Off-Limits: The Billionaire's Deal

Chapter Thirteen ISLA'S POV

The Crane meeting was at two o'clock Tuesday.

Kai hadn't asked me to come. I showed up anyway, at one forty-five, in the lobby of Westbrook Hotels' corporate office with my portfolio under my arm because I'd come straight from the project site and hadn't had time to drop it.

Derek saw me first. His expression did something complicated. "He didn't tell you to come."

"No."

"He's going to say something about it."

"Probably." I smiled at the receptionist. "Can you let him know I'm here?"

Kai appeared two minutes later. He looked at me, then at the portfolio, then back at me. "I didn't ask you to come."

"I know. But Crane's argument is about our marriage. I'm your wife. It's a strange choice to leave me out of a meeting where someone challenges whether our marriage is real."

He held my gaze for a moment. Then stepped back from the elevator. "Fine. But you let me lead."

"Obviously."

"And don't react to anything Crane says regardless of what it is."

"I'm not Marco."

Something close to amusement crossed his face. "No. You're not."

Richard Crane was already in the conference room when we arrived, sitting across from Kai's legal team with two lawyers of his own and an expression that belonged to someone who thought he'd already won. He was late fifties, silver haired, the kind of man who'd spent decades perfecting the appearance of being the smartest person in any room.

His eyes moved to me with visible calculation.

"Mrs. Westbrook," he said. "I didn't expect you."

"She's involved in the flagship project," Kai said, sitting down. I took the chair beside him. "Whatever concerns the hotel concerns her."

Crane smiled thinly. "How convenient."

Kai didn't respond to that. He opened the folder Derek placed in front of him. "You requested this meeting. Go ahead."

Crane's lawyer spoke first, laying out the argument cleanly and without drama. The marriage had occurred within twenty-four hours of a documented incident involving a third party. The timeline raised questions about coercion and exploitation. Thomas Westbrook, as founding partner, had standing to request a review of the inheritance clause satisfaction. They weren't arguing the marriage was illegal. They were arguing it didn't meet the spirit of the requirement.

Our lawyer responded. The clause language was explicit and unambiguous. Legal marriage, full stop. Spirit arguments required judicial interpretation and that process would take considerably longer than the current transfer timeline.

Back and forth, measured and precise.

I watched Crane during all of it. He wasn't listening to the lawyers. He was watching Kai and me, looking for something in the space between us. A distance. A discomfort. Anything that read as two people sitting beside each other rather than two people who belonged together.

I moved my chair slightly closer to Kai's. Not dramatically. Just enough.

Crane's eyes tracked it.

I opened my portfolio on the table, found the hotel lobby concept board I'd finished last night, and slid it in front of Kai without interrupting the legal discussion. He glanced at it. His hand came to the bottom corner of the board, turning it slightly toward him, a small automatic adjustment. His shoulder settled against mine briefly.

Neither of us had planned any of it.

Crane saw all of it.

When the lawyers finished their respective positions Crane leaned forward. "Mr. Westbrook. You've built an impressive company. I have genuine respect for what you've done with the Westbrook brand." His tone was conversational now, which was more dangerous than formal. "My concern isn't legal. It's reputational. An inheritance clause satisfied under these circumstances, a young woman connected to your best friend, a documented stalking incident used as the inciting event. The press will build their own story."

"The press builds stories with or without facts," Kai said. "I don't adjust my decisions based on anticipated narratives."

"Your investors might feel differently."

"My investors have been with me through considerably more complicated situations than a fast marriage." Kai closed the folder. "If you have a legal argument, we've addressed it. If you have a reputational threat, I'd suggest being careful about making it explicitly, given that your connection to Brandon Mitchell is documented and our lawyers are holding that documentation."

The room went very still.

Crane's expression didn't change but something behind his eyes did. "I don't know what you're referring to."

"Mitchell Properties and your firm share three shell corporations. Brandon Mitchell began a relationship with my wife two years ago, approximately six weeks after those corporations were established. The timing suggests a deliberate strategy to create leverage against me through her." Kai's voice was completely calm. "I'm not making accusations in this room. I'm noting that if a reputational campaign begins against my marriage, the Mitchell connection becomes part of the public conversation."

Crane looked at me. "Your wife seems very composed for someone in her situation."

"She usually is," Kai said.

I met Crane's gaze directly. "Is there something you'd like to ask me, Mr. Crane?"

He studied me for a moment. Then sat back. "No. I think we're finished here."

The lawyers gathered their papers. Crane stood, buttoned his jacket, and looked at Kai one final time. "The Mitchell connection is circumstantial."

"Most things are until they aren't," Kai said.

Crane left.

Derek exhaled audibly. Our lawyer said something about following up in writing. People filtered out until it was just me and Kai and Derek in the conference room.

Derek looked between us. "That went better than expected."

"He'll regroup," Kai said. "But we bought time."

Derek gathered his files and diplomatically found somewhere else to be.

I looked at Kai. "You were going to hold the Mitchell information back initially."

"Yes."

"What changed?"

"He was looking at you like you were a variable he could manipulate." Kai straightened the concept board on the table, the same small adjustment he'd made during the meeting. "I don't like people looking at you like that."

"So you burned the leverage."

"I redirected it." He looked at me. "There's a difference."

I thought about the way his shoulder had settled against mine. The automatic turn of the concept board. Neither of us had planned it and Crane had seen it and it had done more for our credibility than anything the lawyers said.

"You know what the most convincing moment was?" I asked.

"The Mitchell disclosure."

"No. When you turned my concept board toward you. Like you actually wanted to see it."

He looked at me steadily. "I did want to see it."

"I know." I picked up the portfolio. "That's what made it convincing."

I walked out first. Behind me I heard him follow without hesitation.