Chapter 3
943 Words
Alex’s eyes flashed and she bristled. “Get out,” she snapped.
Callan didn’t move. He didn’t even seem fazed at the harsh tone of her voice. “There’s more.”
Immediately, her stomach sank. She slowly looked back down. She thumbed through the folder and discovered a piece of paper tucked behind the initial packet of the merger agreement. An addendum.
One Alex read twice before her brain fully processed the words. Then, she read it a third time.
She looked up at Callan in disbelief. “You cannot be serious.”
His face didn’t change. “I am.”
“This is insane, Callan.” Alex looked back down at the paper.
The addendum required that for the duration of the merger process—Alexandra Marie Adkins would enter into a public engagement with Callan Thomas Ashford.
She snorted out a strangled laugh. “I think you’ve lost your mind.”
Callan’s shrug was loose. “Possibly.”
“You expect me to fake an engagement with you?” She asked, exasperated.
“Yes.”
She stared at him and the way he watched her without a flicker of amusement on his face. His eyes studied her as he waited for an answer.
Alex barked out another laugh, this one disbelieving. “No,” she finally said, tossing the folder back onto the conference table.
Callan blinked. “No?”
“No,” she repeated.
Callan’s expression hardened. “Then your company collapses in eight weeks.”
The words hit Alex like a slap, and her face went still as he took another step closer.
He spoke again, his voice low. “This merger will stabilize your finances overnight.” Alex didn’t speak. “You keep your company alive, and all you have to do…” His gaze dragged deliberately over her face, pausing for half a second on her lips. “…is pretend not to hate me in public.”
Alex’s pulse pounded in her ears. “Why?” She whispered. “What the hell could you possibly gain from this?”
For the first time in five years, something flickered in his expression. Not arrogance or mockery, but something darker. Tired. Human.
Callan straightens. "My reasons," he said quietly, “are not your concern.”
Alex uncrossed her legs and began to stand. “Then this conversation is over.” She gave the folder a hard push, sending it gliding across the table.
He caught it easily. “Think carefully before you say no.”
She walked the length of the table and stepped into Callan’s space, fury blazing hot enough under her skin to burn. “I would rather bankrupt myself than marry you.”
Callan’s gaze dropped to her mouth, slowly and deliberately. When he looked back up, his voice had gone rough. “Good thing I’m not asking for forever.”
Silence follows his words. Electric, breathless, dangerous. Then, he side-stepped around her, opened the door to the boardroom, and paused without looking back.
“You have forty-eight hours, Alexandra.”
The door shut behind him, and Alex stood alone in the theoretical wreckage of the boardroom. She stared at the folder still laying on the table. It contained the contract that could save her life.
Or ruin it.
Because of that thought, she didn’t sleep that night. She spent the entire night in her penthouse with the merger contract spread across her dining room table like evidence in a murder trial. Every page was a fresh insult.
By three in the morning, she had highlighted enough clauses to build a legal case against the devil himself.
By five, she had poured two glasses of whiskey that she didn’t even drink.
By dawn, she still hadn’t found a single alternative.
Adkins Global was hemorrhaging money faster than she could patch it. Investors had become skittish. Expansion debts were maturing. Vendors were pressing harder for payment. The carefully maintained illusion of stability she had crafted over the last two years was unraveling thread by threat.
And the worst part was that Callan knew exactly how trapped she was.
The bastard had timed this perfectly.
Alex stood at the windows of her penthouse, Manhattan glowing pale beneath the early morning haze. She wondered if hatred alone could keep a person alive. Because if so, she could live forever.
Her phone buzzed on the counter. Iris.
Her best friend’s voice came through before Alex could even say hello. “You sound like someone died.”
“Yeah, possibly me,” Alex admitted.
Iris breathed in a hiss of hair on the other end. “That bad?”
Alex closed her eyes. “It’s worse.”
There was a pause. “What happened?”
Alex took in a deep breath, then told Iris everything. She told her about the debt, the merger, the engagement clause.
The stunned silence on the other end of the line lasted three full seconds.
Iris let out a light, nervous laugh. “I’m sorry. He wants you to what?”
“Exactly.”
Iris made a choking sound. “I need a minute. I’m trying to process the fact that Callan Ashford apparently walked into your office and proposed a financial domination marriage.”
“It’s fake,” Alex said, trying to reassure herself more than Iris.
“It’s still hotter than it should be,” Iris replied, the smirk clear in her voice.
Alex groaned. “You are the least helpful person I know.”
“No, I’m practical.” Iris paused. “Can you survive without him? His help, I mean.”
Alex stayed quiet, and in that silence, Iris got her answer.
- Writer
