Dirty Little Rich Girl

Chapter 3 — The Offer

Sleep doesn't come. Again.

I lie on Tessa's couch, staring at the ceiling, replaying every word Alexander Cross said to me.

What you're willing to risk.

Find me when you know.

You're drowning, and you found a place to breathe.

He saw through me in thirty seconds. No one has ever done that. Not my mother — eighteen years of report cards, zero minutes looking at my face. Not my father — who only noticed me when I embarrassed him. Not the private-school boys who circled Blake Kade like she was a stock about to split. The heiress. The last name. The access.

Alexander Cross looked at me and saw someone who was drowning.

And he was right.

Saturday morning. Tessa at the kitchen table, hunting wedding venues. Second cup of coffee. Third Pinterest board.

"Beach or vineyard?"

I pour myself coffee. "What?"

"Beach. Or vineyard. Mark likes beach. I think vineyard photographs better." She looks up from her screen. Studies my face. "You look terrible."

"Thanks."

"I mean you look like you didn't sleep."

"I didn't."

She closes the laptop. A beat of silence. "What's going on? And don't say nothing. You've been staring at walls since you got home last night."

I could tell her. The club. The gray-eyed man. The thousand dollars in my bag. The name that made my blood run cold. But Tessa gave me her couch when I had nowhere else. Kindness like that doesn't deserve the weight of Alexander Cross.

"Just work stuff."

"The hostess job?" She frowns. "Is someone bothering you?"

I almost laugh.

Bothering.

What do you call it when a man who wants to destroy your father pins you to the floor with his eyes and asks what you're willing to risk?

"No one's bothering me."

She doesn't look convinced. But her laptop opens again, and the moment passes.

If only she knew.

I should not go back to Velvet.

I know this. Every rational thought in my head is screaming it — Alexander Cross is dangerous. To my father's company. To my family's name. To whatever fragile thing I'm building from the wreckage.

But I think about the way he looked at me. Like I was the only person in the room. Like the world stopped when his eyes found mine. Like he'd been waiting for something, and I was it.

No one has ever looked at me like that.

I put on the black dress.

Saturday night Velvet is a different animal. The crowd is younger. Louder. Bass lines vibrate through the soles of my heels. More women. More champagne. More laughter that cuts.

Nico at the door. When he sees me, something flickers in his expression — not surprise. Confirmation. Like he expected this.

"Kade."

"Nico." I hesitate. "Is he here?"

He doesn't ask who. He knows who.

"He wants to see you."

My stomach drops. "Now?"

"When you're ready." Nico gestures toward the back of the room. Toward the hidden door. Toward everything I shouldn't want. "He's in his study. I'll take you."

I should say no. Turn around. Walk out. Leave Alexander Cross in the shadows where he belongs.

"Okay."

The word escapes before I can stop it.

Nico leads me through the club. Past booths and fireplace and velvet ropes. Members glance up as I pass — the hostess doesn't go to the back. The hostess stays at the door. I feel their eyes. Their curiosity. Their silent arithmetic:

What makes her different?

The hidden door is seamless from the outside — just brick. Nico presses a panel I can't see, and it swings open with a soft click.

"Straight ahead. End of the hall."

"You're not coming?"

"He asked for you. Not me."

The hallway is dim. Sconces. Burgundy carpet deep enough to swallow my footsteps. The music fades behind me, replaced by silence and the thud of my own heart.

The door at the end is heavy. Dark wood. Brass handle. I knock.

"Come in."

That voice. The one that settled in my chest twenty-four hours ago and never left.

I push the door open.

The room is not what I expected.

No chrome. No glass. No cold modern minimalism. This is old money — floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a fireplace that's actually burning, leather club chairs worn soft at the arms. A desk the size of a small car, covered in papers and a single laptop closed like a prayer. Decanter of something amber on a side table. Two glasses.

Alexander Cross stands at the window, back to me, looking out at the city. Dark suit. Broad shoulders. Hands clasped behind him. The posture of a man who doesn't need to see you to know you're there.

He doesn't turn around.

"I wasn't sure you'd come."

"Neither was I."

He turns. Those gray eyes find me immediately. In the firelight, they look darker. Softer. More dangerous.

"You have questions."

"I have a lot of questions."

"Ask."

I step into the room. Close the door. "Why did you talk to me last night? Nico says you never talk to staff."

"I don't."

"Then why me?"

He studies me for a long moment. The fire crackles. The city glitters beyond the window. Eventually he moves — to the desk, to the decanter, pouring two glasses with the economy of someone who's done this ten thousand times.

"Because you don't belong here."

I stiffen. "Excuse me?"

"Here. Velvet. Taking coats." He sets one glass on the edge of the desk, closer to me. An invitation. "You have the hands of a woman who's never worked a day in her life. The posture of someone who's been told to stand up straight since she could walk. The diction of private education." A pause. "And you looked at me like you recognized me."

My pulse in my throat. "Maybe I've seen your picture."

