Chapter four

Linnea’s POV

When you are drowning, you don’t care who throws you the rope, even if the person holding the other end is the one who pushed you into the water.

That was what I kept telling myself as I walked back into the downtown office building two days later. This time, I wasn’t alone. Dana Whitfield walked beside me, tall and sharp in her gray suit, a briefcase in one hand and a very short temper in the other. She had been our family’s lawyer for years, and she hated the Vosses almost as much as I did.

“Remember,” she murmured as we crossed the marble lobby. “Don’t sign anything in the first hour. Don’t let him charm you. And if he offers you something that sounds too good to be true, ask yourself what it costs.”

“He’s not going to charm me,” I said.

Dana gave me a long look. “Good.”

Cassian was already at the long table when we walked in, a lawyer in a gray suit beside him. He wore a plain white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, and his hair looked like he’d run his hands through it. The cool billionaire mask he wore in public seemed to slip a little when he saw me.

He stood. “Thank you for coming.”

“Don’t thank me,” I said. “I’m not here for you.”

“I know.” He pulled out a chair for me. I didn’t sit in it until Dana did.

For the first forty minutes, I could not find anything to fight about.

I made my first demand: I would keep complete control of the foundation. “Done,” Cassian said. I said I would keep my own bank accounts and my career, and no one in his family would have any say. “Done.” I said I wanted a separate bedroom. Cassian paused for exactly half a heartbeat and said, “Of course.” I demanded a clause saying he could not tell me where to go, who to see, or how to live my life.

“It’s already in section nine,” he said.

I turned to section nine. He was right.

“He isn’t arguing,” Dana whispered. She sounded almost offended.

“That’s what bothers me,” I whispered back.

By the second hour, I had a pen in my hand and a long list of changes Cassian had accepted without a fight, and a growing feeling that I was being handled. When someone gives you everything you ask for, you start to wonder what they plan to take.

That was when Dana asked about the funding.

“The installments are tied to the marriage,” she said, tapping the page. “If the marriage ends early, the funding stops. That means Ms. Hartwell has no leverage. You could end it any day and leave her foundation to collapse.”

“I wouldn’t,” Cassian said.

“That’s not a legal protection.”

“It isn’t,” he agreed. “Which is why I’ve written in a minimum term of twelve months. Neither of us can end it early. Not without a penalty large enough that neither of us would try.”

“And if she wants out in month three?”

“Then she’s stuck for nine more.” His eyes met mine. “I know how that sounds.”

“It sounds like a cage,” I said.

“It’s a safeguard,” Cassian said quietly. “Against my father, not you.”

“I want to see Schedule C.”

“No.”

“Cassian.”

“It’s not about you,” he said. “I promise you, it isn’t. It’s about me, and what I have to protect. I’ll show you when I can.”

“That is the least comforting thing anyone has ever said to me.”

A faint, tired smile crossed his face. “I know.”

The room was quiet. Dana leaned toward me. “Linnea, I can’t advise you to sign this,” she said under her breath. “Not with a sealed section.”

“I know.”

“There are other ways. We could try the bank again.”

“We’ve tried.” I looked down at the contract. “We’ve tried everything.”

That was when the door opened.

It didn’t open the way a door opens for a receptionist. It opened like a door that had never been told no. A man in a charcoal overcoat stepped inside, silver-haired and straight-backed, with Cassian’s dark eyes and none of his warmth.

“Father,” Cassian said. He didn’t stand.

“Don’t get up,” said Magnus Voss. He crossed the room and looked down at me the way you look at something you are thinking of buying. “Miss Hartwell. I’m pleased to finally meet you.”

“I wish I could say the same,” I said.

Magnus smiled. It was a thin, polite smile. “Good. You have your mother’s spine.”

“Magnus,” Cassian said. “Leave.”

“I’ve come to make her an offer.” He drew an envelope from his coat and set it on the table between us. “Two hundred thousand dollars, Miss Hartwell. For yourself. And a fair price for your family’s rink, well above its value. Your board will accept. Your debts are cleared, your foundation’s kids are moved to my facilities, and you walk away from this absurd contract with your pride and your family name intact.”

The room went silent.

“Move the kids?” I said.

“To a better facility.”

“My foundation closes.”

“It will close either way,” Magnus said gently. “I’m only offering you a softer landing.”

I felt Cassian beside me, stiff as stone. He didn’t speak. When I glanced at him, his jaw was tight, and his hand lay flat on the table as if he was holding it down by force.

“Father,” he said again, very low. “This isn’t the place.”

“It’s as good a place as any.” Magnus turned back to me. “Think carefully. Whatever my son has promised you, I promise you this: you will regret it. A Voss never gives anything away. Not even him.”

I looked at the envelope. Two hundred thousand dollars. I thought about Julian’s empty eyes. I thought about Mia in her oversized hoodie, hugging her skates.

I looked at Cassian. He still hadn’t said what he wanted me to do. He just sat there, silent, with the muscle in his jaw jumping, and I couldn’t tell whether he was afraid I would take his father’s offer or afraid I wouldn’t.

“No,” I said.

“Linnea,” Dana murmured.

“No,” I said again. I pushed the envelope back across the table until it bumped his father’s hand. “I’d rather sign with the devil I know than the one who wants my rink.”

Magnus’s smile didn’t change. But something cold went behind it. “Then you’ve made a very foolish choice.”

“Probably,” I said.

He turned and walked out. The door clicked behind him.

Nobody spoke. Cassian let out a long breath that sounded as if he’d been holding it for ten years.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Don’t.” I snapped the word out, because if I didn’t, I was going to cry. “I didn’t do it for you. I did it because I wasn’t going to let him win.”

“I understand.”

“Do you? Because you didn’t say anything. Your father waltzed in here and tried to buy me off, and you sat there like a statue.”

“I know.”

“Why?”

“Because if I’d asked you to refuse him, you would have taken it just to spite me,” he said. And he was right, which was infuriating. “It had to be your choice.”

I pulled the contract toward me. I thought about the sealed page, the minimum term, the quarterly money. I thought about everything I didn’t know.

“Why me?” I said. It came out before I could stop it. My hands gripped the edge of the table. “Out of everyone you could have asked. Out of every woman who’d line up to marry a hockey star for a year. Why me? Be honest.”

He was quiet. The air thickened.

“Because you’re the one woman in this city who isn’t going to fall for me,” he said. “That makes you safe.”

The words hit me like a slap.

Safe. Of course. The man didn’t want me. He wanted a woman who would never be a problem. A convenient, immune, unromantic woman who would do her time and go home.

I don’t know why it hurt. I hated him. I hated him.

But for one terrible second, I saw something cross his face, as if he had said something he hadn’t meant to, and then it was gone.

“Good,” I said. My voice came out flat. “Then we understand each other.”

I picked up the pen. Dana touched my arm. “Linnea. Don’t.”

“The vote is in three days,” I said. “I can’t wait.”

I signed. My hand shook so hard that my name looked like someone else’s. Linnea Hartwell. The moment the ink hit the paper, it felt like the floor dropped out from under me. I had just signed away a year of my life to the man I hated most.

Cassian took the pen without a word and signed beside me. His handwriting was neat and steady. He capped the pen with a soft click and looked up.

“The wedding has to be Friday morning,” he said. “Before the board meets.”

“Friday,” I whispered. “That’s three days.”

“Yes,” said Cassian. “Get some rest, Mrs. Voss.”

I walked out of that building with my whole world shaking.

And I didn’t look back, because I was afraid of what I would see in his face.