“Is There a Reason You Can’t Stop Looking at Me?” the Mafia Boss Asked — Her Quiet Reply Made Him Freeze Spotlight8

The contract was thirty-seven pages long. Lena stared at it without seeing it. Her eyes moved across the words, but her brain refused to process them. Her ears were ringing. Her hands were numb.

“Take your time, Miss Carter.” Ronan’s voice was gentle now, almost kind. That was the worst part. He could afford to be kind. He had already won.

“You bought my mother’s mortgage,” Lena whispered.

“I did.”

“Why?”

“Because I needed leverage, and you needed motivation.”

“That’s not motivation. That’s blackmail.”

“It’s a negotiation.”

“You’re holding my mother’s house hostage, Mr. Moratini.”

“I’m holding nothing, Miss Carter. The mortgage is current. Your mother knows nothing. She will receive a letter next week informing her that an anonymous benefactor has paid her debt in full.” He paused. “Or alternatively, she will receive a letter informing her that her note has been called in, and her home will be foreclosed within ninety days. The choice is yours.”

“You’re a monster.”

“I’m a businessman. Is there a difference?”

Lena’s eyes finally landed on the first paragraph of the contract. The words began to swim into focus. “Personal Services Agreement” between Ronan A. Moratini, hereinafter referred to as “Principal,” and Helena J. Carter, hereinafter referred to as “Companion.”

Her stomach turned over. “What is this?” she whispered. “What am I looking at?”

“It’s a contract.”

“For what?”

“For us.”

“There is no us.”

“There will be.”

Lena pushed the papers away from her like they had burned her fingers. “I’m not signing this.”

“You haven’t read it yet.”

“I don’t need to read it. I’m not selling myself, Mr. Moratini. I’m not some woman you can buy with a mortgage and a job title. I have a degree. I have a future. I have—”

“You have nothing, Miss Carter.”

The words landed like a fist. “Excuse me?”

He stood up, walked to the window, and stood with his back to her, his hands clasped behind him. “You have a one-bedroom apartment in Bushwick that you cannot afford. You have eighty-four thousand dollars in student loan debt at six and a half percent interest. You have a mother who has not been to a doctor in three years because she cannot afford the copay. You have a younger brother who was rejected from his dream school last spring because you couldn’t co-sign his loans. You have a savings account with eleven hundred and seventy-two dollars in it.” He turned around. “And you have, until this morning, exactly one job offer in your entire professional life. Now tell me again — what do you have, Miss Carter?”

Lena’s eyes filled with tears. Real ones this time — the kind she couldn’t blink back. “You don’t get to do that,” she said, her voice breaking. “You don’t get to know all of that and use it against me. That’s not power, Mr. Moratini. That’s cruelty.”

“It’s reality.”

“It’s evil.”

“It’s the world, Miss Carter. I didn’t make it this way. I just learned to win in it.”

She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand, furious at herself for crying, furious at him for watching. “Why me?” she whispered. “Of all the women in New York, of all the women in the world — why me? I’m nobody. I’m nothing. I spilled champagne on a senator’s wife two years ago at a party I shouldn’t even have been at. Why am I sitting here? Why is my mother’s mortgage in your hands? Why are you doing this to me?”

For the first time, something in Ronan Moratini’s face shifted. It wasn’t softness. It wasn’t tenderness. But it was something.

“Because you didn’t see me, Miss Carter.”

“What?”

“That night at the Plaza. Every other woman in that room saw me. Every single one. They knew who I was, what I was worth, what I could give them. They positioned themselves near me. They laughed too loudly when I passed. They dropped their napkins to make me bend down.” His jaw tightened. “And you walked right by me three times. You didn’t even glance in my direction.”

Lena stared at him. “That’s it? That’s why? You’re destroying my life because I didn’t flirt with you at a charity gala?”

“I’m offering you a life because you were the first woman in fifteen years who didn’t want something from me before I even spoke.”

“That’s not love, Mr. Moratini. That’s not even attraction. That’s an ego wound.”

