Under Contract

Chapter Thirteen: The Man in the Lobby

Pov Melody

The second Vivian says the name, I know exactly who it is.

Not my father. Not a ghost from the past. Something worse.

Daniel Collins.

My stepfather.

For a moment I just stand there in the hallway outside Anton’s office, my laptop bag hanging from my shoulder, my fingers still wrapped too tightly around the strap. The argument with Anton is still burning under my skin, the unsigned contract addendum still sitting somewhere behind me on his desk, but all of that shifts the second I hear Daniel’s name.

Because Anton can make me angry.

Anton can make me confused.

Anton can make me feel too much, too fast, in ways I do not know how to control.

But Daniel Collins has always made me feel one thing above all else.

Small.

Vivian watches my face carefully. “He says it’s important.”

Of course he does.

Men like Daniel always think their emergencies should become everyone else’s emergency.

I let out one slow breath. “Did he say what he wants?”

She shakes her head. “Just that he needs to speak to you.”

I almost laugh at that. Needs. As if need has ever stopped him from taking what he wants.

Without another word, I head for the elevator.

The ride down feels too long. I stare at my reflection in the mirrored wall and hate how easy it is to see the strain in my face. The fading bruise under my concealer, the tightness in my mouth, the tiredness around my eyes. I looked stronger when I walked into this building this morning.

When the elevator doors open into the lobby, I see him immediately.

Daniel is standing near the front desk with his hands in the pockets of a dark jacket that does not fit him properly anymore. His face is thinner, his hair more grey than brown, but his posture has an irritating confidence, like he can walk into any room and make it his by force alone.

The second he sees me, his expression changes into something almost performative. Relief, maybe. Or an imitation of it.

“There you are,” he says.

I stop several feet away from him. “You should not be here.”

He gives me a look like I am being difficult. “I called.”

“And I ignored you.”

“That much was obvious.”

I fold my arms. “Then you should have taken the hint.”

His jaw tightens at that. Good. Let him feel unwelcome.

The lobby is bright and polished and too public for this conversation, but somehow that only makes it worse. Vespucci Tower feels like Anton’s territory, all glass and control and cold power. Daniel standing here feels wrong, like mud tracked over expensive marble.

He glances around before looking back at me. “You work in a place like this now.”

“It’s temporary.”

“Doesn’t look temporary.”

I do not answer. I am not giving him details about my life, my work, my deal, or anything else. He has not earned the right to know what I built.

“What do you want?” I ask.

He studies me for a second, and I can almost see him adjusting his approach. Daniel has always been good at that. He knows when to bark, when to push, when to play tired and wounded.

“I need help,” he says at last.

There it is.

Not hello. Not how are you. Not I’m sorry.

Just the truth in its ugliest form.

A bitter laugh slips out before I can stop it. “Of course you do.”

His eyes narrow. “Don’t start.”

“Don’t start?” I repeat. “You show up at my workplace after everything you’ve done, and I’m the one starting?”

His voice drops. “Keep your voice down.”

That almost makes me smile.

“Or what?”

For a second I see it. The version of him I knew too well. The one that hated being challenged. The one that would grab too hard, speak too close, make the whole room feel dangerous.

Then he reins it in.

He takes one step closer, not enough to touch me, but enough to remind me he still thinks he can take space from me whenever he wants.

“Your mother is in trouble,” he says.

I go still.

Not because I trust him.

“What kind of trouble?”

“Money.”

I stare at him. “No.”

He blinks. “You didn’t even hear the number.”

“I don’t need to.”

“Melody.”

“No.” My voice is sharper now. “You are not coming into my workplace asking me for money again.”

“It isn’t for me.”

That makes me laugh for real this time. A short, humorless sound.

“That line should be retired by now.”

His face hardens. “Watch your mouth.”

I take a step toward him before I can stop myself. “No, you watch yours. You don’t get to walk in here and talk to me like I still live under your roof.”

People in the lobby are starting to notice now. A woman by the reception desk glances over. One of the security men straightens slightly. Daniel notices it too, and I can tell he hates being watched.

Good.

“Your mother could lose the house,” he says through his teeth.

My expression does not change. “Then maybe she should stop letting you drag her down with you.”

For the first time, something flashes across his face that looks genuinely ugly.

“You think you’re better than us now.”

“No,” I say quietly. “I know I had to become better.”

He takes another step.

This time it is too much.

I move back on instinct, and I hate that he sees it.

