Chapter Five: His Price

"Miss Reyes."

Jennifer stood rooted to the spot as Carter crossed the room toward her, a polite, professional smile fixed on his face like he'd never once had his hands on her, like he hadn't spent the morning taunting her about exactly how many ways he could make her come. He extended a hand toward her father. "It's good to finally put a face to the company. I've been reviewing your numbers all morning."

She couldn't say a word. Her lips wouldn't move, her brain caught somewhere between fury and disbelief. Was this some kind of sick joke? Carter Blackwood, standing in her father's office in a tailored suit, discussing balance sheets like a completely different person than the one who'd had her pinned against a window twelve hours ago.

Her father, oblivious, shook Carter's hand warmly. "Jennifer, this is Mr. Blackwood. He's agreed to review our books personally before making a final decision."

"We've actually met," Carter said smoothly, before she could decide whether to correct him. "Briefly. Small world."

Jennifer's jaw tightened. Small world was one way to put it.

"Could I speak with your daughter alone?" Carter asked her father, still perfectly pleasant, like he was asking to borrow a pen. "Purely business. I find it's useful to understand who else has a stake in a company before I commit real money to it."

Her father glanced between them, clearly reading nothing but professionalism in the request. "Of course. Take my office. I'll go check on Marion."

The second the door clicked shut behind her father, Jennifer rounded on him. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Saving your father's company," Carter said, unbothered, settling into the chair behind the desk like he already owned the place. "Unless you'd rather I walk away and let it collapse. I'm sure the two hundred employees on payroll would love to hear that you turned down the only offer on the table because of your pride."

Jennifer's hands curled into fists at her sides. "You could have told me who you were investing in before I walked into that room."

"Would it have mattered?" His eyes tracked her, unreadable, patient. "You still would have had to hear the offer eventually."

"This is insane. You expect me to just, what, pretend this morning never happened? Sit across from you in board meetings while my father thinks you're some stranger who showed up out of nowhere?"

"I expect you to be smart," Carter said, voice dropping into something colder, more precise. "I looked at your father's books, Jennifer. It's worse than what your secretary told you. Without serious intervention, and I mean serious, this company folds within the month, and your father loses everything he's spent his life building."

The words landed like a physical blow. She hated how effective they were, how quickly they silenced whatever she'd been about to say.

"I'm prepared to clear the company's debt in full," Carter continued, "and inject enough capital to stabilize operations for the next two years. In exchange for equity, obviously. And one additional condition."

Her stomach tightened. "What condition?"

"I want you close while I oversee this investment." He said it plainly, like it was the most reasonable request in the world. "I'm not in the habit of handing over this kind of money without eyes inside the company I'm trusting it to. You'll be my direct contact. Meetings, updates, reporting. All of it, funneled through you."

"Fine. I already work here. That's not exactly a hardship."

"I also want you at my residence," Carter said, watching her carefully now, gauging exactly how far he could push. "Until the restructuring is finalized. It's more efficient than scheduling around office hours, and frankly, I don't trust anyone else in this building not to leak details to the board before I'm ready."

Jennifer stared at him, certain she'd misheard. "You want me to move in with you?"

"Temporarily." His fingers tapped once against the desk, unhurried. "Purely business."

"There is nothing purely business about this," she snapped. "You realize what this looks like? What Gerald would think, what Margaret would think, if they found out I was living under your roof?"

Something flickered across his face at the mention of Margaret's name, there and gone too fast for Jennifer to read.

"Let them think whatever they want," he said. "It might even be useful."

"Useful for you, maybe." Jennifer crossed her arms, refusing to let him see how badly her hands wanted to shake. "What happens to my job here? My father needs me in this office, not playing house at your penthouse."

"You'll still work here," Carter said. "During the day. I'm not asking you to disappear, Jennifer. I'm asking you to be reachable. Available. If I have a question about the books at eleven at night, I don't want to wait until nine the next morning for an answer that could cost this company another week it doesn't have."

"So hire an accountant."

"I don't trust accountants who don't have skin in the game." His gaze didn't waver. "You do. That's the difference."

Jennifer paced a few steps away, arms still crossed, trying to think past the fury clouding every rational thought in her head. He'd cornered her perfectly, and he knew it. Refuse, and she watched her father lose everything he'd built from nothing. Accept, and she handed this man, this stranger she'd made the worst decision of her life with, unrestricted access to her entire world.

"Why me?" she finally asked. "You could find a dozen people more qualified. Why does it have to be me?"

Carter studied her, something sharper than amusement crossing his face now. "Because you have a reason to want this to work," he said. "Desperation makes people reliable in ways competence never does."

It wasn't the answer she expected, and it stung more than she wanted to admit.

"The real question," he continued, voice quiet and deliberate, "is how badly you want your father's company to survive. Because I'm not offering this deal to anyone else. And you strike me as someone who'd do absolutely anything to keep him from losing everything." He tilted his head, studying her. "Wouldn't you?"

Jennifer opened her mouth to argue, but nothing came out. He wasn't wrong.

"And if I say no?" she asked quietly.

"Then I walk out of this office," Carter said, unmoved, "and your father spends tomorrow morning explaining to his employees why there's no more payroll. That's not a threat. That's simply what happens next without an agreement."

She hated him. Hated how calmly he laid it out, like her father's life's work was a line item to be negotiated. But hating him didn't change the math.

"I need an answer today," Carter said, leaning back in her father's chair like he already belonged there. "The board expects my decision by tomorrow morning. So tell me, Jennifer."

He watched her the way a man watches something he already knows he's won, patient, certain, utterly unbothered by the

war behind her eyes.

"Do we have a deal?"