The Terms

I signed on a Sunday, in a lawyer's office that smelled like expensive carpet, and I made him sign my terms first.

"Cross and Company comes off the block before I sign anything." I pushed my own page across the table — I'd had my lawyer draft it overnight. "Funded Monday. My name on the door, my board, my decisions. You don't touch a single client."

Adrian read it without expression. "Done."

"And one rule." I waited until he looked up. "No feelings. This is a transaction. The day it stops being one, the deal's off."

"That," he said, signing, "is the first thing you've said that I fully agree with."

I told myself the small drop in my stomach was relief.

The contract required us to live as married people in the eyes of anyone watching, which meant his penthouse, which meant a closet bigger than my apartment and a man who moved through forty floors of glass like he'd never once been told no.

"The Hartwell gala is Thursday," he said that first night, not looking up from his tablet. "Half my shareholders will be there. So will half the people betting our marriage is a fraud. Wear something that makes them stop counting."

"I'm not a prop, Sterling."

"No." He finally looked at me, and the gray went oddly quiet. "You're the only reason any of this works. Don't mistake that for nothing."

I didn't have an answer for that, which annoyed me more than an insult would have.

The gala was a war fought in champagne. I felt every eye the moment we walked in — the rival CEO and the man who'd tried to destroy her, arm in arm, smiling like it was true.

A woman with a sharp laugh cornered me near the bar. "Elena Cross. I heard Sterling finally bought the one thing he couldn't crush." Her smile was a blade. "Or did you sell?"

Before I could answer, Adrian's hand settled at the small of my back — warm, sure, unhurried.

"She didn't sell anything, Margaret." His voice was easy, but the hand didn't move. "She agreed to put up with me. I'm aware which of us got the worse end."

Margaret blinked. Laughed for real this time. Drifted off.

I should have stepped away from his hand.

I didn't, for one full second longer than the performance required, and I felt him notice.

"That was almost charming," I said, recovering.

"Don't tell anyone." The corner of his mouth moved. "It ruins the brand."

For a moment — one stupid, dangerous moment — I forgot to hate him.

I went looking for air on the terrace and found a man already there, watching the city like he owned the parts he hadn't bought yet.

"Mrs. Sterling." He said the name like a private joke. "Or do you keep Cross? I always think a woman should keep what's hers."

"I'm sorry — do we know each other?"

"Not yet. Damien Vale." He didn't offer his hand. "I knew your father. Brilliant man. Trusted the wrong people, right up until the end." He smiled gently, and something cold walked up my spine. "It's a shame, what they did to him. Worse, I think, that no one ever told you the half of it."

"They?" My pulse climbed. "The Sterlings ruined my father. There's no half."

"Is that what you think happened?" Vale tilted his head, almost kind. "You've married into a family that has buried better secrets than yours, Mrs. Sterling. Be careful which sins you've agreed to carry." He set his glass on the railing. "Ask your husband what he keeps in the file with your father's name on it. Then ask him why he never showed you."

He was gone before I could speak.

Inside, through the glass, Adrian was watching me — and the easy warmth was gone from his face, replaced by something that looked, for the first time all night, like fear.