The satisfaction in his eyes lasts only a second, but it is there.

“Listen to me carefully,” he says. “You owe your mother.”

That sentence lands harder than it should. Not because it is true. Because it is familiar. I have heard some version of it for years. Family first. Family needs you. Family sacrifices. Always from people who never seemed interested in what family cost me.

“I owe her better than this,” I say. “But I do not owe you a thing.”

He lowers his voice even more. “You’re embarrassing yourself in front of these people.”

I almost tell him he has no idea how little I care about that.

But before I can answer, another voice cuts through the space between us.

“She’s not the one embarrassing herself.”

Anton.

I turn and see him striding across the lobby, expression unreadable in the most dangerous possible way. His jacket is still off from earlier, sleeves rolled, face controlled, but there is something cold in his eyes that was not there upstairs.

Daniel straightens, instantly defensive. “This doesn’t concern you.”

Anton stops beside me. Not touching. Not claiming. Just there.

“Then why,” he says calmly, “did security call my office?”

That catches me off guard. I look toward the front desk. Vivian must have said something after all.

Daniel looks from Anton to me and back again. “This is a family matter.”

Anton’s gaze does not leave his face. “Then handle it like family and stop cornering her in a lobby.”

Daniel laughs under his breath. “And who are you, exactly?”

That question changes something.

Not in Anton’s expression. That stays cool.

But in the air around him.

“I’m the reason you haven’t already been removed from the building,” he says.

Daniel steps forward. “You don’t talk to me like that in front of her.”

I feel the tension sharpen instantly.

“Daniel,” I say, because the last thing I need is security dragging my stepfather out while Anton watches with that cold, furious calm.

Neither man looks at me.

Daniel’s face twists. “You think a suit and a tower make you powerful?”

Anton’s answer is quiet enough that only the three of us hear it.

“No. Results do.”

Daniel lunges first.

It is not dramatic. Not cinematic. Just ugly and fast. A hand to Anton’s jacket, a shove meant to provoke, to start something physical and public and humiliating.

Anton does not even stumble.

He catches Daniel by the wrist, twists just enough to force him back, and says in a voice so low it chills me, “Touch me again and you leave here in handcuffs.”

Everything stops.

Security is already moving toward us.

Daniel rips his hand free and glares at me, not Anton. Me.

“This is who you work for now?”

Before I can answer, Anton says, “No. This is who she’s protected by.”

The words hit me so hard I cannot speak.

Daniel hears them too. I can tell by the way his expression changes.

Something ugly. Something knowing.

He points at me. “You think he’s different? Men like him always want something.”

Anton takes one step forward.

Security reaches us at exactly the right moment.

One of the guards asks Daniel to leave. Firmly. Professionally. Daniel resists just enough to make it humiliating, then finally jerks away from them and starts backing toward the doors.

But before he goes, he looks straight at me and says, “You’ll regret choosing strangers over blood.”

Then he is gone.

The lobby falls quiet in that strange way public places do after a scene, as if everyone is pretending they did not just witness something ugly.

I do not realize I am shaking until Anton turns to me and says, “Look at me.”

I hate how quickly I do.

His eyes move over my face, sharp and assessing, and for one second I think he is going to ask if I am okay.

Instead he says, “Did he touch you before I came down?”

The question is so direct it catches in my chest.

I shake my head once. “No.”

Anton nods, but it is the kind of nod that means he is filing the answer away, not letting it go.

“We’re going upstairs,” he says.

I should argue. I should tell him I do not need to be managed, handled, escorted, protected, or brought anywhere by him.

But the truth is, my hands are still shaking, and the thought of being left alone right now feels worse than following him.

So I go.

In the elevator, neither of us speaks.

When the doors close, the silence changes. Becomes smaller. More private. More dangerous.

Anton presses the button for the sixty-second floor and keeps his eyes ahead. “You should have told me he might come.”

“I didn’t know he would.”

“He came here for money.”

I look at him. “How do you know that?”

His mouth hardens. “Men like that are predictable.”

The answer should annoy me.

Instead, all I can think about is what he said downstairs.

This is who she’s protected by.

The elevator hums upward.

I finally say, “I don’t need protecting.”

Anton turns his head then, slowly, and looks at me with an expression I cannot read at all.

“That,” he says quietly, “is becoming less and less true every day.”

And when the elevator doors open, there is someone already waiting for us on the floor.

Vincent.