His contract wife - His regret

Chapter Two

Lillian's POV

I stood in that boardroom for a full minute after he left.

Just stood there, in the middle of that enormous room with the city sprawling forty-two floors below me, my portfolio case at my feet and the echo of his footsteps already gone.

The chair I'd knocked back was still slightly crooked. I straightened it. I didn't know why. I just needed to do something with my hands.

Then I picked up my case and walked out.

His assistant was a neat woman in her thirties with a sharp bob and a headset around her neck. She was already standing when I came through the boardroom doors, like she'd been expecting me, which she probably had.

"Miss Derk?" she said.

"Yes."

"I can take your portfolio." She held out her hand. "Mr. Germount will have our creative team review it within the week."

I looked at her outstretched hand. Then I looked back at the corridor where Brian Germount had disappeared four minutes ago without a single backward glance, after introducing me to his entire board of directors as his future wife.

"Actually," I said, "I'd like to speak with him."

"Mr. Germount is on a call."

"I'll wait."

She smiled the kind of smile that was trained not to crack. "He has back to back engagements until this evening, Miss Derk. I can schedule a follow-up consultation for…."

"Please just tell him I'm waiting," I said. "Tell him the fiancée would like five minutes."

Something shifted very slightly behind her eyes. She held my gaze for a moment, then touched her headset.

"Mr. Germount." A pause. "Yes, sir. Miss Derk is outside the boardroom. She'd like a word." Another pause, longer this time. "Understood."

She lowered her hand. "He'll see you in his office. It's at the end of the corridor, last door on the left."

His office was exactly what I expected and nothing I was prepared for.

The whole far wall was glass, same as the boardroom, with the same ruthless view of the city below. His desk was wide and dark and almost completely clear except for a laptop and one slim folder.

There were no personal items anywhere. No photographs. No small distractions. The room felt less like a workspace and more like a statement.

He was standing at the window with his back to me when I walked in. "Close the door," he said.

I closed it.

He turned around and looked at me the way he had in the boardroom like he was assessing me in an unhurried manner, like I was a document he was deciding whether to read.

"Sit down," he said.

"I'm fine standing," I said. "This won't take long."

Something moved at the corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile. "Alright," he said.

"What happened in that boardroom," I said, keeping my voice even, "was not something I agreed to. You introduced me to your board as your fiancée without my consent, without any warning, and then walked out of the room like it was nothing. I want to know why."

He was quiet for a moment. He moved away from the window and came around to his side of the desk, but he didn't sit. He just stood there, one hand resting lightly on the back of his chair.

"There was an investor in that room," he said. "Edwin Holt. Sixty-three years old, a family man and very traditional. He's been hesitating on a Geneva deal for two months. One of his primary concerns, which he has raised three times in three separate meetings, is that he doesn't do long term business with men he considers personally unstable."

I stared at him. "Unstable."

"Unmarried," he said flatly. "In his language, the two are the same."

"So you pointed at a stranger and called her your fiancée."

"You weren't a stranger. You were scheduled to meet with me."

"For an art consultation," I said. "Not to be used as a prop in your board meeting."

He looked at me for a moment. "You handled it well."

"That is not the point."

"I know," he said, and his voice had shifted very slightly, something almost like acknowledgment in it, though it didn't quite reach his expression.

He straightened up. "I apologize for the inconvenience. Your portfolio will be reviewed and we'll be in touch about the consultation."

He was dismissing me again. Just like that. I felt something hot move up the back of my neck.

"That's all?" I said.

"That's all."

I looked at him for a long moment. I thought about my mother's hand in mine this morning. I thought about Dr. Harlow's face. I thought about the number one hundred thousand and what it meant and how close I was to having absolutely nothing left to try.

"Fine," I said.

I picked up my portfolio case and turned toward the door.

"Miss Derk."

I stopped. I didn't turn around.

"How much do you need?" he said.

The room was very quiet.

I turned around slowly. "I beg your pardon?"

He was watching me with that same even, unreadable expression. "You came here for a consultation deposit. The role was a means to an end. I could see it in the way you sat in that boardroom, you weren't uncomfortable because you'd been caught in a lie. You were uncomfortable because you needed something and you didn't know if you were still going to get it." He tilted his head slightly. "So how much do you need?"

