Terms of Surrender

Chapter 3 — Terms of Surrender

Dante

Lyra steps in like the room might try something and she’d enjoy stopping it.

“Ms. Quinn,” I say.

“Mr. Marcellus.” Her gaze flicks once over the office—windows, books, the black piano I never play—then back to me. The ink-blue dress has dried at the hem and darkened to midnight. It suits her; she looks like a decision.

“Water?” I ask.

“I’ll live dangerously.” She sits without waiting for permission and crosses an ankle. The move’s efficient, not coy.

“Downstairs,” I say, “you were right.”

She tilts her head. “About what? The part where your VP tried to talk to the room instead of me, or the part where ‘legacy’ sounds like ‘you don’t count anymore’?”

“The promise,” I say. “That we shouldn’t make what we can’t keep.”

“Mm.” She props her elbow on the chair arm, fingers light at her mouth. “It wasn’t philosophy. It was a reminder. Customers are humans, not line items.”

“Humans are line items with hearts,” I say. “The heart is what gets the invoice paid.”

She huffs out something like a laugh. “That the line you use at weddings?”

“I don’t go to weddings.”

“Right,” she says. “Too many promises.”

I let that sit. Rain picks at the glass; the city answers in light. “I have an offer,” I say, and watch her brace in the smallest ways. “Not the one you think.”

She lifts her brows. “Try me.”

“Short-term advisory,” I say. “Direct to me. Help steer the integration from the client’s side—what to say, what to avoid, what will actually keep people. You tell me the truth; I make sure it sticks.”

“That’s very tidy,” she says. “My boss will love the part where I report to you behind his back.”

“It would be aboveboard,” I say. “A retainer. Visibility. You pick the hours.”

“And if I say no?”

“Then I listen to you anyway,” I say. “From farther away.”

She studies me. “What’s the part I’m supposed to want? The money? The proximity? Or the ego of fixing the giant everyone loves to hate?”

“Yes,” I say.

She smiles despite herself. “I have a job.”

“Keep it. This is additional.”

“Additional is how you say ‘burnout’ with a tip jar.” She leans forward a fraction. “Mr. Marcellus—Dante—what do you actually want?”

There’s the right question. “Someone who knows what matters and says it out loud,” I tell her. “On my side.”

“And why me?”

“You didn’t flinch,” I say. “Most people do. Or they flinch fancy.”

She sits back, considering, then shakes her head. “Tempting. But I’m not your fixer.”

“You’re not.” I nod once, accepting the refusal like it was part of the plan. Because it was. “Then something less tidy.”

“Ah,” she says, amused. “There it is. The real reason I’m here.”

I take the folder from the drawer and set it on the desk without pushing it forward. “It’s unconventional.”

“Now I’m bored,” she says lightly. “Try illegal.”

“Unconventional,” I repeat. “And legal.”

She pats the cover. “If this is a non-disclosure about your skincare routine, I’m signing immediately.”

“Read.”

She opens the folder. Her eyes track the heading. Proposed Agreement of Marriage. A heartbeat passes; then another. She doesn’t gasp or flail or turn it into a joke. She goes very still and human—and then looks up.

“No preamble,” she says.

“I gave you one,” I say. “You declined.”

She exhales through her nose, a laugh’s ghost. “You’re serious.”

“Yes.”

“A year.” She scans. “Public devotion. Private rules. ‘Mutual discretion.’ Monthly stipend. Clean exit.”

“That’s the spine,” I say. “We write the rest together.”

She taps the paper. “So… optics for you, oxygen for me.”

“Order for me,” I say. “Options for you.”

“And the thing where you get to point at me and say ‘See, I’m domesticated, board members, calm down’?”

“I prefer ‘stable,’ but yes.”

“Why,” she asks, and it’s not coy. “You don’t strike me as a man who crowds his life.”

“I need a partner in rooms where people pretend to be sharks,” I say. “Who won’t need rescuing. Who will let me do the talking when it matters and take the knife when it doesn’t.”

