderness. "How did this happen? Does it hurt?"

Vivian's voice went tearful and her eyes rimmed red, like she'd suffered some terrible wrong. "A little."

Ethan pulled her against his shoulder. "I'll take you to the emergency room. We don't want it to scar."

Vivian glanced back at me. "What about her?"

He shot me a dismissive look and scoffed. "She's so capable, isn't she?"

"She can find the one spot with an airbag to jump onto. Calling an ambulance shouldn't be too hard for her."

He helped Vivian into the car. The door shut, the taillights came on, and they disappeared around the corner.

I don't know who lifted me into the ambulance. Later I learned that a stranger had called for help and had the airbag laid out in time, and that stranger saved my life.

I was lying in the hospital bed when my phone rang. It was my mother's doctor.

"Ms. Bennett, your mother has made a full recovery. She'll be able to go home soon."

I hung up, closed my eyes, and let out a slow breath.

I could finally leave Ethan for good.

Chapter 2

Five years ago, the day my mother was diagnosed, I walked out of the hospital with nowhere left to turn.

I sat down on the steps outside and buried my face in my knees. The tears wouldn't fall and wouldn't go away.

Then I heard the voice.

[Host in crisis detected. Emotional Conquest System now active.]

My head snapped up. I thought I was hallucinating, that I'd finally lost my mind.

[The host must select a target and complete one hundred of the target's demands, until the target is willing to marry the host.]

[Upon completion, the system will grant the host one wish.]

I didn't even have to think. "Cure my mother."

[Wish locked. Please select a target.]

My phone lit up. I scrolled through my contacts and stopped on Ethan.

The Harts had money, resources, connections. He was the obvious choice.

[Target locked.]

That night I went to his apartment, knelt on the floor, and begged.

"Ethan, I'll do anything. Just marry me."

Ethan lounged on the couch, one leg crossed over the other, flicking a Zippo open and shut.

"Beg me? With what?"

"You can give me a hundred demands. Anything you want. I'll do all of them."

He gave a soft laugh, tossed the lighter onto the table, sank back into the couch, and watched me through half-closed eyes.

"All right. Get down and kowtow to me first."

I bent forward and pressed my forehead to the floor with a dull thud.

The hardwood was cold, and the cold spread up through my knees and into the rest of me.

[Progress: one percent.]

His friends laughed, the sound passing around the room.

"Ethan, this girl's something else. You tell her to kowtow and she just does it?"

Ethan had a cigarette between his lips, his eyes narrowed, smoke leaking from the corner of his mouth.

I didn't stop. I kept going until my forehead split and blood ran down past my brow and dripped onto the floor.

It ran into my eyes and blurred everything. I forced my head up and looked at him.

"Is that enough?"

He didn't answer. He found a damp towel and wiped the blood off my face.

His voice was very quiet. "Nora, are you stupid?"

"Fine. Finish a hundred demands and I'll marry you."

We signed an agreement, and from that day on Ethan was my fiancé.

What followed could be summed up in one word: a transaction.

He made demands. I carried them out.

One night Ethan had a fight with his family, and Vivian happened to be out of the country, so there was no one to keep him company.

He sat alone on his apartment floor and drank, empty bottles all around him.

When I picked up the phone, his voice was slurred.

"Nora, didn't you say you'd do anything?"

"Yes."

"Then go buy some rat poison and swallow it."

I paused on my end of the line. Then I said okay.

I went to an all-night convenience store, bought a packet, and got it down.

My stomach started to churn. A burning pain clawed up from somewhere deep, and I curled in on myself and passed out.

When I woke up I was in the hospital, with a tube down my throat.

Not long after, Vivian got sick and needed a transfusion. As it happened, we had the same blood type.

Ethan called me. "Come to the hospital. Vivian needs blood."

I tried to refuse. "I'm anemic. The doctor said donating could be dangerous for me."

He just scoffed. "Don't lie. It's only blood. It won't kill you."

In the end I went.

When the needle went in, the nurse looked at me twice and asked if I was feeling all right, said I looked pale.

I said I was fine. But when I stood up afterward, everything went black.

I woke in a hospital bed with no one beside me.

Ethan was in the next room with Vivian, never leaving her side.

One wall between us, and he wouldn't even come look at me once.

After that his demands only got worse.

When his company went under, he told me to hand over everything I had, and I did.

Then he moved Vivian into my house and left me to sleep in my car.

The night he was tangled up with Vivian at a private party, he sent me over with something for his hangover, and made a point of telling me to bring a box of condoms, the right size.

I stood at the door holding the soup I'd made and heard him sneer. "She's my ATM. I use her, then I throw her out."

He'd gotten used to me coming whenever he called, used to me saying yes to everything, used to all the things I did for him.

It never once crossed his mind that one day I would leave.

Chapter 3

The day my mother's life hung in the balance, I was putting together a financial report for Ethan's company.

The hospital called. "Ms. Bennett, your mother has had a brain hemorrhage. She needs surgery immediately."

"Please come and sign the consent forms. The deposit is fifty thousand, up front."

Fifty thousand dollars.

I checked every account I had. Together they came to less than five hundred.

Ethan had taken all my savings, everything my parents and I had set aside over a lifetime. I had nothing left.

When I burst into Ethan's office, he was leaning back in his chair on a video call with Vivian, his voice impossibly gentle.

"Baby, what do you want for dinner? I'll book somewhere."

He frowned when he saw me come in, covered the phone's mic, and looked at me.

