Chapter 15 Negotiations
NEGOTIATIONS
Simone
The box was small and blue. It was giving me a strange sense of déjà vu despite the fact that I had never seen a ring like that in my life, much less been proposed to.
The diamond was simple and square and roughly the size of a baseball.
Between that and the platinum band curling with delicate filigree engraving, it certainly wasn’t a ring for a small-town girl and part-time baker.
It was a ring for a princess. Someone who would be a queen to Brendan’s future king for always, not just a few months.
The man himself glanced around at the blurred faces beyond the frosted glass, then set a foot back and started a slow descent to the ground.
“Oh my God, no!” I rushed forward before he made it more than a few inches, closed my hands around the open box, and shoved it back into his chest.
Confusion muddled Brendan’s dark eyes. Maybe even a little hurt. “Did I miss something?”
“I-I—” I almost said I couldn’t do it before I realized what was on the line. “A counteroffer! I said I had a counteroffer.”
One dark brow lifted. I wondered if he knew how adorable he was when mystified. Something told me it didn’t happen very often.
“A negotiation?” Those eyes sharpened. He almost looked happy to hear it.
Nervously, I nodded and shoved my hands into the pockets of my jacket before I gave in to the urge to chew on my fingernails. “Immaculate grooming” probably didn’t include torn cuticles.
He tucked the ring back into his jacket before rounding his desk and taking a seat. With one hand, he gestured that I should sit down in one of the sleek chrome chairs. “I’m listening.”
It wasn’t a request. More like an observation with the assumption that those around him would act to meet his needs without even needing a prompt.
I wondered if his entire life was that way. If things just came to him because he knew they would.
How nice must that be?
I swallowed and pulled my hands out of my coat to clasp them on my lap as I sat. “I want twice the amount you offered.”
That brow lifted again. I wanted to kiss it. No, that wasn’t going to work at all. I could not be entertaining fantasies about Brendan Black if I was going to be his in a…professional…fashion. Boundaries were essential.
So, I turned toward the window, toward the panorama of the city that so clearly belonged to men like him, not underlings like me.
The thought—the injustice—hardened my resolve. “Yes. Twice.”
He examined me for a moment, like he thought something might reveal itself in those two simple words.
But to my surprise, he scratched something onto the contract. “Done.”
Ten. Million. Dollars.
But instead of fainting, I decided to try my luck some more. “I want all of it up front, too.”
“That’s hardly fair.” This time, his expression was decidedly droll. It made me want to kiss him even more. “With ten million up front, what’s keeping you from leaving? There would be no reason for you to stay.”
I shrugged, like he didn’t affect me at all. “I know. But I don’t know you. What if you change your mind, and I’m left looking like a heartbroken idiot?”
“I don’t know you either. What if you take the money and run and leave me looking like an idiot?”
He didn’t, I noticed, say “heartbroken.” I had a feeling Brendan Black wasn’t even capable of a broken heart.
“But you need me. I don’t need you.” It was a lie. But a necessary one. “The stakes aren’t exactly equal. If I’m humiliated, I won’t be able to go anywhere. I’ll lose my job—”
“You won’t have your job. Per the contract, you’ll have to quit the bar and take leave from the hospital to do this. And considering how much I’m paying you, you won’t have to go back.”
“Um, that’s not going to work. Even if I were your real fiancée, I wouldn’t just abandon my entire life to follow you around like a puppy.”
The sharpness of my tone clearly surprised him. It certainly surprised me. Where was this courage coming from?
“And yet, that’s exactly what I’m paying you to do.” Brendan’s teeth suddenly seemed very canine.
Even so, I held my ground. “The hospital isn’t work. And you know why I do it.”
This time, he was the one to break our stare-off to look out the window himself. Internally, I punched the air.
“Women who date men like me take on a certain amount of…risk. My family—my money—it makes me a target. And so, becoming my fiancée will make you a target as well.”
“Target for what?”
“Threats. Kidnapping. As the ‘love of my life,’ you’d be worth millions in ransom. Billions.”
There was a twinge in my chest—not at the idea of being kidnapped, but at Brendan calling me the love of his life. Even if it was just pretend.
I sighed. “So, I won’t be allowed out of your apartment for four months?”
“No, but you won’t be serving drunks at two a.m. anymore. I’ll think about the hospital. If you do it, you’ll have to schedule your hours around my schedule and bring security with you.” Another shrug as he seemed to consider it. “The good PR would be worth the extra hassle.”