"Maybe." He lifts his glass. "But most people who recognize Alexander Cross either want something or are afraid of something. You were neither. You were curious." He takes a sip, eyes never leaving mine. "That interested me."

"You're wrong."

"About?"

"I am afraid."

He lowers his glass. Something shifts in his expression — not surprise. Interest. Deepened.

"Of me?"

"Of what you represent."

"And what do I represent?"

I think of my father. White knuckles around a wine glass. Curses over dinner.

Cross is going to destroy us.

The same father who looked at my report cards with more warmth than he ever looked at me.

"The end of something."

Alexander Cross tilts his head. Reading me page by page, and I can't stop him. Don't want to stop him.

"You're more interesting than I expected." He gestures to the chair across from the desk. "Sit."

I sit. He stays standing. Looking down at me. The power dynamic is deliberate — he wants me to feel it.

I do.

"What do you want?" I ask. "You brought me here for a reason."

"I have a proposition for you."

"What kind of proposition?"

He reaches into his jacket. Pulls out a folded piece of paper. Slides it across the desk toward me. The motion is casual. The weight behind it is not.

"Open it."

I unfold the paper. A contract. One page. Simple. At the bottom: a number.

A very large number.

"Fifty thousand dollars," he says. "One month of your time."

My mouth goes dry. The number sits on the page like a dare. "My time doing what?"

"Whatever I ask." He studies my reaction. "Within reason. I'm not a monster."

"You expect me to agree without knowing what you want?"

"I expect you to be smart enough to ask the right questions before you sign." He leans forward. Both hands on the desk. Eyes locked on mine. "So ask."

I swallow. "What do you want from me?"

"Information."

"About what?"

"About Kade Industries."

The room tilts. Not metaphorically — physically, the floor drops three inches and my stomach goes with it. My mouth opens. Nothing comes out.

He knows. He's known this whole time.

"You—"

"I know your father," he says, quiet as a blade sliding into a sheath. "I know his weaknesses. His vulnerabilities. His secrets. What I don't know is what he's planning next. His board is fractured. His investors are nervous. And somewhere in that fortress of his, there's a crack I can't see." He leans closer. "But you can."

"You want me to spy on my father."

"I want you to give me what he's never given you."

"And what's that?"

"Value."

The word hits like a slap. Because it's true — and it's been true my whole life. My father never valued me. My mother never valued me. I was a prop. A name. A bargaining chip in a marriage negotiation that never materialized.

Alexander Cross is offering me something different. He's offering me worth.

"Why would I betray my family?"

"Family." He says the word like it tastes of something rotten. "He cut you off. Threw you away. Left you with nothing." He straightens. "That's not family. That's a liability. And you're smart enough to know the difference."

I look at the contract. Fifty thousand dollars. An apartment. A life. No more Tessa's couch.

But it's not about the money. I know that. He knows that.

"You're asking me to become someone I'm not."

"No." He moves around the desk. Stops beside my chair. Close — closer than a stranger should be. I can smell him again. Cedar and something sharper underneath. "I'm asking you to become the person you've been pretending not to be."

He crouches. His face level with mine now. Gray eyes silver in the firelight. Close enough that I can see the faint scar along his jaw — thin, pale, a secret written in skin. Close enough that I could reach out and touch him.

"You walked away from everything," he says, voice low. "You're sleeping on a couch. Taking coats at a club you could have bought. You're not hiding, Blake." My name in his mouth. Deliberate. Intimate. "You're hunting. You just don't know what for yet."

His voice is a current. I feel it in my spine. My stomach. Lower.

"Let me help you find it."

The air between us is electric. The fire pops. His eyes don't leave mine. I can feel my pulse in places it shouldn't be.

"You don't know me," I manage. My voice is breathless. It betrays me.

"I know enough." His gaze drops to my mouth. Just for a second. Just long enough. "I know you're proud. Stubborn. You'd rather starve than beg." He tilts his head slightly, eyes back on mine. "And I know you're sitting in my study at midnight, trying to convince yourself this isn't exactly where you want to be."

He stands. The moment breaks. Or shifts. I'm not sure which.

"Forty-eight hours." He picks up his glass, walks back to the window, turns his back to me. "Think about it. Read the contract. Talk to your friend. Do whatever you need to do."

I stand. My legs are unsteady. "And if I say no?"

"Then you say no." He doesn't turn around. "Your job is still yours. Your secrets are still yours. You walk out of Velvet and you never see me again."

I look at the contract on the desk. Fifty thousand dollars. One month. Alexander Cross.

For the first time since my father's security guards walked me out of the penthouse, I know exactly what I want.

"What if I don't need forty-eight hours?"

He turns. Slowly. Deliberately. The fire catches his profile — sharp jaw, dark hair, gray eyes waiting for something.

"Then sign the contract."

I reach for the pen on his desk. And for one perfect second before the ink touches paper, I let myself imagine my father's face when he finds out.

I hope you're watching, Dad.