I spoke fast. "Ethan, my mother has a brain hemorrhage. She needs fifty thousand for surgery. Can you—"

He cut me off, his voice flat. "Money's tight for me right now. Figure it out yourself."

"That money you took out of my accounts—"

"You gave it to me. It's all there in the agreement, in writing."

He turned away, uncovered the mic, and smiled at the screen. "Vivian, sorry, where were we?"

I stood there, my nails digging into my palms. "Ethan, my mother is in the ICU. Fifty thousand is nothing to you."

He finally looked at me properly, a faint smile on his lips. "It's nothing to you either."

"Aren't you the one who's so good at finding money? You'd do anything for me, remember?"

He could have helped. He had the money.

I remembered the diamond necklace he gave Vivian for her birthday, eighty thousand.

He hadn't blinked buying it, and now my mother was in surgery waiting for the money to save her, and he was telling me to figure it out myself.

But there was no time. I stopped begging, turned, and ran.

It was dark by then. I couldn't pull the deposit together, and the doctors said they couldn't operate without it.

I stood at the payment window, staring at the number.

Hurried footsteps came up behind me. Ethan's assistant, Kyle, jogged over with an envelope in his hand.

"Nora, Mr. Hart asked me to give you this."

I opened it. Inside was a loan contract, already signed by him, waiting for my signature.

Amount: fifty thousand. Interest: a hundred and twenty percent a year. Term: one year.

He'd lent me the money after all, at loan-shark rates.

While my mother lay waiting to be saved, he was doing business with me.

I signed.

The surgery took six hours, and I stood outside the operating room the entire time without moving.

My phone buzzed over and over, all of it from Ethan.

"Is the report done? Send it to me by morning."

"After you finish the report, take Vivian to the airport. Her flight's at eight."

My mother was on the table between life and death, and he wanted me to go drop Vivian off.

The surgery went well. I let out a breath and went to Vivian's apartment.

Vivian was leaving the country for six months to study abroad.

Ethan had packed her a huge suitcase, full of the imported snacks she liked, expensive skincare, treats from back home.

There was also a bank card loaded with two hundred thousand, the PIN her birthday, spending money from Ethan.

Enough to save my mother four times over.

I drove them to the airport and watched Ethan kiss Vivian for a long time, smooth her hair, kiss her forehead.

"Call me when you land. Doesn't matter how late."

Vivian went through security. Ethan stood there holding up his phone, waving it, saying he'd miss her.

I waited a distance away to take him home.

Once she was through, he got into the back seat and was quiet for a long time.

Then he said, "Nora, go clean up her apartment tomorrow."

"She left in a hurry. There are leftovers in the fridge she didn't deal with. Go clear it out."

Vivian was gone, and even the leftovers in her fridge mattered more than I did.

Chapter 4

On the third day in the hospital after the jump, Ethan came to see me.

My leg was in a cast, suspended in the air. There was gauze taped to my face and an IV port in the back of my right hand.

His tone was casual. "How bad is it?"

I kept it short. "I'll live."

He didn't respond. He pulled out an envelope, a thick stack of hospital bills inside.

"Your medical costs. I've covered all of it."

I went still for a second.

His expression was bland. "Don't thank me. You jumped because of me. It's only right that I pay."

I said quietly, "Thank you."

He nodded, dragged a chair over, sat, and was silent for a while before he spoke again.

"When you said you didn't want me to marry you. Did you mean it?"

I nodded, serious. "Yes."

He paused, then his brow tightened. "Nora, are you done acting out?"

"I'm not acting out."

"You nearly got yourself killed and you're telling me you're not acting out?"

"It's because I nearly got myself killed that I finally came to my senses."

He stood, shoving the chair back so it screeched against the floor.

His face darkened, fury gathering behind his eyes. "You think finishing those hundred demands means you get to walk away?"

"I just paid tens of thousands for your medical bills. What are you going to pay that back with?"

I looked at him, and then, suddenly, I laughed.

"Ethan, your company failed and you took every cent I had."

"Now you pay one medical bill and you think that's enough to keep me here?"

His face went pale. "That's not what I meant—"

"Then what did you mean?"

"Did you come to see me because you care that I'm hurt, or because you're afraid I really won't come back this time?"

His lips were trembling.

I looked at him and said each word clearly. "Ethan, you don't need me."

"What you need is someone who'll do whatever you say. And I don't need you anymore."

"A hundred demands. I finished them. As of today, we're even."

He stood there, his hands clenched into fists, his knuckles white.

His eyes were fixed on me. He opened his mouth to say something, then swallowed it.

I kept going, my voice low. "Ethan, I know you feel something for me. You wouldn't have lent me the money or paid my bills otherwise."

"But it's only one percent. Nowhere near what you feel for Vivian."

I reached under my pillow and pulled out a folded stack of paper, the prenuptial agreement he'd drawn up five years ago.

In black and white, it spelled out the deal: Nora completes one hundred of Ethan's demands, and Ethan marries Nora.

I looked at it one last time, then took it by the edges and tore it apart without mercy.

The pieces scattered to the floor like a silent snowfall.

He froze.

His eyes dropped to the pile of torn paper. His pupils contracted, and his lips moved, but no sound came.

The room was quiet enough to hear the IV dripping.

My heart was in pieces too, scattered past any chance of picking back up.

"Ethan, I don't need your one percent of love."

His chest heaved. He yanked the door open and walked out, slamming it behind him with a crash.

His voice came through the door, and what he said turned my blood to ice.

"Nora, you think you were the only one with a system these five years?"