Under Contract

Chapter Seven: Cracks in the Armor

Anton’s office felt smaller today.

That made no sense, considering nothing had changed. Same glass walls. Same skyline stretching behind him like New York had signed a private agreement to behave in his presence. Same massive desk, same carefully ordered papers, same cold, expensive calm built into every inch of Vespucci Tower.

And yet the room felt different.

Maybe because I was getting used to it.

Maybe because he was.

My keyboard still sat on the side desk I had unofficially claimed as mine, but even that felt less aggressive than it had on day one. The snapping clicks were quieter now, less weaponized. The mini fan ran on low. No pizza box today. I was one slice away from becoming medically anti-cheese, and I refused to die in a billionaire’s office smelling like garlic.

I kept my eyes on my screen and typed through another round of integrations, but I could feel Anton looking over between calls.

Not constantly.

Just often enough to be annoying.

Or distracting.

Or both.

Every time I sensed it, I pressed harder on the keys like that would somehow cancel it out.

It didn’t.

Which was ridiculous.

Anton Vespucci had probably looked at more women than the press could count, and most of them had likely been taller, softer, richer, better dressed, and far more interested in what his name could buy them. He had that reputation for a reason. Cold billionaire. Controlled menace. The kind of man photographed leaving galas with models and actresses who looked like they had never once argued over API latency or eaten lunch in front of a terminal window.

So why was he looking at me like this?

Not flirtatious.

Not casual.

Worse.

Interested.

I snapped another line of code into place and told myself I was imagining things.

We were good at this arrangement now. Good at pretending we barely tolerated each other because, for the most part, we still didn’t. He liked control. I liked resisting it. He brought rules into every room he entered. I brought noise. That was the system. That was the game.

My phone buzzed against the desk.

I glanced down.

Mom.

I silenced it and kept typing.

Thirty seconds later, it buzzed again.

I rejected the call this time.

The third one came less than a minute after that.

I stared at the screen for a second, irritation rising fast enough to make my shoulders tighten, then pushed back from the desk before I could think too hard about it.

“I need the hall,” I muttered, not waiting for permission.

Anton looked up from whatever document he was reviewing, but only nodded once.

I stepped outside, let the glass door close behind me, and answered on the fourth ring.

“Melody, honey, we need help again.”

My mother’s voice came through thin and frayed, already shaped like apology before the conversation had even started. In the background I could hear the television too loud, then my stepfather coughing somewhere behind her.

I closed my eyes and leaned against the wall.

“Again?”

“Rent’s late,” she said quickly. “Just this once.”

A bitter laugh almost escaped me. “You said that last time.”

“We wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t serious.”

I stared through the glass into Anton’s office without really seeing it. He was on the phone now, one hand braced on his desk, profile hard and precise against the city behind him.

“I sent three thousand last month.”

“I know, sweetheart, and we were grateful, but things just—”

“They always just happen,” I cut in, keeping my voice low. “Every month something happens.”

Silence.

Then the kind that meant guilt had arrived and decided to sit down.

“I’m working nonstop over here,” I said. “I am not an emergency fund you call whenever the lights flicker.”

A muffled sound in the background.

Then movement.

Then my stepfather’s voice took over the line without warning.

“Quit playing startup girl and send the money.”

The old anger came back so fast it felt rehearsed.

I straightened off the wall. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. You’ve got investors now, right? Big office, big money, big future. So act like family matters and help.”

Family.

That word had done too much damage in my life to still sound noble.

“You hated this app,” I said. “You both did.”

“That was before it was worth anything.”

There it was.

Honesty, ugly and late.

My grip tightened around the phone. “You called it a hobby.”

“And now it isn’t,” he snapped. “So cash in.”

Something in my chest went rigid.

Not shock.

Recognition.

Because that was always the pattern, wasn’t it? Doubt when I was building. Contempt when I was struggling. Demands the second success looked remotely possible.

“I have to go,” I said.

“Melody—”

I ended the call.

For a second I just stood there in the hallway with the phone still in my hand, heart pounding too hard for something so ordinary. My eyes burned, which annoyed me more than anything else. I was too old for this. Too smart. Too far into my own life to still be knocked sideways by the same voices asking for the same things with slightly different wording.

I slipped the phone into my pocket, squared my shoulders, and went back inside.

Anton looked up immediately.

Of course he did.

Nothing got past him when it happened in his office.

“Everything good?” he asked.

“Fine.”

Too fast.

Too flat.

I heard it the second it left my mouth.

Apparently, so did he.

I crossed back to the desk, sat down, and forced my hands onto the keyboard. The first line I typed was wrong. I deleted it. Tried again. Missed a bracket. Cursed under my breath and fixed it.

The chair across the room shifted.

Then footsteps.

Then Anton was at my side.

