Chapter 15
CASH
My phone buzzed on the conference-room table with Austin’s name on the screen, which was poor timing even by his standards. I was alone for now. Rossi was late. It was a power move. I expected as much. I was early. Always early.
“Austin,” I answered. I didn’t have the brainpower to figure out what time it was back home.
“Why the hell did you plant seeds in Melody’s assistant’s ear about working for you?”
I gritted my teeth. “Don’t call her that.”
“Call her what?”
“Her name is Cleo. Not ‘Melody’s assistant.’ She’s her best friend, not just her employee.”
There was a silence that had me checking the screen to make sure I was still connected.
“What the fuck does that have to do with anything?” he said carefully. “And since when do you care?”
“Are you calling me for a reason, or just to puff up your chest and act like a big boy for your girl?”
“You’re an asshole.”
I hung up. I was an asshole, but so was he. He was looking at Cleo as an accessory. They had history. Obviously, they got over it, but Cleo did not accept Austin as Melody’s true love right away. It was hard won.
In fact…
I quickly typed his name into the search bar and grinned when I saw the account was still up. It was Cleo’s ode to Austin. The worst pictures of Austin. Bad paparazzi photos and some she added herself. Austin blowing his nose. Austin mid-sneeze. Austin running face first into a glass door.
Now, I felt better.
I walked to the windows and looked down at the city.
Rome was nothing like New York. Eight floors up, and I could see nearly everything.
The burnt orange terracotta rooftops contrasted with the cobblestone streets.
No skyline. No vertical ambition. Just history sprawling in every direction. It was beautiful.
In another context, I might have appreciated it.
I put my phone in my pocket and returned to my seat at the table.
Carson, our head of PR and the person Dad had assigned to accompany me on this trip, was making notes on his tablet and looking professionally composed.
He was good at his job. I sometimes wondered if he was a robot.
He seemed incapable of being rattled by anything.
He’d been with Bancroft Holdings for eleven years and had navigated everything from hostile press cycles to shareholder rebellions without visibly breaking a sweat.
But he wasn’t Cleo. Cleo breathed life into the most basic picture. I was confident it was Cleo that made Melody so successful.
“Rossi’s team is two minutes out,” he said without looking up.
“Good.” I poured water from the carafe and arranged the folders in front of me.
The door opened. Federico Rossi walked in ahead of three board members and two people I didn’t recognize but who had the look of legal counsel about them.
He was in his late sixties, silver-haired, immaculately suited.
The look was meant to intimidate. He was going to have to try a lot harder than that.
We shook hands. He squeezed hard but I squeezed harder.
“Mr. Bancroft.” He settled into his chair. “I appreciate you making the journey. Truly. It’s a long way to come for a conversation I’m afraid will disappoint you.”
“Then let’s have it,” I said pleasantly.
“Our decision to exit the contract has been made. It is final. My board has reviewed all relevant considerations, and we are confident in our position.” He spread his hands in an almost apologetic gesture that contained no actual apology.
“I regret sending you back to your father empty-handed. I hope it will not reflect poorly on you.”
The last part was deliberate. He’d heard enough about my relationship with Armand to know where to apply pressure.
I gave him nothing in response. I was the master of the poker face.
I could be dying from pain and no one would ever know.
I could be furious. Ecstatic. Brokenhearted and no one would know.
Carson opened a folder. “Mr. Rossi, before we discuss the contract, I’d like to raise another matter. Your foundation’s annual fundraiser gala is in four days.”
Rossi’s composure didn’t shift, but something behind his eyes did. “What about it?”
“Our research team compiled the current RSVP list.” Carson slid a document across the table. “I wonder if you’d share your thoughts on attendance levels.”
The silence that followed told me everything. Rossi glanced at the document and then away from it, which revealed everything I needed to know.
He could pretend it wasn’t as bad as it was, but it was a total flop.
I’d seen the list this morning, three pages that should have been eight.
There were some notable absences. The absences would be the headline.
A guest count that would make a fundraiser of this scale look like an afterthought.
A poorly attended gala wasn’t just embarrassing.
It was a statement. It told every potential partner and investor how much standing he currently had.
Or in his case, how much he didn’t have.
“These things fluctuate,” Rossi said, his tone calm.
