Chapter 11 Renegotiation
Chapter Eleven
RENEGOTIATION
Griffin
“Griffin, we’re running out of time. The West Games Benefit is coming soon. We need someone locked in, contract signed, a story ready to feed the press with your new fiancée,” Sam’s voice crackled through my phone. “I made an executive decision and offered Sabine the role of your fake wife.”
“You did what?” I yelled.
Sam took a defensive position. “Sabine’s perfect for this—she’s trying to start her own PR firm, needs the capital, she’s not above putting on an act to get what she wants, and she can be discreet. Plus, she’s always had her eye on you.”
“That’s not the fucking point. You went behind my back.” I gripped the phone tighter, pacing my office while my game design team filed out after a brainstorming session. “You don’t make offers on my behalf without consulting me first.”
“I did what you clearly would not do.” His tone sharpened. “You’ve been distracted all week. That nanny has you twisted up. We needed to move forward.”
Heat crawled up the back of my neck. “Jessa has nothing to do with how I am.”
“Doesn’t she?” Sam’s laugh was dry. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed how you’ve been checking your phone every five minutes, leaving meetings early, sending her gifts —”
“Enough.” My voice dropped to a tone that made junior executives flinch. “Did Sabine sign off on the marriage of convenience or not?”
“She said she dropped the folder off at your penthouse with the nanny. I assume she wanted to review it with you personally.”
Christ. I hung up on him. The folder was sitting there in my home, potentially opened and seen by Jessa.
I grabbed my coat and bolted for the door.
When I arrived, the penthouse was quiet.
“Theo?” I called, dropping my briefcase in the entryway.
“In here!” His voice came from his room, muffled and distracted.
I found him sprawled on his bed, controller in hand, eyes glued to the TV screen, playing video games I usually kept restricted to rewards and weekends.
“What did you do to earn this?” I asked, leaning against the doorframe.
“Chores.” He didn’t look away from the game. “Jessa made a list. I did everything on it.”
“A list?”
“Yeah. Like, organizing my hockey gear, putting away my laundry, cleaning up the kitchen after dinner. She said if I finished it all, I got an hour of game time.” He paused the game long enough to grin at me. “She’s cool, Dad.”
Warmth invaded my chest. Jessa had gotten my son to do chores. Voluntarily. Without threats or negotiations or the usual battle of wills.
“Where is she?”
“Dunno. Her room, maybe?”
I checked the guest room first. Empty. She wasn’t in the kitchen or the living room. Tension coiled tighter with each empty space.
I texted her: Where are you?
No response. I looked around, and didn’t see the folder anywhere.
I headed to my office and stopped cold in the doorway.
The folder sat in the middle of my desk. Opened.
“Shit.” I crossed the room in three strides, heart pounding. “Did Jessa see this?”
I expected Sabine’s signature to be on the contract.
Instead, I found a note scrawled in sharp, angry pen across the first page:
What woman in her right mind would agree to this?
I grabbed my phone and called Sam. He answered on the first ring.
“Sabine turned it down,” I said flatly.
A string of curses exploded through the line. “I thought for sure she’d take it. The money alone—”
“Now we have a liability running around knowing what we’re looking for.” My voice was ice. “You’re always on my case about protecting the company image, Sam? This one’s on you. You’d better get ahold of her and pay her off to keep quiet—with YOUR money.”
I hung up before he could argue.
Leaning back, I closed my eyes. The tabloids. The playboy rumors. Griffin West, the eccentric billionaire who never dates a woman more than once. The man with “certain tastes” and no staying power.
Next week, the biggest investors were flying in for the West Games Benefit. My IPO hung by a thread of public perception. When had being a solid single father stopped counting for anything? Now I needed a woman by my side to be seen as reliable, loyal, worthy of investment.
The whole thing was absurd. I started tossing the papers into the trash, stopping cold on the last page in the folder.
Sam’s idiotic typed list of rules had been vandalized. I’d never agreed to them in the first place, but now every line was crossed out, replaced in handwriting I knew better than my own signature.
Jessa’s.
I’d watched her write drink specials on the chalkboard at the Holly Creek Hops enough times to recognize her loopy capital letters, the sharp tails on her y’s.
**Rule #7** The woman shall not wear panties in my presence.
**Her rewrite:** *Griffin shall not wear boxers—or hideous white underwear—and shall make his cock available at all times.*
A sound tore from my throat—half growl, half laugh.