I didn’t look up. “Some of us work.”

“Some of us lie badly.”

I kept my gaze on the screen even though his cologne had already cut through my concentration. Clean, expensive, annoyingly subtle. He leaned one hand on the desk, close enough that I could feel his presence without him touching me.

“I said I’m fine.”

“And I said you’re not.”

His tone stayed even, but there was less edge in it than usual. That should have made it easier.

It didn’t.

“I’m busy.”

“Was it family?”

That made me look up.

The question wasn’t soft.

Anton didn’t really do soft.

But it was direct in a way I hadn’t expected, and for one second I forgot to keep my expression under control.

His eyes held mine, dark and steady.

He had noticed too much.

Annoying man.

I leaned back a little in my chair. “You ask a lot for someone who claims to respect boundaries.”

“I respect useful ones.”

“That is an absolutely terrible philosophy.”

“It’s usually accurate.”

I almost smiled, which felt like a betrayal of my own mood.

Almost.

He studied me for another second, then said, “A boyfriend?”

That startled a short laugh out of me before I could stop it.

“No.”

One of his brows shifted. “No boyfriend, or no answer?”

“Neither is your business.”

“Fair.”

He said it like he meant it.

Then he didn’t move.

That was the part that made it worse.

If he had asked and walked away, I could have returned to my work and pretended nothing had happened. But he stayed where he was, quiet now, attention still on me in a way that felt less invasive than it should have.

I tried to ignore it.

I really did.

I turned back to the screen, typed two lines, deleted one, corrected the other, and became acutely aware that I could feel him still standing there.

The fan hummed softly beside my laptop.

My keyboard clicked.

The office beyond us carried on as if this were normal.

It wasn’t.

I looked up again.

Really looked this time.

Anton was watching me without the usual irony, without the mild irritation he wore so well, without the polished detachment that usually sat between him and everyone else in the room. He looked serious. Focused. Not on the code. On me.

And for one strange suspended second, the performance between us cracked.

No fight.

No power play.

No sharp line delivered just to keep distance intact.

Just truth, unwanted and suddenly visible.

I broke eye contact first.

“Back to work, Mr. Vespucci,” I said quietly.

I meant it as a reset.

A line put back in place.

He didn’t take it.

“Anton,” he said.

The correction was calm. Low. Familiar now in a way it absolutely should not have been.

I swallowed once and looked at the screen rather than him. “Anton.”

The name came easier this time.

That bothered me too.

He stepped back after that, finally returning to his side of the office.

Papers shifted. His phone rang. He answered it in that smooth, controlled voice he used on everyone else, and the room resumed its usual rhythm as if the last minute had not happened at all.

But it had.

I felt it in the air.

Something had changed again.

Not dramatically. Not enough to fix anything or explain anything. He was still Anton Vespucci—arrogant, controlled, impossible—and I was still sitting in his office because he had decided daily oversight was somehow a reasonable business practice.

Still, he had seemed more human today.

Less like a headline. Less like a suit built around strategy and money. More like a man who saw too much and occasionally let it show before correcting himself.

I hated that I liked him better that way.

My code compiled clean twenty minutes later.

My phone buzzed again with a text from Mom.

I ignored it without opening the message.

For once, the choice felt easy.

Because here, in the middle of all this glass and pressure and ridiculous expensive order, I felt steadier than I had in that hallway. More solid. More capable of holding my ground. Maybe it was the work. Maybe it was the structure. Maybe it was sheer spite.

Or maybe, annoyingly, Anton had something to do with it.

I kept typing.

Across the room, I could feel his attention flick toward me now and then, lighter than before, less probing.

Not absent, though.

Never absent.

By the end of the day, the office had settled into that strange shared rhythm we had built without meaning to. My setup on one side, his empire on the other, and some tense, functional middle ground between us where the work actually got done. No pizza box. No war-level fan setting. No open arguments. Just the steady click of keys and the kind of silence that no longer felt empty.

I packed up as the light outside the windows shifted gold.

Laptop first. Keyboard next. Charger, notebook, water bottle.

When I slung the bag over my shoulder and turned toward the door, Anton looked up.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “are you planning to cause this little chaos?”

I put my hand on the door handle and glanced back. “Wouldn’t miss driving you crazy.”

One corner of his mouth moved.

Barely.

“Mutual.”

That tiny almost-smile did something inconvenient to my pulse.

I opened the door before I could overthink it.

He was already there by the time I stepped into the hall, one hand catching the glass and holding it open long enough for me to pass. The gesture was simple. Polite. Ordinary.

For some reason, it felt stranger than any of our arguments.

I walked by him, close enough to catch that same clean scent again, and this time I didn’t tense against it.

Didn’t fight it.

Didn’t really mind it at all.

Which was probably its own kind of problem.