After her father's bankruptcy and suicide, twenty-four-year-old Ella accepts a private-assistant contract with Ashford CEO Elliott: he pays her family's debts, while she submits to his strict control. For three years she serves as an efficient assistant by day and remains bound by his rules in private. Elliott's nominal fiancée Juliet and power-hungry brother Sebastian identify Ella as his weakness. Ella turns obedience into knowledge of the system and begins fighting back. After the pair defeat their enemies, she destroys the contract and chooses to stand publicly beside Elliott as an equal.