I skimmed through the rest. Each rule more defiant, more Jessa, more impossible than the last.
Where the hell was she?
I searched every room again, adrenaline, anticipation and hunger building with each step. Then I heard water sloshing from my master suite.
I shoved the bathroom door open.
Steam curled through the air, thick and warm. She reclined in my tub—my extra-large, never-shared-with-anyone-else bathtub—in a thick sea of bubbles. Her blonde hair was twisted up in a messy knot, tendrils clinging to her neck. She didn’t look remotely surprised to see me.
“Did you give Theo game time just so you could lounge in my bathtub?” I asked, voice rougher than I had intended.
“No.” She met my gaze without flinching. “Your somewhat entitled son earned game time because he did a list of chores after school. The bath was a bonus.”
Entitled. The word landed like a punch, but she wasn’t wrong. Theo had a good life—the kind most kids only dreamed about. Other than taking care of his hockey gear, I had asked very little of him.
Chores were... genius of her. But I couldn’t let her distract me. Not yet.
“I know what you did.” I tossed the contract onto the counter hard enough to make it slap.
“You think this is funny? This is my life you’re playing around with.
I have the biggest deal of my career on the line.
Once this IPO goes through, I’ll be one of the richest men on the planet. And you’re mocking it.”
“‘And you’re mocking it.’” She chortled, fully and unrestrained. Infuriating. She tilted her head, water sliding down her throat. “Do you even hear yourself? Look around, Griffin. You already have more money than probably the entire population of this city combined.”
I glared at the drop of water trailing down her collarbone. At the spark in her eyes—challenging me, disarming me faster than any hostile takeover ever could.
She lifted her chin toward the papers. “And those rules? Get real. What self-respecting woman would sign off on that garbage? Of course I made fun of them. It’s a joke. Or did you forget how to laugh somewhere in your sweet, charmed life?”
The corner of my mouth twitched despite myself. Damn her sassy mouth. I wanted to haul her out of that tub, bend her over the edge, and show her exactly what my thick, entitled cock could do.
“Haven’t you noticed?” I said instead, voice low. “I work hard for my good life, sweetheart.”
“Can’t be that hard to maintain riches when you started with them in the first place.” Her gaze raked over me, dismissive and cutting. “Why don’t you try walking in someone else’s shoes for once? See if you can make a million when you start from nothing.”
“Of course I could.” Pride flared, hot and defensive. “I have the confidence and the knowledge to build something from nothing. Could probably do it in my sleep.”
She snorted. “Doubtful. Life beyond your penthouse and high-rise office gets pretty tough.”
“I’m tougher.”
“No.” She leaned forward, bubbles shifting dangerously low. “You have an ego the size of a skyscraper.”
“So? I’m cocky.” I stepped closer to the tub, my cock growing with every word she uttered. “You didn’t seem to have a problem with that one night.”
Her eyes flashed. “You’re impossible. Forget this. Just go hire yourself a Barbie doll to play the role of your wife and leave me alone.”
She pulled the stopper from the tub. Water began draining, inch by torturous inch, uncovering more skin. My pulse spiked.
“Please leave so I can get out,” she said coolly.
“No.” I planted my feet. “You’ll sit there and listen.”
She rolled her eyes but didn’t move.
I exhaled, forcing my words into something resembling calm. “That contract was meant for you. I wanted to talk to you about it and see if you’d be interested. But fucking Sam jumped the gun and sent it to Sabine—this woman we’ve had business dealings with for years. It wasn’t my idea.”
She crossed her arms over her chest as the water level dropped, revealing the swell of her cleavage. I forced my gaze back to her face.
“Jessa, if I was going to go through with this, I’d need someone I could depend on.
Someone who could be more than just a pretty thing by my side, but also a…
a strategic partner.” The words felt clumsy, inadequate.
“This is a key role I need filled if I’m going to pull off this IPO.
I don’t make the stupid, unwritten rules about expectations in this world, how I need to be more than a single father but a responsible, married father. Just for a short while.”
I paused, choosing my next words carefully. “I’ve been married and divorced before. It’s not something I wish to repeat. I don’t need a complicated relationship right now, but a short-term contract? A professional relationship to look like the real thing? That I can certainly manage.”
“You’d fake a marriage just to get what you want?” Her voice held disbelief, maybe even disappointment.