His eyes flashed. For a half second, she saw the dangerous thing under the suit — the thing that had built Moratini Holdings from nothing, the thing that had reportedly put three rival CEOs into early retirement and one into an early grave. Then it was gone, locked back behind his polished surface.

“Read the contract, Miss Carter.”

“No.”

“Read it.”

“I said no.”

“Then I’ll summarize it for you.” He sat back down, folded his hands, and looked at her with an expression that was somehow both intimate and clinical — like a doctor preparing to deliver a terminal diagnosis. “You will work at Moratini Holdings as a junior analyst. Your duties will be real. Your salary will be real. Your performance reviews will be honest. You will receive every promotion you earn, on merit and only on merit. Within three years, you will be the youngest vice president this firm has ever had. That part of your life will be yours, untouched.”

“And in exchange?”

“In exchange, you will be mine, Miss Carter.”

She laughed. It was an ugly sound. “Yours? Three nights a week — dinners, events, travel. You will appear on my arm when I require you to. You will sleep in my bed when I require it of you. You will not date anyone else. You will not be photographed with anyone else. And you will not, under any circumstances, fall in love with anyone else. That’s it? That’s all? You just want a girlfriend you can rent like a car.”

“I want you, Miss Carter.”

“You want a doll.”

“I want a partner who knows what I am and chooses to stay. Chooses.”

“Chooses?” Lena laughed again, sharper this time. “You’re holding my mother’s house. You’re holding my career. You’re holding my brother’s future. And you’re telling me I have a choice?”

“You always have a choice. You can walk out of this room right now. The mortgage will be called in by Friday. Your mother will be in foreclosure by August. You will be unemployed in this industry forever, because I will personally make certain of it.” He gestured to the door. “But you can walk out, Miss Carter. The door is right there.”

She didn’t move.

“That’s what I thought,” he said softly.

Lena closed her eyes. She thought about her mother. She thought about the wedding ring. She thought about the diner on Market Street, and the way her mother’s feet swelled at the end of every double shift. She thought about her brother — eighteen years old, working construction, with a rejection letter from Cornell taped to his bedroom mirror like a badge. She thought about herself — the girl who had clawed her way out of nothing. The girl who apparently had never clawed at all.

“What if I refuse?” she said quietly. “Not the mortgage, not the job. The other part. What if I refuse to be your companion?”

“Then you don’t sign at all, Miss Carter. The contract is one document.”

“That’s coercion.”

“That’s negotiation.”

“There has to be another way.”

“There is. You walk out the door.”

She opened her eyes. He was watching her, patient, unmoving — a man who had already calculated every possible answer she could give and prepared for each one.

“How long?” she whispered. “How long does this contract last?”

“Three years. With an option to renew.”

“To renew?” She almost laughed. “You’re going to make me sign a three-year exclusivity contract to be your— your thing, and then you’re going to ask me to renew it, like a magazine subscription?”

“I’m hoping,” he said quietly, “that by the end of three years, you won’t want it to end.”

The room went still. Lena looked at him. Really looked — past the suit, past the power, past the terrifying calm of a man who had built an empire on his ability to remain unmoved. And for one long, uncomfortable moment, she saw something underneath. Not love — he didn’t know her well enough for love. But want. Real, raw, unmistakable want. The kind of want that didn’t make sense. The kind of want that made powerful men do stupid things. The kind of want that scared her — not because of what it was, but because of what part of her, some buried, traitorous part of her, liked being wanted that much.

She pushed the feeling down so hard she almost choked on it.

“I need to think,” she said.

“Of course.”

“I need to leave this building.”

“You can leave whenever you want. The contract will be in your apartment when you arrive home tonight. You have until Friday morning at nine o’clock to return it, signed or unsigned. After that, my offer is rescinded permanently. Your mother’s mortgage is called, and your name is blacklisted in finance from Boston to San Francisco.”

He stood up. He buttoned his jacket. “Do we understand each other, Miss Carter?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Good.”

He walked to the door. He paused with his hand on the handle. He turned back. “And Miss Carter?”

“Yes?”

“I meant what I said earlier about the staring.”

Her face flamed. “I—”