The Billionaire's Revenge Bride

Terms and Condition

Chapter Five

Terms and Conditions

I had negotiated hundreds of contracts in my life, and none of them had ever included a clause about how much of our private arrangement I was permitted to discuss with the press.

This is excessive," I said, sliding the document back across the table toward my lawyer. "Rework this section."

"Mr. Laurent's team insisted on it," Patricia said, not looking up from her notes. "A public discretion clause, to protect both parties from speculation."

"I am capable of managing my own public image without signing away my ability to speak about my own marriage."

Across the table, Adrian did not even glance up from his own copy of the agreement, though the corner of his mouth moved in a way that told me he had heard every word.

"You find this amusing," I said.

"I find your objection amusing, yes.

"There is nothing amusing about a stranger dictating what I am allowed to say about my own life."

"I am not dictating anything. I am asking for discretion in a house full of people paid to notice things, and a public that will be watching us closely for exactly one wrong word." He finally looked up, something almost patient in the way he studied me, as though he had expected exactly this fight and already decided how it would end. "I am not asking you to change who you are, Amelia. I am asking you to be careful."

I hated that it was a fair point. I hated more that he had made it sound reasonable instead of controlling, which was, I was beginning to suspect, exactly the kind of man he was.

"Fine," I said. "But I want it in writing that my business remains entirely my own. No board seats for you or your family. No access to Black Meridian's accounts. No influence over my hiring, my clients, or my decisions."

"Agreed."

"And I want Hallcrest access written into the contract."

"It will be. Though I should tell you the approval process is not entirely mine to control. My grandmother sits on that board. I can open the door. I cannot guarantee what happens once you walk through it."

I studied him carefully at that, filing away the admission for later. "That is not what you led me to believe at the summit."

"I told you what was true. I did not tell you everything would be simple." He held my gaze without apology. "Nothing involving my family ever is."

"Then perhaps you should have led with that."

"Perhaps. Though I suspect you would have found the offer less interesting without a little uncertainty attached to it."

He was not wrong, and that annoyed me more than if he had been.

Patricia cleared her throat, the way lawyers do when they want two people to remember they are being paid to reach an agreement, not conduct a personal audit of each other's character. "If we could move to the living arrangements section."

"Separate bedrooms," I said, before anyone else could suggest otherwise.

"Obviously," Adrian said, and something about how quickly he agreed irritated me more than if he had argued.

"Separate schedules where possible. I do not require your company at breakfast, dinner, or any social function that is not strictly necessary for maintaining the appearance we are discussing.

"You will need to be present for some things. Family dinners. Anne's school events, on occasion, if it comes up. My grandmother will expect a certain amount of visible participation."

I paused at that, the mention of the girl landing somewhere I had not braced for. "How much does she know? Anne."

"Enough to understand that things are changing. Not enough to worry about why." He said it evenly, the sentence closing itself before I could ask the next question. "That is all I am prepared to discuss about her today."

I filed that away without comment, the way I filed away every detail that suggested there was more to Adrian Laurent than the man who had walked toward me across a crowded room with an offer instead of an apology. There was a particular kind of stillness that came over him whenever her name entered a conversation, a carefulness that did not match the ease with which he discussed contracts, boards, or even his own grandmother.

"What about after," I said instead. "When the year ends."

"A quiet divorce. No public scandal, no messy division of assets, since there will be none to divide. You keep whatever access to Hallcrest you have secured by then. I keep my authority. We go back to our separate lives."

"And Anne."

"That is a conversation for another day." His tone did not invite a second attempt.

I let it go, though I noted, the way I noted every unanswered question, that I would be returning to it eventually. I had built a career out of finding the thread that unraveled a deal no one else could see the flaw in. This felt like a thread. I simply did not yet know what it was attached to.

"One more thing," I said, signing my name at the bottom of the page with a precision I did not entirely feel. "If either of us breaks the terms of discretion, the entire agreement is void, effective immediately, no negotiation."

"Agreed." He signed his own copy without hesitation, then looked up at me with an expression I could not quite categorize, somewhere between satisfaction and something else I did not want to name. "Congratulations, Mrs. Laurent."

"I have not signed the marriage certificate yet."

"No. But you have just agreed to become my wife in every way that matters on paper, which means the rest is simply a formality." He stood, buttoning his jacket, entirely too composed for a man who had just legally bound himself to a woman he had known for exactly two conversations. "The wedding will be private. This week."

"This week."

"My grandmother's patience has limits, and I would rather not test them further than necessary.

Patricia gathered the signed pages into a neat stack, murmured something about filing them by morning, and left the two of us alone in the conference room for the first time since the meeting began. Adrian did not linger. He thanked me, in the polite, practiced way of a man closing a deal he had never doubted would close, and left before I had fully decided how I felt about any of it.

I gathered my copy of the contract and rose to leave, and it was only once I was in the car, watching the city slide past the window, that the unease I had been holding off all afternoon finally caught up with me. He had answered every question I asked. He had also, I realized, answered almost none of them completely, each response closing a door before I had time to see what was behind it.

I had walked into that meeting believing I understood exactly what I was signing.

By the time the car reached my building, I was no longer sure I understood anything at all.