Chapter 3
POV: Camille?
By the end of my first week at Vanderbilt Technologies, I had learned three very, very important things.
One. The espresso machine on the 35th floor was possessed by demons. It hissed, sputtered, and produced something vaguely resembling coffee but that tasted more like burned, charred dirt. But I drank it anyway.
Two. Associates were basically glorified document mules. My day on the average consisted of running between departments, organizing files, and pretending my brain cells weren’t dying with every line of fine print I read.
Three. Michael Vanderbilt was a ghost.
At least, that’s what I’d started to think.
After our brief introduction, I hadn’t seen him again—not in the hallways, not in the cafeteria, not even lurking by the elevators with his storm gray eyes and perfectly ironed collared shirts.
It was like he’d been conjured up solely to intimidate me on day one of my big girl job and then vanished into thin air.
Which was fine.
Great, even.
It was less distraction, more focus.
Except I kept catching myself thinking about him.
The way his handshake lingered. The way his gaze made me feel like he was peeling back layers of me I didn’t even know existed. The way we had this irrational, unspeakable connection just from our five minute interaction.
I was irrational. I was insane. I was fantasizing.
The rational part of me told myself to stop thinking about him, because well, he was my boss—my boss’s boss’s boss. And not to mention a billionaire. Men like that didn’t notice girls like me unless we spilled coffee on their Ferragamo italian leather shoes.
Still, that didn’t stop my brain from replaying the scene in his office at least 10 times a day.
But that Friday afternoon, all thoughts of stormy gray blue eyes vanished when I found it.
I was elbow deep in a file cabinet, hunting for a nondisclosure agreement buried somewhere between corporate compliance memos and patent filings.
My supervisor, Marsha, had given me approximately 10 minutes to find it. Marsha had the warmth of a brick wall and the patience of a toddler so I was sweating bullets.
“Come on,” I muttered, flipping through manila folders. “Nondisclosure, not—what the hell?”
My fingers paused on a thick black binder.
It wasn’t labeled “NDAs”, it was actually not labeled anything, only with a single word stamped across the front in bold red font.
The Contract.
I frowned then I tugged the binder open and glanced around the office to make sure no one was watching and flipped it open.
The first page was ordinary enough.
Vanderbilt Technologies letterhead with a block of legal jargon and the usual line of “This Agreement is entered into..”
Then I read the second paragraph and froze.
“The undersigned agrees to enter into a consensual personal arrangement with Michael J. Vanderbilt, hereafter referred to as ‘The Arrangement,’ for a duration period of 6 months..”
Wait. What?
I blinked, reread, then reread it again.
Nope—it still said what I thought it said.
As I scrolled further down, because of course I scrolled further down things only got weirder.
The document spelled out the arrangement in detail.
Dates. Travel. Discretion clauses. Even a section about bedroom expectations.
It was all tied neatly together with a promise of “generous financial compensation” upon completion of the 6 month term.
My jaw dropped so hard that it nearly hit the floor.
Michael Vanderbilt—the pristine and polished billionaire was literally paying women to date him.
This had to be a joke—this had to be a prank—this had to be some bizarre training exercise that HR had cooked up to see if new associates could spot absurdity in legal writing. Right???
But the ink was real and the signature line at the bottom bore the signature of Michael J. Vanderbilt.
“Oh, hell no,” I whispered.
On one hand, I knew snooping was career suicide. If anyone caught me even glancing at this, my law career would end faster than my last relationship, which was saying something.
On the other hand, I couldn’t unsee it.
Michael Vanderbilt—contract boyfriend for hire.
It didn’t compute.
I shoved the binder back into the drawer.
My law brain screamed confidentiality breach while the rest of me screamed what the actual fuck!
“Did you find it?” Marsha’s voice sounded from behind me.
“Y-yeah,” I nervously said, almost dropping my paperwork. “Got it right here!”
“Good then put it on my chair.”
I did, praying she couldn’t see the flush on my cheeks.
The rest of the afternoon blurred.
I filed things. I emailed things. By the time I left the office, my thoughts were still spiraling completely.
Michael Vanderbilt wasn’t who he seemed.
That night I sprawled across my shoebox apartment bed and I replayed the discovery over and over.
The contract wasn’t illegal, not technically. Consensual arrangements between adults weren’t crimes.
Hell, it was probably airtight legally.
But morally and ethically? It was complicated.
Part of me was horrified. The other part was actually… intrigued.
I chewed on a piece of cold lo mein, staring up at the ceiling and thought about the single word..compensation.
How hefty were we talking? Enough to wipe out a chunk of my student loans? Enough to make my mountain of debt look more like a hill?
I hated myself for even thinking about it.
But what would it be like? To be chosen by someone like Michael Vanderbilt—to have him look at me not like a disposable associate, but like something more. Even if it was contractual—even if it came with an expiration date.
I squeezed my eyes shut. “No, Camille. Bad idea. You are not seriously considering this.”
But the question lingered anyway.
What if?
***
Monday morning came too soon, far too soon. It basically hit me right in my face.
I did my best to act normal, but every time someone said “contract” in casual conversation, my stomach flipped.
Then, as if fate had a sick sense of humor, I saw him again.
Michael.
I was walking out of the conference room when he appeared in the hallway, alongside two executives.
And our eyes met just for a second.
And suddenly, I was back in his office, shaking his hand, feeling that lingering grip, and that imaginary connection between the two of us. I’ve got to stop watching romance movies before bed, I told myself.
But the more I thought of it, the more I thought of the contract, too.
Because layered on top of it, the meeting, the handshake, the way he…looked at me, was the knowledge of the binder.
The knowledge that this man, the one who commanded boardrooms and graced magazine covers had a secret side arrangement that was anything but ordinary.
His gaze flicked over me, unreadable, before he turned and disappeared around the corner.
I exhaled, realizing I’d been holding my breath.
Yeah, I was definitely in trouble.
That night as I laid awake and stared at the stack of unopened bills on my nightstand, my thoughts drifted back to Michael Vanderbilt’s contract.
It wasn’t just temptation.
It was a possibility and the kind of possibility that could change everything.
But what would it cost me?