He didn’t have to say the obvious: that his family and their company had been making headlines as his father’s illness put them all under the microscope. My preemptive Google search had revealed at least that much.
Brendan’s life in particular was being examined. People all over the world were debating his suitability to lead the world’s largest holding company (according to Wikipedia).
Hence this entire charade.
“Half up front, then,” I pressed.
His head cocked, and a smile played across that broad mouth. “A counteroffer.”
I nodded. “You said ten percent. I want half. I have people counting on me.”
“Call me crazy, but I think ten percent of ten million is still more than you’d make in a lifetime of baking bread.”
I swallowed. He wasn’t wrong, obviously. But this conversation had become about much more than the matter of payment. It was about respect. Another gleam in Brendan’s eye told me there was a right move and a wrong move. I just had to know which one.
I dug my heels in. “Half. Or I walk.”
The gleam turned into something almost like approval as he sat forward to write something else onto the contract. “Done. I’ll need your bank information for the wire transfer, but it will be in your account by the end of the day.”
My hands were shaking. Five million dollars would be mine by the end of the day. It wasn’t quite enough to save everything—Selena would be fine, but it didn’t even come close to covering the debts against the dairy. Still, it would make a dent and hopefully stave off the worst of Dad’s creditors.
I could hardly believe my luck.
“One more thing,” I forced myself to say as Brendan turned the contract back to me to sign.
He paused, that frown returning. “Yes?”
I took a deep breath and expelled it. Why was this so hard?
“I need a lawyer. A good one. Maybe two. Someone who is familiar with Vermont tax law to help get my family’s farm in order…and someone else who deals with child custody.”
Once again, Brendan sat back in his chair, hands folded over his chest like a magistrate. “Are you adopting a child I don’t know about?”
I shook my head. “That’s none of your business.”
“It is if we’re getting married. Is it your niece? The one I sent the nanny for?”
For some reason, his presumption made me bristle. It was one thing to dictate my life for this contract. It was another entirely to even begin extending that influence over Kylie.
“We’re not actually getting married,” I told him. “Which means you only have to know basic things about me, not the people I care about.”
Brendan worried his jaw back and forth, looking like he wanted to argue the point. I had a feeling he wasn’t used to being told to keep his rich, perfectly crooked nose out of other people’s business. Or maybe he just enjoyed a good fight.
Either way, Kylie deserved all the protection I could give her.
At last, he gave a slow nod. “Fine. I’ll have my assistant reach out to a few family law and tax attorneys.”
I exhaled with relief. “Okay. Good.”
“But, Simone?”
When I looked up, his eyes had turned to steel.
“When it comes to my employees, privacy isn’t a right. I don’t like secrets, and I don’t tolerate them either.”
It was the first time he had referred to me by what I actually was rather than what we wanted people to think.
The moment I signed that contract, I would no longer be Simone Bishop, poor but reasonably happy bartender, volunteer, and part-time baker. I’d be Brendan Black’s fake fiancée, employee—practically his property.
This time, his eyes held mine, unwilling to release me from that strange thrall until I nodded. “I understand.”
“Good. Now, I have to ask: did you actually read the contract completely, or did you just stop at the payment terms?”
Something akin to fear—but far more pleasant—skittered down my spine. “I read the entire thing.”
He glanced down at the wrinkled papers with a wry smile. “I thought so. Any other questions?”
“No.”
“Not even on the physical intimacy clause?”
“N-no.”
It was a lie. I had a thousand questions, particularly about the sections outlining my personal hygiene or intimacy requirements. But after doubling my fee from what he’d first “proposed,” I didn’t think it would be wise to press him on those things too.
It was just a kiss or two. A fondle over the clothes.
Nothing untoward. Nothing that would bother me.
Even if I wanted it to.
“I’ll do my best.” I barely managed to bite back my stammer. “Just communicate with me if I’m not meeting your needs.”
Brendan’s eyes seemed to glow at the last word. “Oh, I will. And you…the same. I don’t ever want you to be uncomfortable.”
“I hardly think this will be comfortable.” I drummed nervous fingers on his desk.
His palms landed atop my knuckles with surprising heaviness. “I promise to make it as easy as possible for both of us.”
His hand was so large and warm. I couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like…elsewhere.
I took mine back.