Under Contract

Chapter Twelve: Terms of Control

Melody Pov

I tell myself I am only going back because of the app.

Not because Anton’s has been crawling under my skin since last night. Not because I barely slept after the fight outside the restaurant. Not because every time I closed my eyes, I could still feel the force of him, the anger in his voice, the way jealousy had made him look less like a man in control and more like a man falling apart. And the taste of his lips…

I go back because I have worked too hard to let one reckless kiss to ruin what I built.

That is what I repeat to myself in the elevator on the way to the sixty-second floor.

When the doors open, the office is too quiet.

No movement. No scattered papers. No sharp voice telling me I am late.

For one strange second, I think he might not be there.

Then I see him through the glass wall of his office.

Anton is standing by the window with one hand in his pocket and the other wrapped around a coffee cup he does not seem to remember drinking. He is wearing a charcoal suit today, no tie, dark shirt open at the throat. His mouth is set in a hard line.

He turns before I even step fully inside, as if he felt me the moment I arrived. His gaze finds mine, and the whole room seems to lock.

Not warm.

Not sorry.

Not even angry.

Worse.

Careful.

“Ms. Richardson,” he says.

The words stop me cold.

I set my laptop bag down on the desk that had somehow started to feel like mine and stare at him. “We’re back to that?”

“We’re keeping this professional.”

I let out a small laugh that holds no amusement at all. “That would have been a useful idea yesterday.”

His jaw shifts. “Sit down.”

“No.”

The word comes out sharper than I mean it to, but I do not take it back.

For a moment, neither of us moves.

Then Anton sets the coffee down and walks toward me. Slow. Measured. Controlled in that way that always makes me feel like I am one wrong sentence away from seeing the part of him he tries so hard to bury.

When he stops on the other side of the desk, he does not touch it. He does not touch me. He keeps a deliberate distance, and somehow that feels worse.

“I crossed a line,” he says.

It is not an apology.

It sounds like a legal statement, something prepared in his head long before I got here.

I fold my arms. “That is one way to say it.”

His eyes hold mine. “It won’t happen again.”

Something bitter rises in me. “Good.”

The lie stings the moment it leaves my mouth.

His gaze flickers, just for a second, as if he heard it too.

I look away first and unzip my laptop bag, because if I keep looking at him like this, I am going to say something reckless and I am tired of being the only one who looks reckless when we both know he is just as dangerous.

“I sent Hargrove the updated metrics this morning,” I say, my voice cooler now. “User retention is up. Conversion is stronger after the API changes. If he comes in, I can walk him through the deck.”

Anton nods once. “Good.”

I pull out my laptop, my charger, my mechanical keyboard, and place everything on the desk with more noise than necessary. If he wants professional, I can give him professional. Loud, inconvenient, difficult professional.

He watches me set up.

The silence stretches.

Finally, he says, “No fan today?”

I glance at him. “Thought you wanted peace.”

His mouth almost moves, almost gives me something human, but the expression disappears before I can be sure it was there. “I wanted work.”

“You had work.”

He looks at the cut lip reflected in the glass behind me, then back at me. “And now I want boundaries.”

I stop moving.

There it is.

The real reason for the cold voice. The formal name. The careful posture.

This is not about control today.

This is about damage.

My laugh this time is softer, but uglier. “So this is your solution? You act like yesterday didn’t happen and draw a neat little line around the mess?”

“It is the only way this continues.”

“This.” I gesture between us. “Or the deal?”

His stare hardens. “Both.”

The word lands heavier than I expect.

Before I can answer, there is a knock at the open office door.

Not a timid one.

A casual one.

I turn, and there he is.

Vincent.

He looks out of place in Vespucci Tower in a way Anton never could. Softer around the edges. Dark hair a little too long, tie loosened, a navy coat hanging open over a white shirt. He has the same bones in his face as Anton, but none of the armor. He is holding a slim black notebook in one hand.

“Sorry,” he says, looking first at me and then at his brother. “I didn’t realize I was interrupting.”

“You are,” Anton says flatly.

Vincent ignores the tone with the ease of someone who has heard it his whole life. He lifts the notebook slightly. “You left this at the restaurant.”

I blink. It takes me a second to realize it is mine. Not my laptop, not anything important for work, just the small notebook I sometimes throw ideas into when I am too tired to open another app. Fragments of copy. Event concepts. Half-finished thoughts.

I step toward him. “I didn’t even realize.”

“I figured.” Vincent smiles, easy and warm. “You looked distracted.”