My chest was tight. "That's none of your business."

"It could be," he said. I stared at him.

He moved around the desk now and came to stand a few feet in front of me, and up close he was taller than he'd seemed at the table. He looked at me with those dark, steady eyes and said nothing for a moment, like he was making a decision in real time.

"I need a wife," he said. "Not permanently, just for six months. There'll be a contract, clearly defined and legally binding, with a termination clause at the end. Edwin Holt is not the only investor who thinks the way he does. I have three major deals in the next six months that require a certain image. A settled man. A man with something to lose." He paused. "I need someone presentable, composed, and capable of discretion. You've already demonstrated all three."

I couldn't speak for a moment.

"You're serious," I said finally.

"I don't say things I don't mean."

"You want me," I said slowly, "to pretend to be your wife. For six months."

"Not pretend," he said. "It would be a legal marriage. It will be documented and dissolved at the end of the term."

I laughed. I couldn't help it, a short, disbelieving sound that came out my mouth before I could stop it.

"No," I said. "Absolutely not. I don't know you. You don't know me. I came here for a job, not…" I gestured vaguely at the air between us. "Whatever this is."

"Five hundred thousand dollars," he said.

The laugh died and the room went very still.

"For six months," he said, watching my face. "Deposited in two tranches. Half when we sign the contract. Half at the end of the term."

Two hundred and fifty thousand upfront. My mother's surgery was covered entirely. There would be money left over. Enough to breathe.

I hated that I was doing the math. I hated that he could see me doing the math.

"This is insane," I said, more to myself than to him.

"It's a transaction," he said. "Clean, documented, and mutually beneficial. You get the money you need. I get the image I need. At the end of six months, we will go our separate ways."

"You don't even know what I need the money for."

"I don't need to," he said. "That's your business."

I looked at him. He looked back. Neither of us moved.

"I would need everything in writing," I said carefully. "Every condition. Every boundary. Every clause."

"Obviously."

"I would keep my work. My own clients, my own schedule."

"Acceptable."

"And no one can know it's a contract. Not even your friends or your staff."

"Agreed."

I exhaled slowly. My heart was beating very fast and I was gripping my portfolio case so hard my knuckles had gone pale.

"I need to think about it," I said.

"You have until four o'clock," he said. "My legal team closes at five and I'd like the paperwork drawn today."

"Today?" My voice came out higher than I intended.

"Edwin Holt returns to Geneva tomorrow morning," he said simply. "I'd like to be able to call him tonight."

I stared at him. He stared back. Completely calm. Completely certain, the way men like him were always certain, like the world rearranged itself around their schedules as a matter of course.

"Four o'clock," I repeated.

"My assistant will give you my direct line."

I turned and walked to the door. My hand was on the handle when his voice came again, quieter this time.

"Miss Derk."

I looked back over my shoulder.

"The deposit for the consultation," he said. "It's yours regardless. Whatever you decide."

I held his gaze for one second, then I walked out.

I sat on a bench outside Germount Tower with my portfolio case between my feet and my phone in my hand and called the one person I always called when the world stopped making sense.

It rang twice.

"How did it go?" my best friend Cara's voice came through warm and eager. "Did he love the portfolio? Are you celebrating? Please tell me you're celebrating."

"Cara," I said.

A pause. "That's your voice."

"What voice?"

"Your something-happened voice," she said. "What happened? Did he say no? Lilian, if he said no I will personally…."

"He didn't say no," I said. "He offered me five hundred thousand dollars to marry him."

There was omplete silence on the other end.

"Cara."

"I'm here," she said faintly. "I just …. say that again."

"You heard me."

"Lilian." Her voice had dropped to something urgent. "Please tell me you said no."

I looked up at the glass tower rising above me, all that steel and certainty, and thought about my mother's cool dry hand and Dr. Harlow's careful, practiced voice and the number that had been sitting on my chest like a stone for months.

"I have until four o'clock to decide,

" I said quietly.

"Lilian…"

"I'll call you later," I said and hung up.

I sat there for a long time, watching the city move around me, people walking past with their coffee cups and their uncomplicated mornings.

Then I looked down at my phone. It was 11:48.

I had four hours and twelve minutes.