Chapter 2: Five Calls

MAYA

My father was already standing when I walked into his study.

He didn't hug me. He never did when he was working. He was always working. He gestured at the chair across from his desk. I sat, the leather cold through my jeans.

He nodded toward the paper in my hand. I unfolded it and read it a second time.

The inquiry was preliminary. That word did a lot of work in his mouth. Like it could hold something larger back, if he said it firmly enough.

"They're looking at the Meridian filings." He didn't wait for me to ask. "Trading irregularities. Someone tipped the SEC before we caught it internally."

"Is it true?"

"No." His jaw tightened. "But that doesn't matter right now. What matters is what the market believes. What the board believes. What Marcus Cross tells his people to believe."

There it was. The other name.

I set the paper on his desk. "What does this have to do with Cross Holdings?"

He didn't answer right away. He walked to the window instead, hands in his pockets, looking out at nothing I could see from my chair.

"Marcus and I built our funds three years apart." His voice stayed level. "Same investors, half the time. Every scandal at Vance is good news for Cross. You understand the mechanics."

I did. I'd understood them since I was twelve. Since the first dinner party where someone said Marcus Cross's name and the whole room went quiet. That silence had taught me more than any explanation could have.

"So this is bad for us and good for them."

"It's bad for us unless we control the story." He turned around. "I've been on the phone with our PR team since two. There's a version of this that plays well. A version where the Vance name looks stable. Trustworthy. Above the noise."

"What version is that?"

He looked at me for a long moment before he answered. Something in his face made my stomach drop before he said a word.

"An engagement." He didn't blink. "You and Liam Cross."

I laughed, once, sharp and short. "That's not a plan. That's insane."

"It's strategy." He sat back down, elbows on the desk. "Two rival families united by their children. It's a story the press writes itself. It humanizes both companies. It buys us time."

"You want me to get engaged to someone I've spoken to once."

"I want you to help save this firm." His voice dropped, quieter than I expected. "I wouldn't ask if there were another way."

I thought of Liam's handwriting in the corner of that page. We should probably talk. I hadn't told my father that part yet.

"Have you talked to Marcus Cross about this?"

"This afternoon. He's amenable, for his own reasons. His son needs an image repair after some tabloid noise last spring. It works for both of us."

I sat with that for a moment. My phone buzzed once in my pocket. I didn't check it.

"I'm not agreeing to anything tonight."

"I'm not asking you to. I'm asking you to meet with him. Hear the terms. Decide after that."

Terms. Like this was a merger and not my life.

I left the study an hour later with a folder of talking points I hadn't asked for. My head ached behind my eyes. Priya was curled on her bed with her laptop when I got back. She looked up the second the door opened.

"You look like you saw a ghost."

"Long day."

"That bad?"

I sat down on my own bed and didn't answer right away. I wanted to tell her everything. The alert, the paper, the four seconds across the seminar table. I wanted to say his name out loud and see what it sounded like next to the word engagement.

I didn't.

"Family stuff." I kept my voice light. "You know how it gets."

She studied me for a second, the way she always did when she knew I was giving her the edited version. Priya had roomed with me for two years. She'd learned my tells the way I'd learned to hide them from everyone else.

She let it go anyway. That was Priya. Patient in a way I didn't deserve most days.

I texted Liam that night. Three words, no context, nothing that would explain itself to anyone reading over my shoulder.

We need to talk.

He answered within a minute.

Tomorrow. Greystone, 4pm. Neutral ground.

I stared at the message for a long time before I put the phone down.

Practice the next morning ran on nothing but muscle memory. I hit every mark. I ran every drill. Afterward I couldn't have told anyone a single thing about it. My body did the work my mind refused to.

Coach didn't notice. Priya did, watching from the bleachers with an expression I chose not to read too closely.

By the time I showered and changed, the clock read three forty. Twenty minutes until Greystone. Twenty minutes until I sat across from Liam Cross and negotiated the terms of pretending to love him.

I grabbed my bag and my keys. My hands were steadier than I expected. Somewhere underneath the dread there was something else too. Small and unnamed. I didn't have time to look at it closely before I walked out the door.