Behind me, I feel Anton go very still.

I take the notebook. “Thank you.”

Vincent’s eyes move to my face, not in the invasive way Anton’s do when he is angry, but with quiet attention. “You okay?”

Before I can answer, Anton speaks.

“She is working.”

The room changes instantly.

Vincent turns toward him, and there is something old in the look they exchange. Not simple dislike. Not even rivalry. Something worn down over years.

“I was only returning a notebook,” Vincent says.

“And now you’ve done that.”

I should stay out of it.

I know I should.

Instead, I say, “He was being polite.”

Anton’s gaze cuts to me so fast it feels physical. “I did not ask.”

“No,” I say, matching his tone. “You usually don’t.”

Vincent exhales a quiet breath, the kind people let out when they have stepped into a fight they already understand too well. “I’m leaving.”

Anton says nothing.

Vincent looks back at me. “There’s a reading downtown tomorrow night. Small place. Nothing dramatic. You might like it.”

The invitation hangs in the room like a test.

I do not even have time to decide what I would have answered.

Anton steps forward.

“She’s busy.”

Vincent’s expression changes then. Not much, but enough. Enough to show he notices the claim in Anton’s voice. Enough to show he notices the atmosphere in the room.

Enough to make me understand that whatever happened between these brothers, it is nowhere near finished.

Vincent gives a small nod. “Right.”

He leaves without another word.

The second he is gone, I turn to Anton.

“What is wrong with you?”

He does not answer right away. He walks back to his desk, opens a black folder, and pulls out a single sheet of paper. When he sets it in front of me, I do not look at it first. I look at him.

Then I look down.

It is an addendum to my contract.

Three new clauses.

One about all communication being logged through official channels.

One about appearances at approved events.

And one that makes my stomach go cold.

No personal involvement with members of the Vespucci family outside approved business settings.

I look up slowly.

“You cannot be serious.”

His face is unreadable. “Sign it.”

A laugh escapes me, stunned and furious at the same time. “You think you get to do this because you are embarrassed?”

“This is not embarrassment.”

“What is it, then?”

His voice drops. “Risk management.”

I stare at him. “That is the most dishonest thing you’ve said to me.”

He does not move.

That makes it worse.

“If I have dinner with your cousin, it is a problem. If I speak to your brother for five minutes, it is a problem. If I breathe in the direction of a Vespucci, you tighten my contract like I’m some kind of liability?”

His eyes darken. “You are close to things you do not understand.”

“And whose fault is that?” I shoot back. “You never explain anything. You just decide, command, drag, threaten, and expect everyone else to call it protection.”

His expression slips then, just for a second.

Not enough for softness.

Enough for truth.

“You should stay away from my family,” he says quietly.

I shake my head. “You don’t get to decide that for me.”

“You don’t know what they do.”

“Is not my problem what they are doing, I am a human, I socialise.”

He comes around the desk so quickly this time that I step back before I can stop myself. He notices. I know he notices, because something sharp flashes across his face and is gone just as fast.

“I’m trying to keep this deal alive,” he says.

“No.” My voice trembles, but I hold it steady enough. “You’re trying to control every part of it because you can’t control yourself.”

Silence.

His eyes lock on mine.

For a moment, I think he is going to deny it.

He does not.

That is somehow the worst part.

I grab the contract addendum and shove it back across the desk. “I’m not signing this.”

“Then don’t.”

The answer is so calm it makes my anger flare hotter.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

I stare at him. “You would really put fifty million at risk over your own jealousy?”

The word lands clean between us.

Jealousy.

He does not correct it.

Instead, he says, “You should go home.”

Something inside me goes very still.

Not because he raised his voice.

Not because he threatened me.

Because he said it like he meant it.

Like sending me away was the only thing keeping him from doing something worse.

I pick up my notebook, my bag, my keyboard. My hands shake, and I hate that he can probably see it.

At the door, I stop.

I do not turn around when I speak.

“You know what the worst part is?”

He says nothing.

“I still can’t tell whether you’re trying to protect me from your family, or from yourself.”

I leave before he answers.

Outside, the elevator takes too long. The hallway feels too quiet. My pulse is still too loud in my own ears.

When the doors finally open, Vivian is standing there with a tablet in her hand and a look on her face I do not like.

“Melody,” she says carefully, “there’s someone downstairs asking for you.”

I tighten my grip on my bag. “Who?”

Vivian hesitates.

Then she says, “A man named Daniel Collins. He says he’s your father.”