The Terms We Never Signed

Chapter 1

The paper crinkled under my thumbs. My chest felt tight, like the elevator doors had closed on my ribs instead of opening.

Three years. That was how long it had been since Damian Cross last looked at me like this across a conference table, slate-gray eyes cold and assessing, deciding I was useful.  

I had been wrong.

Damian didn’t look up from his laptop. 

“Everything they had on you. Every failed pitch. Every time they told you that you weren’t enough.”

“That’s private,” I said. My voice came out thinner than I wanted. “They had no right”

“Nathaniel doesn’t care about rights when he wants something.” Damian finally raised his eyes. That same slate-gray gaze pinned me in place, colder now, sharper. The man who once kissed me against a rain-streaked window after a won account now watched me like I was a liability he had decided to keep. 

“He wanted to know your breaking point, Miss Calloway. And it looks like he found it three weeks ago.”

I stared at the black-and-white text. The email address belonged to the man who once told me I lacked the killer instinct right before I walked out of his brother’s bed and out of both their lives. Subject line: Ivy Calloway Valuation.

My stomach rolled. I wasn’t a person to them. I was a price tag. A former lover turned convenient weapon.

“I didn’t ask for his help,” I whispered.

“It doesn’t matter what you asked for.” Damian closed the folder with a sharp snap that echoed through the quiet office. 

“What matters is what you do now. Six months. Turn this division around. If my brother tries to interfere” his voice dropped, rough, almost possessive, the same tone he used to use when he ordered me not to leave his apartment in the morning “ you come to me. Do we understand each other?”

I didn’t answer. I took the folder, stood, and walked out before he could see the way my hands were shaking… or the way his voice had just slid under my skin like a promise I had spent three years trying to forget I still wanted.

The Creative Director’s office at the end of the hall was huge, cold, and smelled faintly of old carpet cleaner and something sharper possibility, or danger. I dropped my bag onto the glass desk. Dust left a clear outline around the leather. I needed to focus on numbers, on the shrinking client list, on surviving the man who had once been mine and the brother who had always wanted to take me from him.

Instead I pulled Nathaniel’s card from my pocket.

The heavy cream paper felt warm against my fingertips, like it still carried the heat of his hand. The handwritten numbers on the back were bold, aggressive strokes of black ink that looked exactly like him reckless and deliberate at the same time. The same handwriting that used to appear on late-night texts I never should have answered while Damian slept beside me.

“Checking my math?”

I jumped.

Nathaniel was leaning against the doorframe, jacket gone, sleeves rolled to his elbows, revealing the corded muscle of his forearms. He held two cardboard cups, steam curling between us like an invitation. The sight of him relaxed, dangerous, entirely too comfortable in a building that was supposed to be Damian’s made my pulse kick hard against my throat. He had always looked at me like that. Like the fact that I once belonged to his brother only made the chase more interesting.

“You shouldn’t be in here,” I said, sliding the card under the folder like that could hide the evidence of how long I’d been staring at it or how many times I had almost called that number in the years since I left.

“It’s my building, Ivy.” He walked in without invitation, setting one of the cups on the glass. The scent of him clean, expensive, edged with something darker cut through the musty air and settled low in my stomach, exactly where it used to settle when he would lean too close at industry events while Damian’s hand rested possessively on the small of my back. 

“Black. No sugar. That’s what your old agency profile said. And what I remembered from the nights you used to drink it in my kitchen.”

My heart did a hard, sudden thud. 

“You bought my files.”

His smile didn’t fade, but his eyes sharpened, the kind of look that said he already knew exactly how much that knowledge unsettled me… and liked it. 

“I invested in a talent. There’s a difference. Damian threw you away the second you stopped being convenient. I never did.”

“You went behind your brother’s back to dig up everything I’ve ever failed at.” I stepped around the desk, putting the glass between us like it could protect me from the heat rolling off him—and from the memory of the last time the three of us had been in the same room, when everything shattered. 

“Why?”

Nathaniel took a slow sip of his coffee. He moved with a loose, predatory grace that made the entire room feel smaller, like the walls had leaned in to watch. 

“Because Damian wanted a scapegoat. Someone he could blame when Special Projects goes under. I wanted someone who could actually save it. And because watching you walk back into this building after three years of silence is the most entertaining thing that’s happened to either of us in a long time.”

“By buying my private reviews?”

“By knowing exactly what you’re worth.” He leaned forward, placing both hands flat on the glass. The movement brought him close enough that I could see the flecks of gold in his dark eyes, close enough that my breath hitched the same way it used to when he would deliberately brush past me in hallways Damian thought were private. 

“Damian gave you six months. I can give you the resources to do it in three. But you have to trust the right brother this time.”

“I don’t trust either of you,” I said. The words came out softer than I intended, almost breathless. Because the truth was uglier: I had trusted Damian once, and it had cost me everything. Trusting Nathaniel had always felt like standing too close to a fire that wanted to burn the whole house down.

“Smart girl.” He winked, and the corner of his mouth curved in a way that felt far too intimate for an office and far too familiar. 

“But you will.” His gaze dropped, just for a second, to my mouth. The same mouth he had once kissed when Damian was out of town. 

“Check your inbox. I sent you a little welcome gift.”

The door clicked shut behind him.

I stood there longer than I should have, pulse still racing, the phantom heat of his nearness lingering on my skin the way it always had. Then I forced myself to the laptop. The screen flickered to life. A single new notification sat in the corner like a dare.

An email from Nathaniel Reyes.

My gut told me to delete it. To walk back into Damian’s office and demand a clean slate or at least an explanation for why the man who once held me while I cried over a lost pitch was now treating me like a corporate asset with a history he refused to acknowledge. But the silence of the empty floor outside my door reminded me of the stakes. Six months, or I was finished—reputation ruined, future gone, and the Reyes brothers would still own the last three years of my life.

I clicked.

It wasn’t the spreadsheet Damian had shown me. This one held names, private numbers, and secrets belonging to Cross Media’s biggest rival. At the very bottom, highlighted in bright red:

Target Account: Vanguard Group. Current Agency Status: Terminating contract due to internal breach. Contact immediately.

Vanguard. The biggest fish in the city. Landing them wouldn’t just save Special Projects it would rewrite everything. Including whatever game the two of them were still playing with me as the prize.

A note was attached in Nathaniel’s handwriting, the same bold strokes from the card:

Damian thinks we lost this pitch yesterday. Don’t tell him otherwise. Some secrets are better kept between us, Ivy. Just like old times.

My phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number flashed across the screen.

He’s watching the cameras, Ivy. Don’t look up.

A cold sweat broke across the back of my neck. I slowly raised my chin, eyes scanning the ceiling grid until I found it the tiny, dark glass dome of a security lens angled directly at my desk.

The door to my office suddenly flew open, crashing against the wall.

Damian stood there, face pale with a dark, furious energy that made the air itself feel charged. His gaze locked on mine, then flicked to the open laptop, then back to me possessive, dangerous, and far too knowing. The same look he used to give me when he caught Nathaniel watching me too long across a crowded room.

“Get out of the file, Ivy.”

His voice was low. Controlled. But the way his eyes lingered on my mouth for half a second too long told me the three years apart hadn’t killed whatever still burned between us.

It had only made it meaner.