CHAPTER TWO — An Offer With Terms

The email came from Sofia Reyes, "Executive Assistant to Mr Cole," using the word "opportunity" the way people use it when they mean something other than a job.

I went. The building was colder in daylight, all that glass letting the grey March sky in without warmth. Sofia met me in the lobby — sharp bob, sharper suit — and led me to a private elevator.

"Don't let him rush you into anything before you understand what he's offering," she said. "He does that. Fastest path from problem to solution."

Damien's office had a view of the entire island. "Ms Bennett," he said, standing. "Thank you for coming."

"Your email was vague on purpose."

"Some things are better discussed in person." He didn't sit right away — I'd learn he thought better on his feet. "I looked into your situation. I hope you'll forgive the intrusion." He said it plainly, no apology dressed up as charm. "You need two hundred and forty thousand dollars in eight months, or your father doesn't get the treatment that gives him the best chance. You're also six weeks from losing the house."

I couldn't answer.

"I need a wife," he said, "in six weeks, or I lose control of a company my family spent three generations building, to a cousin who'd gut it inside a year. I need someone who won't want more than what we agree to."

"Why me?"

"Because you didn't recognise me until I told you who I was. Because you called my life a bad week to my face instead of agreeing with whatever I said." He named a settlement figure that made my ears ring. "One year. Legally binding. Public appearances as required. At the end, you leave whole, and never work two jobs again."

I should have said no. I thought about my father's hand shaking around a coffee cup he used to lift without thinking.

"I'd want it in writing," I said. "Every term."

"Griffith will have a contract to you within forty-eight hours."

Sofia walked me out, and at the elevator she paused, hand on the door. "For what it's worth," she said, "I've worked for him for six years. I've never once seen him hand someone that much control over the terms of anything. Take that however you want."

"Is that supposed to reassure me?"

"It's supposed to tell you he's not the man the tabloids write about. Not entirely." The doors opened. "Whatever you decide, decide it because it's right for you. Not because you think it's what he wants to hear."

I left without remembering the elevator ride down, and called Priya from the sidewalk, hands shaking too hard to hold the phone steady.

"He wants to marry me," I said. "For a year. On paper."

A long silence. "Ivy," she finally said, "you'd better come tell me everything."

I walked the twenty blocks to her apartment instead of taking the subway, needing the time to feel the shape of what had just happened, replaying his voice in my head — the flat honesty of it, the total absence of performance. By the time I reached her door, I still didn't have an answer. I just had a folder full of numbers, and underneath them, a strange, unfamiliar feeling that wasn't just fear.

Priya opened the door before I even knocked, like she'd been watching for me from the window. "Okay," she said, pulling me inside. "Start from the beginning. Every word."

I told her everything — the office, the number he'd named, the way he hadn't flinched from calling it exactly what it was. She listened without interrupting, which for Priya was its own kind of miracle, and when I finished, she was quiet for a long moment.

"You already know what you're going to say yes to," she said finally. "You wouldn't have walked here instead of taking the train if you didn't need the time to admit it to yourself first."

She wasn't wrong.