The Worst Contract, The Perfect Match

4. Doctor Giraffe 🦒

Zara Fox's POV

Damn! New York was definitely overrun with lunatics, and I, with my luck, had run into two of the most dangerous specimens in a single day.

First, Henry's wife, the man for whom I'd crossed the Atlantic, leaving the safety of my London home and defying my father's wrath, only to discover that his "bachelordom" included a furious wife ready to rip my head off.

And now, him.

The man walking beside me toward the elevator. I didn't know his name, only that he had a daughter with the saddest eyes in the world, hands capable of disarming a security guard with terrifying elegance, and a premarital proposal that sounded insane.

The elevator doors opened directly onto a penthouse that screamed money, power, and an alarming lack of feminine touch. It was spectacular, I couldn't deny it.

It was the quintessential sanctuary of a golden bachelor. I knew because my brother Zack's London apartment had the exact same "hunting ground" vibe. Zack used it exclusively to impress his conquests, and well, the rest is history.

My instincts kicked in, going on high alert. The adrenaline that had kept me going during the altercation at the restaurant began to dissipate, giving way to an icy caution.

If this man thought that, because he'd saved me from a humiliating scene, I was a damsel in distress willing to repay him with "sinful" favors, he was sorely mistaken. I'd rather die than become a stranger's trophy.

He walked toward a built-in minibar. He moved with predatory grace, each step exuding a confidence that was starting to deeply irritate me.

"Would you like something to drink?" he asked, his voice deep. He didn't even bother to look at me.

"No, thank you."

“I just want to know why the hell I’m here,” I replied, crossing my arms, trying to project a confidence I didn’t entirely feel.

The man didn’t respond immediately. I watched him pour an amber liquid—probably an excessively expensive single malt whisky—into a cut-glass tumbler.

This man was definitely an enigma. The version I’d seen at the hospital, kneeling before his daughter Alina, his voice breaking with anguish, seemed like a mirage compared to the block of coldness and arrogance I now faced.

He turned and approached me. The ambient lighting highlighted the sharp angles of his face, a face that, under other circumstances, I would have found devastatingly attractive.

He sat on the leather sofa opposite me, crossing one leg with an elegance that felt almost like an insult to my current state of emotional disarray. He took a slow sip, studying me with those deep, unfathomable blue eyes.

“Look, Dr. Giraffe…”

“Excuse me?” Indignation shot through me like an electric shock.

Giraffe? Had he spared me one humiliation only to inflict another?

“What did you call me?”

He offered a tiny, almost imperceptible smile that didn’t reach his eyes. There was something cruel about that smile, something that told me he enjoyed provoking me.

“I call you that because in London, at the hospital, I overheard you telling my daughter a story. It was about giraffes. I don’t know your real name, so for now, Dr. Giraffe seems fitting. You’re tall, blonde, and have that tender yet defensive quality those animals have. Besides,” he added, taking another sip of his whiskey and fixing his gaze on mine with an intensity that made me shift uncomfortably in my seat, “it’s quite curious how fate has brought us together again.”

I gritted my teeth. So this man remembered me perfectly from London, and yet he had completely ignored me in the restaurant until he had no other choice. His arrogance was monumental.

Nevertheless, I took a deep breath and decided to swallow my pride. He had helped me escape the restaurant unharmed, protecting me from Henry's wife's fury and the judgmental stares of the other diners. I owed him that.

"Did you bring me here just to give me silly nicknames and bask in your good memory?" I replied, my tone icy. If he thought he was going to intimidate me with his opulence and steely gaze, he was sorely mistaken. I've dealt with worse men. I've dealt with my father.

"All right. I'll get to the point," he said finally, his expression straightening, abandoning any trace of mocking amusement for a sharp, professional seriousness. It was like watching a predator switch from "play" mode to "hunt" mode. "While we were at the restaurant, I saw a very clear situation. You're an intelligent woman who made a stupid decision for a man who wasn't worth it. Now you desperately need a shield. You need a boyfriend, a husband, a commitment... anything to make that miserable man's wife leave you alone and give you back some of the dignity you lost."

His words, though uttered with deceptive gentleness, struck me with the force of a punch. The truth hurt, and he was using it like a scalpel to dissect my situation.

I hadn't knowingly gotten involved with a married man. Henry had lied to me.

But in the eyes of the world, and especially in the eyes of his wife, I was the mistress. The home-wrecker. I felt a pang of vulnerability in my chest, but I refused to let him see my tears. I straightened my back, mirroring his posture, even though inside I felt like I was about to crumble.

"Sir... I think there's a mistake in your analysis," I said, my voice trembling slightly despite my efforts to keep it steady. "I never knew Henry was married. I fell in love with him, yes. I believed his words and made the mistake of leaving everything behind—my career, my family, my country—for him. But I'm not a mistress. I was a fool, but not an accomplice."

He nodded slowly, not sympathetically, but as if checking a box on a mental list.

“I want to make it clear that I’m not one to judge your morality or your naiveté. That’s none of my business. What is my business is that, just as you need me right now to avoid being devoured alive by New York high society and a spiteful wife, I need you.”

“What exactly do you mean?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

He placed his glass of whiskey on the coffee table with a dry, decisive thud. He leaned forward, his face inches from mine. I could smell the aroma of his drink, mixed with an expensive, masculine cologne. His eyes were fixed on mine, with a determination that chilled me to the bone.

“I want to offer you a marriage contract.”

I felt the world stop spinning for a second. That damned word. My grandfather had forced my grandmother into a marriage contract. My own father had bound my mother in the same way. And now, this man, this complete stranger who called me "Dr. Giraffe," wanted the same from me. It was unacceptable.

"And what makes you think I would accept something like that? What makes you think I'm so desperate as to sell my freedom to a stranger?"

He smiled again, but this time there was no mockery, only a cold, calculating satisfaction. He straightened up with brazen elegance.

"Well, look, I'm good at reading people. It's my job. It's how I built my empire. And today I saw how hard you tried to defend yourself in the restaurant, I saw the fire in your eyes, but I also saw defeat. If you say you gave up everything for a man, then I assume you're here without a job, without any recognized qualifications in this country, without friends you can trust, and quite possibly, without money... or am I wrong?"