The Marriage Clause

Chapter 7

Adrian’s POV:

By one o'clock sharp, precisely as she had promised, Amelia appeared outside my glass door.

She didn't bother with a formal knock. She simply leaned against the frame, a bright, triumphant smile announcing her arrival long before she spoke.

"Hey. You ready, Rossi?"

She sounded far more excited than anyone had a right to be over a standard department lunch.

I looked up from my laptop, my fingers still executing a final command sequence across the keyboard. "Almost. Let me just shoot this confirmation email off, and I’m all yours."

"Take your time."

She stepped inside the office, but instead of taking one of the plush visitor chairs, she perched herself effortlessly on the edge of my desk, swinging one leg idly as though she’d occupied that spot a hundred times before.

I kept my gaze locked onto the screen. Just one more attachment.

Without warning, I felt a light, deliberate touch near my throat. My eyes flickered up instantly.

"Hold still. You've got stray lint." Amelia was carefully picking a tiny stray thread off my navy shirt collar, twirling it between her fingers as if it were a fascinating little trophy.

I didn't pull away or recoil. Not because I welcomed the gesture, but because abruptly shrugging her off would have felt unnecessarily harsh and rude. Amelia was naturally affectionate and physical—it was just her nature. She probably didn't even register how intimate it looked to an outside observer.

A sharp, single knock cut through the quiet, and before I could even draw breath to respond, the door glided open.

"Adrian, this needs to be finalized for the—"

Vivian walked in. She held a sleek, sapphire-blue folder in her hand. Her heels clicked once against the polished hardwood before coming to a sudden, absolute stop.

For a fraction of a second... she completely froze.

Her dark eyes dropped instantly to Amelia, whose hand was still resting casually on my collar, and the atmosphere in the room pressurized until it felt suffocatingly small.

Fuck. The curse echoed silently in my mind with brutal clarity.

Until this very second, Amelia's harmless flirting had never bothered me. Not once. But with Vivian standing in my doorway, every casual touch suddenly took on a scandalous weight, every smile looked loaded with intent, and every second Amelia spent draped over my desk painted me as the exact character Vivian had initially feared I was.

A flirt. A distraction. A greenhorn who couldn't keep his personal life out of the workplace.

God. If only she knew.

If only she knew there wasn't another woman in this entire building I cared to impress—because the only woman whose opinion truly mattered to me was standing ten feet away, holding a blue folder.

I stood up immediately, putting distance between Amelia and myself. "Ms. Matthews."

Vivian blinked once. Whatever faint shadow of an emotion had flickered across her features vanished so rapidly I almost convinced myself I’d imagined it entirely.

Had there even been anything there? Disappointment? Annoyance? Jealousy?

No. I was projecting my own chaotic thoughts onto her.

This was Vivian Matthews. Jealous? Over me? It was laughable. She was a brilliant, powerful, drop-dead gorgeous CEO who could command the attention of anyone in Europe. Why would she waste a second thought on an entry-level assistant she’d barely tolerated weeks ago?

She cleared her throat, her posture impeccably straight. "I came to deliver this personally."

Her voice was cool, level, and thoroughly professional.

She extended the sapphire folder toward me. "I need this report finalized, signed off, and sent directly to Mr. Benjamin Foster's team before five o'clock today."

I stepped forward and accepted it. "Consider it done, Ms. Matthews."

Our fingers brushed against the smooth leather cover. Almost touching. Almost.

"Good afternoon, Ms. Matthews," Amelia chimed in, hopping off the desk to stand slightly behind me. Her tone sounded unusually subdued, almost nervous.

Vivian’s gaze shifted to her. "I didn't realize HR had business on the executive floor today, Ms..."

"Amelia," she supplied quickly, offering a polite, slightly constrained smile. "I actually just came to drag Adrian away for a group lunch with Finance."

"Oh." Vivian offered a single, controlled nod. "I see."

Then her dark eyes met mine. "Enjoy your lunch, Mr. Rossi."

Three simple, textbook words. Nothing more. No smile. No warmth. No indication of what lay beneath her polished mask.

She turned on her heel and walked out, the crisp, rhythmic click of her heels echoing down the corridor until the glass doors sealed behind her.

The moment the elevator chimed in the distance, Amelia let out a long, theatrical breath, pressing a palm against her center. "Jesus... that woman scares the absolute living daylights out of me."

I couldn't help the quiet, ironic smile that touched my lips. "She's really not that terrifying once you know her."

Amelia stared at me like I had lost my mind. "Not that terrifying? Adrian, I swear her eyes just executed a forensic audit on my soul."

"You'll get used to her."

"I sincerely, desperately hope not."

****

The Aurora dining pavilion occupied nearly the entire top floor of the west wing. Outfitted with warm wood accents, ambient lighting, and panoramic floor-to-ceiling windows, it resembled a high-end restaurant far more than a corporate cafeteria. Clusters of employees were scattered throughout, engaged in lively chatter.

"Over here!" Amelia called out, waving toward a large group in the back.

"Look at that, she actually delivered!" a guy whistled as we approached. "The mysterious guy from the executive suite finally graces us with his presence!"

I chuckled smoothly, pulling out a chair. "I had no idea I’d developed a reputation as a mythical creature."

"Oh, you definitely have," a tall, sharp-looking man said, extending his hand. "Leo Vance. Senior Financial Analyst."

"Adrian," I replied, shaking his hand firmly.

"Practically the whole floor knows," added a broad-shouldered guy beside him. "Ryan Cooper, Operations."

"Noah Carter, Supply Chain Logistics," said the third man. "Ignore these two—they’ve been running a pool on whether you'd actually step foot in the cafeteria."