Her mouth curves. “I’ve never had ‘knife-taker’ on my résumé.”

“You have it now.”

She looks back down. “No obligation for… intimacy.” She says the word like a test. “Consent in plain language. Safewords.” Her eyes flick to mine. “You wrote this?”

“I dictated it,” I say.

“That’s worse,” she says, but there’s a heat under the joke. “Okay. If this isn’t a prank, we’re going to change things.”

“Such as.”

“Work stays mine,” she says immediately. “You don’t get to ‘suggest’ I step back to be your accessory. My name stays on my work email, not yours.”

“Agreed.”

“Security,” she goes on. “Visible when it needs to be. Not on my phone, not shadowing my bathroom door, and not making my family nervous.”

“Visible at events,” I say. “Driver at night. No surveillance on your devices. Your family is off-limits unless there’s a credible threat. If Rhoades breaks that, I fire him.”

Her gaze flicks to the door as if she can see Rhoades absorbing this with priestly calm. “Wardrobe,” she says. “I choose. You can hate it in private.”

“I don’t hate good decisions,” I say. “Stylists are available. You’re not a mannequin.”

“Intimacy,” she says, voice smaller, then steady. “If it happens, it happens because we both want it. No tallying. No weird punishments for saying stop.”

“Yes,” I say. “And we talk after.”

“Aftercare,” she says, and the word sits warm between us like a candle. “Fine.”

We’re both quiet then. I realize I’ve been gripping the corner of the desk and loosen my hand. She realizes she’s been worrying the edge of the folder and flattens her palm.

“Exclusivity,” she adds. “On both sides. And say it like a person, not a policy.”

“I won’t touch anyone else while this agreement exists,” I say. “You won’t either.”

“Better,” she says softly.

She slides the folder back toward me. My hand comes out to steady it; hers is still on the plastic sleeve when our fingers meet. Not accident—there was time to avoid it. My thumb finds the inside of her wrist and rests there.

Her pulse kicks, hard and betrayed. Mine answers. We both watch my hand and then we both watch each other watching my hand, and the room tilts just enough to make sense.

I let go. Too late. “Apologies,” I say. The apology is for how good the heat felt.

“Noted,” she says. Her voice has changed. More air. “Look… this is a lot.”

“It is.”

“I need forty-eight hours.”

“No,” I say.

Her chin lifts. “Excuse me?”

“Twenty-four.” I hold the number like a door. “You don’t need forty-eight to know if you can stand me. You already know.”

“I don’t make decisions like this on a stopwatch,” she says.

“Then don’t decide,” I say. “Check the facts. Call a lawyer. Eat something. Sleep. Wake up with your answer.”

She stares, trying to find the trap. “You’ll pay the lawyer?”

“Yes. Whoever you choose.”

“And if I say no?”

“We shake hands,” I say. “We don’t mention it again. We’re polite in elevators.”

She squints, amused despite herself. “You have a very specific elevator plan.”

“Routine lowers blood pressure.”

“I’ll send you a tea recommendation,” she says, and stands. I stand with her, because I can’t not. The space between us feels personal.

“I’m not a problem you get to solve,” she says, softer now.

“If I wanted a problem,” I say, “I’d buy another company.”

“God, you’re arrogant.”

“Correct,” I say. “But not wrong.”

Something like a smile touches her mouth and almost stays. She tucks the folder under her arm. “Twenty-four,” she echoes, like tasting the word.

“Rhoades will set up counsel whenever you text him,” I say.

“You people and your handlers.”

“He’s not a handler,” I say. “He’s a guardrail.”

“Same shape,” she says, and moves to the door. She’s nearly out when she glances back. “If I do this, I’m not here to make you look soft.”

“If you do this,” I say, “you’ll make me look like I chose well.”

That stops her just enough that I feel it. She recovers. “We’ll see.”

“Twenty-four,” I say again.

“Drink water,” she says, like a curse and a kindness, and leaves me with the rain and the city and the mark her wrist made on my hand that I won’t admit I can still feel.