Chapter 119 The Confrontation #3
Carlos: There is a private, quiet café tucked away in Chelsea called Bluebird Coffee. Do you know the location?
Teresa: I do. What time?
Carlos: Two o'clock sharp?
Teresa: I'll be there.
Carlos: Thank you, Teresa. I truly appreciate your time.
Teresa set her phone back down on the table, her hands noticeably trembling. What on earth am I doing? She was actively coordinating a secret meeting with Carlos Mason. Justin's lethal rival. The man poised to tear Celina's world apart.
The man who had looked at her art like he could see straight into her soul. The man who had made her feel, for the first time in her entire independent career, like someone truly saw the woman behind the canvas.
Teresa picked her blending brush back up, forcing her eyes back to the massive, blank canvas.
But even as she tried to lose herself in the mechanics of her work, her mind was already racing miles ahead to two o'clock.
To the quiet corner booth at Bluebird Coffee.
To whatever Carlos Mason wanted to extract from her.
And to the dangerous, impossible, and utterly terrifying hope that maybe - just maybe - this wasn't the disaster it seemed to be.
Carlos Mason sat in the expansive, minimalist living room of his luxury Manhattan penthouse, his phone gripped tightly in his palm as he stared down at the short confirmation message.
I'll be there.
He had done it. He had taken the leap. He had reached out, broken the protocol, and successfully secured an immediate meeting with Teresa Stewart.
And now, he had to figure out exactly how the hell he was going to pitch the madness of his plan to her.
Carlos tossed the phone onto the leather cushion beside him, running both hands over his face as he paced the length of the hardwood floor.
This was pure clinical insanity. He had met Teresa exactly once.
They had shared a brief, fleeting conversation in the back corner of an art showcase spanning less than twenty minutes.
And now, he was walking into a Chelsea café intending to ask her to legally sign her name to a marriage license.
It wouldn't be a real marriage, of course. There would be absolutely no room for romance, vulnerability, or any of the volatile emotional attachments that could compromise his focus.
It was a corporate transaction. A strategic partnership. A mutual solution to two catastrophic survival dilemmas.
Teresa desperately required a massive influx of capital to secure the lease on her dream Brooklyn art gallery.
Carlos required a legal spouse in a matter of weeks to inherit his father's thirty-five percent voting bloc at Mason Industries.
It was perfectly logical. Highly practical. Exceptionally balanced.
And entirely, utterly insane.
Carlos stopped pacing, turning his dark gaze to look out the massive glass windows at the sprawling city grid below.
He had spent his morning trading verbal blows inside Justin's executive office, making his tactical intentions clear to the king.
And Justin had drawn his own battle lines with lethal clarity - vowing to deploy every corporate resource at his disposal to exploit the marriage clause and freeze Carlos out of his inheritance.
Justin fully expected him to run out of time and fail.
Carlos needed a wife. and he needed one before his father's fragile heart stopped beating.
He had spent the car ride home analyzing alternative candidates.
He had considered several high-society women he had casually dated during his tenure in Melbourne.
He had mentally reviewed a list of corporate business associates who might be willing to execute a mutual merger.
He had even considered utilizing a premium agency to simply hire a professional actress - but the thought of a paid stranger holding that much legal leverage over his family's bloodline felt entirely too cold, too exposed, and too dangerous.
But then, his mind had automatically anchored back to Teresa.
He thought about the fierce, unyielding pride she possessed - how she had flatly refused to accept a single dime of billionaire handouts from Justin or Celina because she demanded to build a legacy purely on her own merits.
He thought about her visceral connection to her artwork.
He thought about the sharp, intuitive way she had understood his need for distance from the Mason name without him having to utter a single explanatory word.
She needed an independent investor. He needed a legal wife.
And perhaps - just perhaps - they could save each other from the currents, pulling them down.
Carlos knew it was an astronomical long shot.
He knew that walking into a casual coffee meeting and requesting a woman’s hand in a contract of marriage was the behavior of a madman.
He knew that Teresa would likely look at him with pure horror, throw her coffee in his face, and walk straight out the door to warn Celina.
But he had to play cards.
Because the alternative meant completely surrendering his father's life's work to Justin's trust. It meant letting Vincent's side of the family permanently erase Moises's legacy from the history of Mason Industries. And Carlos would see the city burn before he allowed that to happen.
He checked the face of his vintage watch. It was exactly one-thirty.
Time was officially up.
Carlos grabbed his charcoal wool coat from the bench, sliding his phone into his pocket as his brain locked into a high-gear strategy.
He walked out the door; his jaw set into iron, mentally rehearsing every syllable of the pitch.
Every single variable of his future legacy depended entirely on his ability to make Teresa Stewart say yes.