CHAPTER 2: Terms and Conditions

Albert’s POV

I move to the back seat when Julian merges into traffic. I unbutton my cuff and glance toward the dark stain near the rear floor mat. "Get it cleaned."

"Already arranged, sir."

The stain won't survive the afternoon. Neither did the man who left it there. An hour ago, I was handling one problem. Then another climbed into my lap.

The city slides past in streaks of glass and steel. Julian says nothing, which is one of the reasons he's lasted longer than most people in my employment. My phone vibrates against the leather seat. Missed calls from Matteo. Six board emails marked urgent, they can wait until tomorrow. I click on Matteo's inbox.

Matteo: Cleanup confirmed, Sir. Nothing traced back to the property.

Another message follows.

Matteo: Street camera picked up the incident with the girl. Want the footage pulled before it circulates?

Then the last one.

Matteo: Your father called. Twice.

I ignore the last message. My fingers move across the screen.

Me: Pull the footage.

The reply comes almost immediately.

Matteo: Already done. Does she have a name?

Me: Run a background check. Adeline Carter. Columbia. Make it comprehensive, in one hour.

Matteo: On it. Interesting choice, sir. She sat where Rinaldi bled and didn't even flinch.

If her nose picked up the scent, the cedar did its job. Or she noticed and was too frightened to react.

I loosen my tie, yanking it off to my lap.

Most women who end up near me want something. Money, power or access to a name they can attach themselves to. They study the smile they think I'll respond to, rehearse whatever story makes them interesting and walk into the room already knowing which version of themselves they're going to show me. But Adeline Carter climbed into my car because she'd cornered herself and saw no other way out, then apologized like honesty could undo the last thirty seconds.

It's the worst plan I've watched executed in years. And somehow, it feels honest.

The car slows at a red light. My reflection looks back at me from the glass, giving nothing away, same as always.

What exactly am I doing?

I don't need a companion. I need the questions to stop. Every gala ends the same way.

"Where's your girlfriend?"

"Your fiancée?"

"Surely there's someone."

My mother has asked five times this month when I'm planning to settle down, bringing up suitors I've always turned down. The board has become increasingly interested in the empty seat beside me at charity dinners. One magazine even devoted two pages to debating whether I was secretly gay.

“Optics matter, Albert.” My father's voice hasn't changed in the twenty years I've had to listen to it. “A man in your position without a woman beside him invites questions. Questions become rumors. Rumors become problems.”

The arrangement solves the problem. Six events, One month. A stranger with no ties to my world and every reason to disappear once it's over.

Simple.

The light turns green and Julian drives on. A notification ding carrying in Matteo's report.

Matteo: Adeline Marie Carter, 24. Columbia graduate student, pursuing a master's in business and marketing. Honors. Two jobs. No record. Father died when she was twelve. Mother lives in Queens. No siblings. Scholarship kid living well under what the thrift sweater lets people assume. That's the preliminary file. The full background check is still running.

I read it twice.

No criminal history. No suspicious financial activity. No hidden relationship with anyone in my circle. Clean. Almost too clean.

The pieces land now. The thrift store sweater and ripped jeans, the hesitation before the lie and the apology that came too quickly to be rehearsed. I've spent a career reading people who perform sincerity for a living. I still can't decide what Adeline Carter is performing.

The car pulls up outside Rossi International. Julian steps out and opens my door. "Sir."

"Circle back.” I hear myself say.

His eyes find mine. "Sir?"

"Now."

He nods and starts the car without another word. Per Matteo's coordinates, she's stepping out of a coffee shop around the corner, my card still held in both hands like she hasn't decided whether it's real.

I roll the window down. "Get in.”

She flinches at my voice. Whipping around to face the car. The challenge surfaces almost as fast as the fear did. "Why?"

Nobody asks me that, not with an actual question mark on the end of it.

"You look like you're about to pass out. I prefer my companion conscious."

"Companion," she repeats, sarcasm threading through the word. "Should I curtsy too, or is a polite nod enough? I didn't realize I was being collected by royalty.”

One eyebrow lifts on its own. A smirk starts and I don't try very hard to stop it. "Royalty?"

"You heard me."

"I liked it." I glance at my watch. "Time is wasting, and I don't waste time.”

She takes a step, hesitates, then opens the door and slides in, pressing herself against the opposite side like distance is going to help her.

Smart girl. At least she's learning.

Julian pulls away from the curb. She's trying hard to look unaffected and her face has no interest in cooperating, fingers twisting in her lap, releasing, twisting again.

