Chapter 2: Friday Night
1409 Words
Leonardo's POV
I loosened my tie the moment the elevator door closed behind me, as I pulled it free from my collar, dropping it over the back of the nearest chair.
I poured a glass of whiskey at the bar cabinet by the window, my gaze drifting to the city spread before me, while I drank slowly.
The gala had gone exactly how galas went, full of people who smiled at me because of what I've built.
I removed my suit jacket, as I smirked a little, remembering a hand shooting up from the back with a voice cutting through a hundred people.
“Three thousand two hundred dollars,” her voice was soft but loud.
I turned the glass slowly in my hand, as I remembered how she opened and shut her mouth the moment she realized.
Valentina Rossi, my secretary for two years. She made my coffee without being asked and had it on my desk at seven forty-five every single morning at exactly the temperature I preferred. She handled my schedule with the kind of quiet efficiency that made problems disappear before I knew they existed. For a year, I've never told her anything twice.
I pulled out my phone and opened the background file I kept on all crossTech employees, as I searched her entry.
A twenty-five year old, no living family apart from her mother, Elena Rossi currently admitted to Mercy General hospital, ICU.
“I was so caught up about my mother's medical balance…,” I remembered what she said.
She was completely trapped, and she had known it all evening, and she had still stood at the back of that ballroom doing her job because there was nothing else she could do.
I was still thinking about that when my phone rang, the name on the screen made me set my whiskey down.
"Leonardo," Marcus Chen said, a sixty-two year old man, his voice like a man who had been delivering bad news for so long that it no longer registered as bad to him.
"I hope I'm not disturbing your evening," his slightly deep voice said through the phone.
"You are," I said. "Make it worth it,” my voice was flat, as I tightened my jaw.
"I'll be direct then. The board met informally this afternoon, there are concerns,” there was a brief pause.
"There are always concerns,” my voice was calm, but my jaw tightened.
"These ones have names attached to them,” he said, followed by a brief pause.
"Three of our largest stakeholders have still been asking questions about your personal life, Leonardo. Not your balance sheets, not your acquisition strategy. Your personal life, they want to know who Leonardo Monte goes home to."
I was quiet for a moment, as my gaze drifted to the window, looking at the city.
"Since when does a man's address affect his company's valuation?" I said, as I poured some whiskey in my glass cup.
"Since the man in question has spent the last decade building a reputation for being completely unreachable,” Marcus let that land before he continued.
"They don't doubt your intelligence or your numbers, they doubt your stability. They want a man who has something to lose. A man with something to lose fights differently than a man who has nothing but the company. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
“I understood perfectly,” I said, my voice still calm.
"You have three months," Marcus said, his voice calm but firm.
"Before the IPO launch, show them something real, Leonardo. A wife, a life…not a performance. They're not stupid people, and they will see through a performance immediately.”
"I like you, I want this to work. But I can't hold the board together on goodwill alone,” he said, before cutting the line, without waiting for my opinion.
I stood at the window for a long time after that, the city glittering below me as Marcus words echoed in my head.
“Three months,” I whispered, as I held my glass cup a little bit tighter.
Every woman in my circle came with complications I didn't have the patience for. Expectations about what this kind of arrangement meant, families with their own agendas, social performances that would require more energy than I was willing to give. I had arranged the gala to look for a women but regretted it before it even started.
Valentina…the word poped out in my mind, as I furrowed my brows.
Valentina Rossi was a woman with $847,000 in debt and till Wednesday until her mother got transferred to a facility that would not give Elena Rossi the care she needed.
I picked up my phone, as I searched my contacts looking for my lawyer, but it rang before I could do anything.
Why would my Dad call me? The question settled in my mind.
"You're up late," I said after picking the call
"I'm always up late, you know that." Alessandro said, his voice soft but manly.
"I watched the gala coverage online. You looked miserable, and you were also on the eleven o'clock news," he said, and I could hear the quiet amusement in it.
"You want to tell me what that was about?" He said, as I heard a familiar sound of ice dropping into a glass.
"No,” I said, my voice calm but firm.
“How are you, Leonardo. And I mean that as a real question.”
I looked out at the city below me, at all that light going nowhere in particular.
"I'm fine," I said.
My father was quiet for a moment in the way that meant he had heard exactly what I hadn't said. He didn't push which was one of his habits, he just left space, and somehow the space always felt louder than an argument would have.
"I had dinner with your mother last week," he said, shifting the conversation. "She mentioned the IPO timeline."
"She mentions everything and she worries about you."
"Leonardo,” his voice dropped slightly, losing the easy warmth. "Whatever you're planning…and I know you're planning something, just make sure it's something you can live with on the other side of it, not just something that works."
"I always make sure of that," I said, my gaze fixed on the city below me.
“Goodnight, Leonardo."
"Goodnight,” I said, the line went quiet as I dropped my phone.
I stood there for a moment longer than I needed to, the phone still warm in my hand.
Something you can live with on the other side of it. I shook my head, as I picked up my phone again and called my lawyer.
"Leonardo, it is past midnight,” he answered, after it rang out four times.
"I know what time it is, Ricci,” I said, rolling my eyes.
"What do you need?" He said, after a long exhale.
"A marriage contract," I said. "Two years, full terms, compensation, living arrangements, public obligations, a non-disclosure clause, and a clean exit on both sides at the end of the term.”
There was a silence on the other end that lasted long enough to tell me Ricci was sitting up in bed now, fully awake. "A marriage contract?" he repeated.
"That's what I said.”
"Leonardo…"
"I need it by tomorrow morning, Ricci. Not tomorrow afternoon, and it should be before twelve."
“You're certain about this,” he asked, his voice now professional but with the particular caution of a man who has known me for twelve years and had learned exactly when to push and not to.
"I don't call people at midnight about things I'm uncertain about," I said, as I heaved a sign. “Tomorrow morning, don't be late,” I said, as I hung up.
My mind drifted back to Valentina. The way she had looked standing against that wall, holding herself together with both hands, her maskara forming a dark circle on her eyes. It was the first time seeing her like that.
“You shouldn't be a thinking about this,” I scolded myself, as I stopped myself from thinking further.
I opened my phone as I searched for her contact.
“My office, Saturday noon. I have a proposition for you Miss Rossi - Leonardo Monte.”
I read it once, then sent it, as I put my phone back to my pocket.
- Writer
