I CAME FOR BUSINESS, SHE CAME FOR LOVE

CHAPTER THREE

The office of Ashworth Holdings was located in a converted warehouse in Southwark. It was all glass, steel, and exposed brick a testament to Diane’s ability to take something old and make it elite.

Marcus arrived at 10:50 a.m. He had spent his last twenty pounds on a haircut.

When he was ushered into Diane’s private office, she didn't look up from her monitor. "Sit down, Marcus. There's coffee on the sideboard. Help yourself."

"I'm fine," he said, sitting in a chair that cost more than his car.

She looked up. Today she was in a grey power suit, her hair pulled back into a sleek bun. She looked like a woman who could buy and sell a city block before lunch.

"I ran your Midland logistics theory by my head of acquisitions," she said. "He thinks it’s risky. I think he’s getting old and lazy. Why do you want to work for me?"

"I don't," Marcus said.

Diane paused, her pen hovering over a document. "Excuse me?"

"I want you to mentor me. I want access to your network. In exchange, I will give you the one thing your 'heads of acquisitions' can't: a perspective from the bottom. I know how the world works when it isn't polished, Diane. I know where the cracks are before they show up on a spreadsheet."

Diane leaned back, her eyes narrowing. "You have a lot of ego for a man who, if my background check is correct, currently spends forty hours a week entering data for an insurance firm."

Marcus didn't flinch. "The fact that you ran a background check tells me you've already decided I'm worth the effort. Let's not play the 'who am I' game. We both know I'm a shark. You just have to decide if you want me in your tank or someone else’s."

Over the next month, their meetings became a ritual.

They met for breakfast at 7:00 a.m. at a quiet café near the Thames. Marcus would bring reports he’d stayed up all night writing. He would analyze her competitors’ weaknesses with a cruelty that Diane found both shocking and refreshing.

But as the weeks bled into months, the dynamic began to shift. Not for Marcus his heart remained a cold, calculating machine but for Diane.

"You never talk about your family," she said one morning. They were sitting on a bench in St. James’s Park, the autumn leaves swirling around their feet.

"There’s nothing to talk about," Marcus replied. "Money was tight. My father left. My mother survived. That’s the whole story."

"It’s not 'nothing,' Marcus. It’s what made you." She reached out, her fingers grazing his sleeve. "You’re so focused on the horizon that you never look at where you're standing."

"Where I'm standing is a transition point," he said, pulling his arm back slightly under the guise of checking his watch. "The acquisition of the textile plant in Lyon is the priority right now."

Diane looked at him, and for a second, Marcus saw a flash of something in her eyes. It wasn't business. It was a soft, dangerous yearning.

"You're a very strange man, Marcus Vane," she whispered. "I can't tell if you're the most honest person I've ever met, or the most guarded."

"I'm exactly what I appear to be," he said.

It was the most successful lie he had ever told