3 ~ Sloane

He walked in and every head in the café turned.

I had already been seated for ten minutes, black coffee in front of me that I hadn't touched, the file on the table within reach. I had chosen the corner table deliberately. Away from the windows, away from anyone who might recognize either of us and make this morning more complicated than it already was. I had arrived early, which was something I rarely did, but I had needed the ten minutes to sit quietly and remind myself that this was a practical decision and nothing else.

Zane Della-Ross found me without looking around. Like he had already known exactly where I would be sitting. He crossed the room with the unhurried ease of a man who had never once felt out of place anywhere and sat down across from me without a word.

I slide the file over the table.

He gazed at it for a second before he opened it. I watched him slowly and steadily move his eyes over the first page as he read it as if he wanted to remember every word. He didn't hurry, he didn't react and the coffee shop danced around us like no big deal was happening at this corner table.

"A contract marriage." He said it without looking up.

“If your offer is still on the table, let’s get married.” The words felt hard enough and I watched as Zane Della-Ross eased up a smirk.

Of course he would smirk, I was asking him to marry me.

He looked at the next page.

I had been compiling it with Patrick for the hours since I'd left my dad's estate until I reached here. Each clause carefully thought out, each word carefully worded. I tried it three times until I felt I got it right. II was not walking into any arrangement with a Della-Ross without something signed and witnessed and completely airtight. From watching my father's work, I had picked up enough to realize that handshakes and well wishes would be worth nothing if there was no paper.

Zane was twenty-eight. Cole's older brother by three years and the chairman of an empire that had been built over three generations. He had taken over from his father at twenty-one and had doubled the Della-Ross holdings within four years. People who had known him for decades still chose their words carefully around him and straightened slightly when he entered a room. I had spent most of my life successfully avoiding being alone with him, a fact I had achieved through genuine and consistent effort.

That was not an option for me any longer.

The situation I was in had a very short list of solutions and Zane Della-Ross was at the top of it. I had spent the drive here reminding myself of that.

This was not about him or what I thought of him or what fourteen years of carefully maintained distance had been about. This was about Reed Industries and four days and a clause my father had written when he thought everything was already settled.

He read the first clause softly and evenly.

“At the end of one year, both parties can agree to dissolve the marriage quietly, if they wish to.” He nodded once. "Agreed."

He went on to the next.

“For public appearances, both parties shall live under the same roof and attend business and public functions together.”

"Yes." I folded my hands on a table.

"I'll add PDA." He lifted his gaze up to mine for the first time since he had taken a seat. Those eyes were steady and unreadable. "Public displays of affection. For appearances."

"That's fine." I didn't struggle for a second to keep my eyes on him. "Public consumption only.”

He looked back downward.

“Both parties cannot interfere in each other's personal business." He paused. "I'll add a condition to that one."

"What condition."

As long as my contractual wife is not involved with another man during the term of the marriage."

I considered it for a moment. It was a reasonable boundary within the framework of what we were building. "Agreed."

He turned the page.

"Both parties shall not be photographed or seen publicly with anyone that could compromise the integrity of the marriage." He laid the paper down, and he stared at me. I'd extend it beyond public.”

“Meaning not only appearances. Being privately involved with someone else is equally unacceptable for the duration of the marriage.”

“That applies to both of us equally. ” I kept my eyes on his.

"It does." He didn't blink.

"Fine." I pointed to the file. "Keep going."

He located the next clause and his corner mouth shifted almost imperceptibly.

“Thereafter, Zane Della-Ross shall not claim or interfere in Reed Industries, at any time during or after the marriage.” He looked up. The change turned into a smirk slow and deliberate. "Agreed."

“Glad that one amuses you.”

"It doesn't." He fixed me with a stare for a moment. “I just appreciate thoroughness."

He scanned to the end page and read it silently. He then placed the file down on the table and leaned back in his chair, looking at me with a look I couldn't quite make out and had stopped trying to.

“There is one more clause I want to add.”

I waited.

“The contract is not valid until consummated."

The café noise continued around us like nothing had been said. Someone laughed two tables over. A cup clinked against a saucer. The world moved on completely unbothered.

"Meaning." I kept my voice flat.

"Until we sleep together the marriage carries no legal weight. Every other clause is conditional on it. The whole document means nothing until that condition is met."

I looked at him for a long moment. He looked back without any of the awkwardness that a normal person might have brought to saying something like that over coffee on a Tuesday.

“No.” I said without hesitation.

"Okay." He shut the book and pushed his chair back and rose, calm, but entirely unbothered, reaching for his coat.

I watched him.

Four days. I had four days until I turned twenty five and everything my father had spent his life building passed quietly and permanently to Laura. Patrick had gone through the will twice and found nothing and the meeting this morning had confirmed what I had already suspected. There was no other way.

"Wait."

He stopped. He didn't turn around immediately. Just stopped, like he had been expecting that word.

I picked up the pen.

I actually wrote it myself, carefully and deliberately, dated it and read it back before putting my pen down. Then he returned to the table and took his seat.

I added my signature at the bottom of the paper and handed it to him.

He picked up the pen. That small smirk was still there, quiet and faintly infuriating, and he signed his name beneath mine in one clean unhurried motion before closing the file and sliding it back across the table.

He looked at me.

The smirk was gone now. Just those steady grey eyes watching me across the table, waiting. Like he had all the time in the world and I was the one with the clock running out.

Which was true.

"When would you like to get married?" he asked.