BOUND BY CONTRACT, CLAIMED BY DESIRE

Chapter 4: The Decision

Valentina's POV

The contract had forty-two pages.

I had counted it twice, spreading them across the kitchen table like a crime scene at 1AM.

I sat at the small chair in the kitchen, my heart pounding fast. My apartment had never felt smaller than it did right now.

I flipped it back to Page one, the financial terms came first, as I read every number twice because my brain kept refusing to hold them.

One million dollars on signing and all outstanding and future medical expenses pertaining to Elena Rossi would be cleared within forty-eight hours of execution. Five thousand would be paid to your account monthly, and five hundred thousand after the end of two years.

“This is more money than I would make in ten years of secretarial work,” I said, as I flipped to the next page.

“Seperate bedrooms to be maintained for the duration of the contract term. No conjugal expectations exists within this arrangement,” I stopped at page seven as I read it aloud.

I flipped the page, stopping at page 11. “clause 7.3; public conduct: The parties agree to maintain in all public facing contexts. This includes hand holding, embracing, and kissing as required to maintain public perception of a legitimate marital relationship.”

I read it twice.

Then I set the page down and pressed both palms flat against the table and looked at the fruit bowl with nothing in it and just breathed for a moment.

Kissing? Can I really do that. The thought settled in my head.

Not kissing someone in general, kissing him…Leonardo Monte, who looked at people like they were problems to be solved and spoke in full sentences only when absolutely necessary.

The man whose coffee I had made every morning for two years without him once saying thank you, because saying thank you implied he had needed something, and Leonardo Monte didn't need things. And that man was going to have to put his mouth on mine.

And I had to stand there and feel nothing…

By three in the morning I had read all forty-two pages, made eleven small notes in the margin of a legal pad I found in my desk drawer, and drunk two cups of tea that had gone cold before I touched them.

“He had thought of everything except the part where the person signing this was a human being and not an item,” I muttered, as I stacked the pages back into the leather folder.

It was already morning, as I went to the window and stood at the corner as I watched the brick door of the building next door and thought about my mother.

“I can't do this… I need to find another way,” I whispered after a brief moment, my gaze still fixed on my neighbors door.

“I can try the bank again. This time maybe they can agree,” I said, as I quickly walked to my room to prepare.

I sighed, as I stepped down from the taxi, my gaze fixed on the building before me.

"Ms. Rossi," Mr Lucas the loan officer said, his voice low, as he avoided my eyes.

"I understand your situation is urgent, I do. But without collateral, without a co-signer, and with the current status of your credit file… "

"I have a stable job," I said. "Two years, same employer, no gaps."

"I can see that," he said. "And that's in your favor. But the amount you're requesting is significantly beyond what we can approve against your current income and credit profile. We'd be looking at a maximum of… "

"Thirty thousand," I said flatly, because I had already read the numbers on their website and I already knew.

"In the range of, yes."

I sat at the chair near by, my eyes watery, as I sighed. I had tried two other banks before this, the first had declined before I finished explaining and the second had been slightly more polite but the same answer.

“Thirty thousand dollars, against eight hundred and forty-seven thousand, how's that possible,” I said standing up, after deciding to see my Mom.

Mercy General hospital smelled the same way it always did. I hated hospital but it had become my third place I visited most.

I had learned the nurses' schedule, the ones who would let me sit past visiting hours and which ones watched the clock.

My mother was fifty-three years old, I had the color of her hair. Her hands were folded on top of the blanket, her face pale.

I sat down in the chair beside her bed and put my hand over hers.

"Hi, Mama," I said, touching her hands lightly, as I sat down on the chair at the corner.

"I need to tell you something," I said, "And I need you to not to be angry at me,” I said looking at her.

"I'm going to get married," I said, but nothing happened, but the monitor kept beeping.

I rubbed my thumbs against her hands softly, as I fought the tears trying to come out.

"Not the way you always talked about…not the Sunday dress and the church on Via Roma and a man who looks at me the way… " I stopped, as I pressed my lips together.

"I'm going to marry my boss, Leonardo Monte. You don't know him but he's cold and controlled and he doesn't feel things the way regular people feel things, and he's offering me enough money to pay every cent of your debt and keep you here and get you the best care available anywhere in this city."

I looked down at her hand under mine.

"And before you ask, he doesn't love me. And no, I don't love him. It's…it's a contract. Two years and then it's over and I walk away with enough money to start again properly."

"I know what you'd say. You'd say I was being ridiculous. You'd say no amount of money is worth selling yourself, you'd say… " I couldn't complete the word, as I felt a lump in my throat, and I let it, because this was the one room in the world where I was allowed to.

"But you're not awake," I said quietly. "And I don't have another way."

“Visiting hours are ending soon, honey,” a nurse said from the doorway, as she looked at me with her soft green eyes.

"I know," I said. "Five more minutes."

“She can hear you, you know,” she said, her voice soft.

I looked at my mother's face, as I smoothened her hair.

"I hope not," I said. "I just told her something she wouldn't like."

The nurse gave me one last look, her eyebrows furrowed, her face softened as she nodded and went away.

I sat with my mother for the rest of those five minutes, her hand under mine, the monitor keeping its slow steady time.

"I'll fix it, Mama," I said quietly, just before I stood. "I promise.”