Laughter erupted down the table. For the first time since landing in London, the heavy tension in my shoulders loosened. Here, nobody treated me like a pawn in a corporate game. It felt remarkably normal.

Amelia slid into the seat beside me. Twice during the meal, she leaned into my space, setting her hand on my forearm while Leo was telling a story. Gently, I shifted my arm to reach for my water glass, breaking the contact without making a scene. I didn't want the office rumor mill spinning wild narratives.

As lunch settled, the table talk shifted naturally toward business.

Leo let out a bitter sigh. "Well, there goes another massive deal down the drain."

Ryan nodded in agreement. "The Knight Corporation proposal? Scrapped?"

"Yep. What a waste of potential money."

I froze, my fork hovering inches above my plate. Knight Corporation. My family’s legacy, held captive by my uncle.

"What proposal was that?" I asked casually.

"Knight Global approached Aurora three weeks ago about expanding our delivery and supply networks together," Ryan explained. "A massive deal across countries."

"Huge money," Leo added. "Would've made our company value shoot right through the roof."

"So why did it fall through?" I pressed.

Noah took a sip of his drink. "It didn't 'fall through.' Ms. Matthews threw it out the second it landed on her desk."

"Without even reviewing it?" I asked. It made no sense. From my grandfather's archives, I knew Victoria Matthews had maintained immense respect for my father's enterprise. Why would Vivian flatly refuse an offer? "Why shut down a lucrative proposal out of hand?"

Ryan and Noah exchanged a heavy, guarded look.

"You really don't know the backstory, Adrian!" Ryan said quietly. "It's dark history."

I waited, every nerve pulled taut.

"About two years ago," Noah began, "Aurora was right on the edge of complete failure. Some big medicine research projects got stuck, two major investors panicked and took all their cash out at once, and the banks stopped lending us money. It was hit after hit."

"And through that entire nightmare," Leo chimed in with reverence, "Victoria Matthews refused to fire a single person."

"Firing people is usually the first thing CEOs do to save money," I noted.

"Not Victoria," Ryan said firmly. "She viewed this company as a family. She literally risked her own house and money, taking on personal debts just to keep everyone paid while looking for a fair loan."

"And that," Noah said, his expression hardening, "is precisely when Elijah Knight smelled blood in the water."

My uncle's name made a cold knot form in my stomach. "What did Elijah do?"

"He showed up acting like a savior," Noah said bitterly. "Offered a massive cash injection, framing it as a team effort to rescue Aurora."

"Except it was a sneaky, greedy takeover hidden behind complicated legal words," Leo added quietly. "Knight’s lawyers studied our weaknesses. Aurora was vulnerable, Victoria was exhausted, and our leaders were divided. It was a complete trap."

Ryan met my eyes directly. "Elijah Knight wasn't trying to save Victoria Matthews' legacy. He was trying to crush it, take over Aurora completely, and steal its ideas."

"Victoria caught the trap hidden in the contract fine print two hours before the signing," Noah continued. "The terms would have stripped Aurora of its independence within two years, erasing its name into Knight Global."

"She tore the contract up in front of his lawyers," Ryan said with pride. "Even when financial experts said Aurora would be out of business in sixty days without Knight's cash."

"She chose to fight," Noah said softly. "And that's when Elijah unleashed hell. Legal battles, nasty lies leaked to newspapers, threatening our suppliers so they wouldn't sell to us. Victoria spent eighteen months in constant court fights while trying to keep our work going."

Leo looked toward the glass walls of the executive floor above us. "And she wasn't waging that war alone."

"Vivian?" I breathed out.

Noah nodded somberly. "She was barely twenty-three or twenty-four, fresh out of college. While other people her age were starting their early careers, Vivian was thrown straight into the worst kind of business warfare. I remember seeing her walking through these halls carrying stacks of legal papers that looked heavier than she was. She spent her days fighting off ruthless corporate raiders..."

"...and her entire nights sitting beside her mother in an intensive care unit," Ryan finished quietly.

My breath hitched sharply. "Hospital?"

"The terrible stress broke Victoria's health," Ryan explained softly. "Her heart couldn't take the constant pressure. The doctors begged her to stop working, but she refused. She kept saying she would rest the moment Aurora was safe forever from Knight Global."

Silence descended over our table.

Finally, Leo spoke. "Vivian did the impossible. She rearranged all our debts, brought in ethical overseas investors who cared about people, beat Elijah’s lawyers in court, and saved this company. She saved her mother's life's work and protected thousands of jobs."

A wave of profound admiration for Vivian washed over me.

"The company was officially saved," Leo whispered. "Victoria finally believed the war was over. Only a week after they won... she went to sleep and never woke up."

The noise of the cafeteria vanished into static.

"The doctors said her heart failed," Ryan added quietly. "But everyone who was here knows the truth. The stress killed her. Years of carrying the world on her back. Years of fighting Elijah Knight."

My chest constricted violently.

Elijah Knight. My uncle hadn't just stolen my father’s company. He had waged a merciless attack that indirectly took the life of the woman who was like a sister to my mother—and threw Vivian into deep grief at twenty-four.

My surname felt toxic, heavy, and drenched in unpayable debt.

"...And that's why she rejected the Knight proposal the second her eyes caught the corporate seal on the cover," Ryan’s voice pulled me back from the dark spiral. "When she saw the Knight logo, she told us to shred the file and send a rejection."

I frowned, trying to process his words. "Why would Elijah Knight even attempt to send a proposal after all of that history?"

The three men exchanged uneasy, knowing glances.

Noah leaned forward, his expression grave. "You really don't see it, do you, Adrian?"

"See what?"

Ryan rested his forearms on the table, looking me dead in the eye. "Elijah Knight isn't trying to do business with Aurora, mate. He's coming back to finish what he started two years ago."