Chapter 3: Market Deals and Small-Town Rumors

I’m a butcher’s daughter. With one swing of my knife, a life is gone. Guys from all over town steer clear of me.

That day at the farmers’ market, I saw a guy selling off men as indentured servants. On a whim, I thought: if men can buy wives to serve them, why can’t I buy a husband to serve me?

It was the sort of wild idea that only hits you when you’re elbow-deep in pig’s blood, tired of seeing the same old faces in this podunk town. My boots squeaked in the mud as I walked past the market stalls—kettle corn, tomatoes, live chickens squawking—and there he was, caged up like a stray dog nobody wanted. A kid ran past with a funnel cake, powdered sugar dusting the air. The whole place smelled like frying oil and sweet corn. At the time, Caleb Parker was covered in blood and grime, didn’t even have a contract. Slumped against the iron cage, a collar around his neck, his eyes closed, lips as pale as his face. Only his long, trembling lashes showed a hint of life. His profile was cold and sharp, yet broken—filthy, yet proud as a wildflower growing through a crack in the sidewalk.

Among all the healthy, robust, fully-documented men, I picked him at a glance.

Maybe it was because he looked less like a man and more like a challenge. Maybe it was the way nobody else even gave him a second look.

Luckily, he was half-dead. No one wanted him. Dirt cheap.

I spent two hundred bucks to buy him, then gritted my teeth and spent my savings to nurse him back to health.

He’s tall. During his recovery, he was always disobedient, so I never took off the collar from his neck—to make him more docile.

Later, when his wounds healed, he grew even more defiant. Out of spite, I simply locked him up.

But he’s so good-looking. Like a movie star who got lost and ended up behind bars in some backwater town.

I also guessed his identity wasn’t ordinary. He has a proud, stubborn spirit—a body full of unyielding bones you can’t beat out of him. Always wears a stony face and speaks little. Whenever he opens his mouth, it’s all legalese this and legalese that.

I used to joke he must’ve been a lawyer in his past life, always going on about contracts.

Never expected he’d be the governor’s son from Maple Heights.

And here I thought Maple Heights was just a place people drove through to get to the next town. But his name, the way he carried himself—even when he was sick and feverish, he had that air of someone who’d grown up with a silver spoon and a chip on his shoulder.