I take a call and switch to Italian halfway through it. Giovanni gives me an update from Milan. Numbers, shipments, a problem with one of the accounts. I answer in Italian, my voice dropping automatically when the conversation turns to business.

Adeline goes very quiet and I catch her reflection in the glass. She's listening. One more useful skill.

The call ends and silence fills the space. She breaks first. "Where are we going?”

"My office. To formalize our arrangement."

"You mean the part where I'm locked in for a month?"

"The part where you attend six events and stay out of a courtroom."

She processes it. "Six events? You said a month."

"Six events across a month. Did you assume daily attendance was required?"

Color floods her face, and she turns back to the window.

★★★

A soft chime and the doors open into my office, floor-to-ceiling windows, Central Park spread out below.

She steps inside without saying anything. Her attention moves across the windows, the bookshelves, the seating area. It keeps going until it lands on the Rothko hanging near the far wall. Her fingers lift, stop halfway and fall back to her side.

The door opens. Matteo steps in, tablet under one arm, leather portfolio in the other. His eyes scans her in under two seconds, the ripped jeans, the sweater, scuffed boots. One eyebrow lifts.

"Mr. Rossi." English, aimed at her for her understanding. "The documents."

"Miss Carter and I are formalizing an arrangement."

His other eyebrow joins the first. His face remains neutral, but I know Matteo well enough to read the question in his eyes.

‘You brought a woman here?’

One look from me ends it. He spreads the contract across the table while she perches at the edge of her chair, half ready to run.

"Six events." I slide the contract toward her. "Appropriate attire provided. Discretion required. In exchange, no charges. No call to your university."

Her fingers tighten on her bag strap. She clears her throat once, then again, like the first attempt didn't take.

"What kind of events?”

"Galas. Charity dinners. Business functions requiring a companion.”

"Firstly, why do you need a companion?" She glances around the office, at me, at everything surrounding us, the answer is supposed to be obvious. "You're you. Surely you have women who'd do this without needing to be coerced.”

Matteo's eyes flick toward me. I ignore him.

"I have women with agendas." I look at her. "You have none.”

Her eyes narrow. "So I'm your charity case."

"You're my solution."

"To what problem?"

I let the question sit and push the contract another inch across the table. "Sign, and we proceed. Refuse, and I make a call."

It's mostly a bluff. I won't actually have her arrested. The situation is too absurd, too much exposure for both of us.

But she doesn't know that.

She takes the pen Matteo offers. It hovers between her fingers, the pulse in her wrist visible even from here. She reads slower than most, lips moving faintly on certain clauses, a habit she probably doesn't know she has.

"What's expected of me at these events? Specifically."

"Stand beside me. Talk when necessary. Let me introduce you as my companion. Behave."

"Behave how?"

"Be yourself. That's the whole requirement."

Her eyes snap up. "You're not paying me."

"You're getting my silence.” I lean back into the couch.

"That's not payment."

"It is when the alternative is a police report.”

She stares at the pen. Then she signs, fast, the loops uneven, and leaves her hand flat on the page a beat longer than the signature required.

Matteo collects the pages. "I'll arrange the wardrobe fitting and send Saturday's details."

"And shoes," I add.

Adeline looks at me. "I have shoes."

My eyes drop to her boots.

"I noticed."

Her mouth opens. Nothing comes out. Matteo suddenly finds the wall far more interesting than either of us. He steps out of the room, the door clicking shut behind him.

"I'll take my leave." She rises, backing away, and nearly knocks her teeth out on the tiles when her boot catches on the chair leg. Her arms fly out before she keeps herself upright.

I almost reach for her. Almost. Instead, I walk her to the elevator. Before the doors open, I hold out the card again.

She frowns. "You already gave me this."

"Read it again."

She does. "Albert Rossi. CEO. Rossi International."

The color drains from her face. The card slips, and she catches it an inch from the floor.

"Oh my god. You're that Albert Rossi."

"Welcome to my world, Miss Carter. Try not to make me regret bringing you into it.”

The doors close. I return to my desk and drop into my chair. My phone pings as I reach for the glass of water beside it.

Matteo: Sir. The background check flagged something.

Me: What kind of something?

Matteo: Someone else ran the same check. Seventy-two hours ago. Before you ever met her.

Me: Who?

Matteo: Unknown for now. Three proxy layers. Whoever it was didn't want to be found. I'm not sure if it's connected to us or her own issues.

My gaze goes to the elevator number descending. Forty. Thirty. Twenty.

Someone was watching her before she ever sat in my car. Who would spend that kind of effort on a lying little ginger?

Adeline Carter just got a lot more interesting.