CHAPTER 2: The contract
1418 Words
Julian
8:00 AM. My office. She has no idea what she just walked into.
I watched Maya Chen flee my office like the devil himself was chasing her.
The door clicked shut. Her hurried footsteps echoed down the hallway. Then the elevator dinged, and she was gone.
I didn't move.
I stood behind my desk, hands flat on the cold glass, staring at the chair where she'd been sitting thirty seconds ago. The fabric was still warm. I could see the faint imprint of her body.
Pathetic, I told myself. You're being pathetic.
But I couldn't stop thinking about the way she'd looked at me when I said her first name.
Maya.
Like I'd reached into her chest and touched something raw.
I pressed my palms harder against the desk and forced myself to breathe. This was a transaction. Nothing more. She sent an inappropriate text. I needed a fake girlfriend. We would exchange services for three months, and then she would get her promotion and I would get my peace.
Simple.
I walked to the window and watched the Seattle morning crawl across the skyline. Gray clouds. Rain coming. The usual.
My phone buzzed.
Liam: Board meeting in an hour. Valerie said you had an 8 AM with a marketing associate. Please tell me you're not firing someone else. HR is starting to flinch when they see your name.
Me: I'm not firing her.
Liam: Then what?
Me: I'm hiring her. For a different role.
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Liam: Julian. What did you do.
I didn't answer. I set the phone down and turned back to my office.
My eyes landed on the corner of my desk. The black orchid. Maya had looked at it twice during our conversation. Once when I mentioned the board. Once when I said her name.
She notices things.
Most people didn't. They walked into my office, saw the glass and the gray and the cold, and assumed I was exactly what the furniture advertised. Empty. Controlled. Dead inside.
Maya looked at the orchid.
I didn't know what to do with that.
---
9:15 AM. The boardroom.
Eight faces stared at me from around a mahogany table that cost more than most people's cars. My board of directors. Vultures in expensive suits.
My brother Liam sat at the far end, trying very hard not to laugh. He already knew. He always knew.
"Well, Julian?" Margaret Henley, the oldest and meanest of the bunch, folded her hands on the table. "Have you reconsidered our proposal?"
Translation: Have you agreed to marry the latest socialite we dug up?
"No."
Margaret's eyes narrowed. "The shareholders are nervous. You're thirty-four years old, unmarried, no children, no public relationships. It makes you look—"
"Effective?"
"Unstable." She leaned forward. "Stable men have families, Julian. Stable men have wives on their arms at galas. Stable men don't work eighty-hour weeks alone in penthouses."
I felt my jaw tighten. "My personal life is not—"
"He's seeing someone."
Every head turned to Liam.
Liam smiled his easy, disarming smile. The one that made people think he was harmless. He wasn't.
"Actually," Liam continued, "Julian has been dating someone for several weeks. He didn't want to say anything until it was serious. Isn't that right, brother?"
The board looked at me.
I looked at Liam.
I'm going to kill him.
But Liam was right. This was the moment. If I wanted to keep them off my back for the next three months, I needed to play along.
"Her name is Maya," I said carefully. "She works in marketing."
Margaret's eyebrows rose. "You're dating a junior associate?"
"She's brilliant. Ambitious. And none of your business."
A murmur rippled around the table. But Margaret sat back, and for the first time in six months, she didn't have a follow-up question.
"Bring her to the Fall Gala," Margaret said finally. "Next Saturday. If she's real, we'll believe you. If not…" She shrugged. "We'll find someone else for you."
The meeting ended three minutes later.
I caught Liam in the hallway.
"What the hell was that?" I grabbed his arm. "I haven't even told her about the gala yet."
Liam grinned. "You mean you haven't told her she's your fake girlfriend yet? Because Valerie told me about the 8 AM meeting. And the text. Especially the text."
"Valerie needs to learn discretion."
"Valerie needs a raise." Liam clapped my shoulder. "Relax, Jules. You're doing her a favor. She gets to keep her job. You get to keep the board off your back. Win-win."
"It's not a favor. It's a transaction."
"Is that what you're telling yourself?" Liam's grin faded. "Because I saw her leave your office, Julian. She looked like she was going to cry. And you looked like you'd been hit by a truck."
"I don't get hit by trucks."
"You do when they have dimples and wear bright yellow blazers."
I didn't answer.
Liam sighed. "Just… be careful. She's not like the others. She's not playing a game. She actually needs this job."
"I know."
"Do you?"
He walked away before I could respond.
I stood in the hallway for a long moment, staring at the wall, hearing Maya's voice in my head.
"I hate you."
"No," I'd said. "You don't. That's the problem."
The worst part was, I wasn't talking about her hatred.
I was talking about mine.
Because I didn't hate her either. I wanted to. It would be so much easier if I did. If she was just another employee, just another face, just another pair of eyes that looked at me and saw my money instead of my exhaustion.
But Maya wasn't any of those things.
Maya was the woman who brought cupcakes to the marketing department every Friday and didn't care who saw her carrying them. Maya was the woman who stayed late to help the interns even though no one was watching. Maya was the woman who, three months ago, had looked me in the eye during a presentation and said, "With respect, Mr. Blackwood, that strategy won't work because you're not listening to the actual customers."
No one talked to me like that.
No one dared.
She did.
And I'd been thinking about her ever since.
---
That night. 11:47 PM. My penthouse.
I couldn't sleep.
I stood in the kitchen, shirtless, drinking whiskey I didn't taste, staring at my phone.
She hadn't texted.
I'd told her she had until tomorrow to decide. Technically, tomorrow was still twelve hours away. But I kept checking my screen like an anxious teenager waiting for a crush to respond.
Pathetic, I thought again.
I opened her employee file. I'd pulled it after the marketing presentation three months ago. Maya Chen. Age 26. Graduated from Washington State University. No nepotism. No connections. Two jobs during college. A six-month gap in employment after graduation that she'd listed as "family medical leave."
I'd looked into the gap.
Her father had cancer. She'd moved home to care for him. Lived in his basement. Worked overnight shifts at a gas station to pay for his medication.
She never mentioned it. Never used it as an excuse. Just showed up every day with her dimples and her yellow blazers and her stupid cupcakes, and she worked.
I set the glass down.
Three months, I reminded myself. Three months, and then she gets her promotion and I get my peace.
But even as I thought it, I knew it was a lie.
Because Maya Chen had been living in my head for three months already. Rent-free. Uninvited. And I had just handed her the keys.
My phone buzzed.
Maya Chen: Fine. Yes. Three months. But I'm picking the restaurants. And you're paying.
I smiled.
Actually smiled. In my empty penthouse. At 11:47 at night. Over a text message.
Me: Agreed. One more condition.
Maya: I hate you.
Me: You keep saying that. Saturday. Fall Gala. 7 PM. I'll send a car.
Maya: A car?
Me: You'll need a dress. Something gold. You look good in gold.
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Maya: How do you know I look good in gold?
I didn't answer.
Because the truth was, I'd noticed her at the holiday party last year. Gold dress. Hair down. Laughing at something Sophia said. And I'd stood across the room for twenty minutes, just watching her glow.
I set the phone down and finished my whiskey.
Three months, I told myself again.
But my heart wasn't listening.
- Writer