“They do,” Carson agreed. “They also recover. With the right kind of attention.” He paused. “A Bancroft presence at the event would generate significant coverage. International coverage. The kind that attracts attendees hoping to talk with a Bancroft.”
Was it arrogance? No. Not really. It was just a fact. People wanted to be in tight with us. We had money. We invested. We made people rich.
Rossi looked at me with the skepticism of a man who’d been sold bullshit before. “A playboy in a nice suit?” The contempt was unmistakable. “That might work for you Americans. Here, we expect class and integrity. This sort of celebrity attendance isn’t important.”
“He’ll have his fiancée on his arm,” Carson said. “Their first public appearance.”
I looked at him, poker face still firmly in place.
He didn’t look back. His expression was the portrait of smooth professional confidence.
I recognized the move for what it was. He’d found a pressure point and he was pressing it.
I probably would have admired it if it didn’t involve him getting me engaged to a fictional woman.
I said nothing. Let him work.
“You’re engaged?”
“He is,” Carson said for me. “The announcement has been intentionally kept private. However, his fiancée could attend the gala as a personal favor to the Rossi Foundation, not as a press opportunity. Discreet. Tasteful.”
Rossi was quiet. I could see him doing the math. Calculating the impact. A Bancroft showing up with a committed partner rather than the reputation that usually preceded us.
“If you can deliver this event,” Rossi said finally, “I will reconsider the contract cancellation. You have my word on that.”
He stood. His team stood with him. Hands were shaken again. They left. We didn’t get up right away. It would be awkward to be in the same elevator. Carson closed his folder with the satisfaction of a man who felt like he’d just won a chess match.
I said nothing on the way down in the elevator. Nothing as we walked outside and into our waiting car. It wasn’t until the door was closed and I knew we would not be overheard that I turned a thunderous expression on Carson.
The guy was sitting there with a blissful expression.
“What was that?” I asked.
“A solution,” Carson said, entirely unruffled.
“You told him I have a fiancée.”
“I know. Did you see his face?” Carson laughed.
“I don’t have a fiancée.”
“I’m aware.”
“Tell me you understand the issue,” I said. “We’re missing one very large piece of this little scheme here.”
He shrugged. “This strategy has worked for Bancroft billionaire bachelors no fewer than a dozen times. I’ve personally executed four of them.
It creates immediate credibility and reframes the public narrative.
It’s exactly what a man like Rossi responds to.
Family values. Stability. The sense that the next generation of a business dynasty is building something rather than simply spending it. ”
“And when there’s no fiancée?”
“There will be.” He said it with the confidence of someone who considered this a logistics problem rather than an ethical one.
“Four days. She doesn’t need to be the real thing.
She needs to be convincing. Pleasant. Presentable.
Someone who can hold a conversation with Rossi’s wife without embarrassing you. ”
“You want me to find a woman willing to pretend to be my fiancée in four days?”
Behind my eyes I saw red flags waving. A little voice was whispering in my ear. The Summer Situation. The Summer Situation.
I was in this mess because I tried the whole fake thing for my brother and it spectacularly blew up in my face.
“I want you to find a woman who can do what I just described. Think of it as casting. We need someone who fits the role. Warm enough to be charming, composed enough not to be a liability. Someone who can read a room.”
Someone who was available in four days and willing to get their ass to Rome. I couldn’t just pick an Italian woman. That would suggest we had just met and she was definitely not my fiancée.
I thought about the various options available to me.
There were women I knew who could manage this.
Women who would sign an NDA. Professional, poised, and familiar with the kind of performance I needed to sell this stupid story.
I ran through the list mentally, assessing each against the requirements.
None of them felt right. I didn’t want anyone that might be likely to read more into the arrangement than I intended. After Summer, I was obviously a little gun shy to try that trick again.
And then I thought of her.
I thought of her sitting across a fire on a beach talking about what she wanted for her life. She would have been with me already if it wasn’t for dress shopping.
Cleo was a master at social interactions. She wasn’t the most traditional-looking woman, but she knew how to work a room. She knew how to position herself and others. She was smart. Savvy.
A woman who could read a room.
But the streak of purple hair. The dark makeup. Crazy amount of jewelry and those black nails. Maybe if we could tone that down she could fit into the role.