Their Arrangement (Diamond Ties #1)

1. Cloe

CLOE

I almost didn’t come.

I stood on the other side of the street for thirteen full minutes, watching the Lawlor Diamond tower shimmer like a monolith of glass and power.

The kind of place that made people pause.

The kind of place that didn’t just reflect light—it reflected judgment.

I counted the minutes, not the breaths, because the breaths were too shallow, too frantic, too fragile to matter.

The building loomed over me, elegant and sterile. Built by men who never had to beg, who bled only on their own terms—and here I was, about to beg.

My heels wobbled as I stepped off the curb.

The right one had lost its cap, so it clicked louder than the left.

It sounded like a countdown. Every step echoed in my skull.

My blazer was too tight across the shoulders.

My skirt was too short to be decent. And under it, sweat clung to my skin despite the cool morning.

I’d spent twenty minutes in a gas station bathroom trying to dab my bra dry with toilet paper. It didn’t work .

I adjusted the hem of my skirt and felt the snag in my stocking stretch higher. Like a ladder I couldn’t climb.

God, I looked ridiculous.

The front doors loomed above me, polished chrome and obsidian glass.

I hesitated for a beat, long enough to catch my reflection.

My curls frizzed wildly from the humidity, under-eye circles deep enough to be bruises, and a purse strap frayed so badly it looked like it might snap under pressure. I looked like a girl who didn’t belong.

And worse—they would know it the second they saw me.

I pulled my phone from my bag and opened my bank app. A habit now. A compulsion.

$6.72.

That was it.

That was all I had left in the world.

Well— money-wise.

Dignity? That had evaporated weeks ago. Somewhere between the collection agency voicemails and the moment I pawned Camille’s necklace. When I started sleeping with the lights on. When I picked up the phone and told Selene Lawlor that yes, I’d listen to her offer.

I was in this mess because of men.

But the Lawlor brothers?

They weren’t just men.

They were legacy.

I hadn’t seen them in over two years. Not since the funeral. Not since Barron Lawlor placed a single white rose on his sister’s casket and walked away without a word.

And now I was walking back into their world with a run in my stocking and shoes I couldn’t afford to replace.

The security guard barely looked up as I stepped through the revolving glass doors. My heels echoed across the marble floor—sharp, anxious, uncertain. Eyes tracked me. Not for long. Just long enough to weigh me. Measure me. Dismiss me.

They already knew I didn’t belong.

Maybe they were right.

The elevator opened with a soft chime, and I stepped inside, hands trembling as I pressed the button for the top floor. The doors slid shut and caught my reflection again—wider hips than I remembered, a soft belly under my blouse, lipstick too dark for my skin tone, eyeliner smudged.

I didn’t look like the women who belonged here.

I looked like the reason they locked the doors.

The elevator rose.

Ticked upward floor by floor.

And with every passing second, the ghosts crept closer.

I closed my eyes.

And I saw her.

Camille.

Her laugh. Her lipstick-stained coffee cup. The way she used to lean against my side like I was something permanent.

The last time I heard her, she said, Go rest. I’ll cancel. You’re sick

But she didn’t cancel.

She went out.

Alone.

And she never came home.

The elevator doors opened with a hiss.

The top floor welcomed me with silence. No background music. No warmth.

Only the hum of wealth.

Only the weight of expectation.

The receptionist sat at her desk, immaculate in her bun and pearl earrings. Her lipstick was the kind that didn’t smudge. She typed with long, perfectly manicured nails .

I cleared my throat.

She didn’t stop typing.

“I… I have an appointment,” I said, too softly. “I mean, I’m here to see Barron Lawlor. Or… any of them. My name is?—”

She held up a hand, as if silence was something she owned.

Her fingers tapped across her keyboard, eyes never leaving the screen. “Your name?”

“Cloe Woods.”

A pause. A flick of her gaze. Not recognition. Just recalibration. A name she had filed incorrectly.

“Take a seat,” she said. Already moving on.

I turned and sat slowly on the leather couch. It hissed beneath me as my thighs stuck to it. My skirt rode up again—I tugged it down, cheeks flushing. The run in my stocking had grown longer. A second one had started on the other leg.

Across the lobby, two women exited one of the executive offices, laughing. They were stunning—tall, blonde, surgically perfected. The kind of beautiful that came with a retainer and a publicist. One of them glanced at me. Not cruel. Not curious. Just indifferent.

Like I wasn’t there.

Like I wasn’t anything.

I waited.

Ten minutes.

Then fifteen.

Then twenty-seven.

No one spoke to me. No one offered water. My phone stayed silent. The cracked screen lit up once with a calendar notification I didn’t remember setting.

My back ached. My feet throbbed. And I started to wonder if this was the first test. If this humiliation was step one in their evaluation.

I stood and walked back to the receptionist .

“Excuse me,” I said, voice barely holding. “I’ve been waiting a while, and I?—”

She looked up, mid-call. Annoyed.

“Name again?”

“Cloe. Cloe Woods.”

Her eyes sharpened slightly. Not with familiarity. With realization.

“Oh.” A pause. “You’re expected. Go ahead. Last door.”

She nodded to the far end of the hall. No apology. No warmth. Just a flick of her fingers.

I walked.

Each step dragged like it was being pulled from my bones.

And when I reached the door, my hand trembled as I curled my fingers around the handle.

Barron. Wolfe. Royal. Loyal.

They were on the other side of this door.

The last people in the world who had loved Camille.

The only people left who remembered me.

The men I was about to beg.

Then I turned the knob and stepped inside.

Silence met me. Sharp and immediate. Not the kind that welcomed you into stillness—but the kind that warned you, the kind that bristled like a live wire.

The office was cavernous, drenched in mid-morning light pouring in through floor-to-ceiling windows.

Glass stretched behind them like the wall of a cathedral—only instead of stained glass, it was clean and cold, offering a sweeping view of the skyline.

There were no signs of clutter. No hint of softness.

Just hard edges and white walls and the weight of silence thick enough to drown in.

And at the center of it, like kings at a war table, sat the four Lawlor brothers .

They were as beautiful as they were brutal. And every one of them looked at me like I was a memory they’d tried to bury.

Barron sat at the head of the desk, a throne more than a chair, a statement more than a seat. Black-on-black suit, no tie. His storm-gray eyes were the same—unblinking, unreadable. He didn’t look surprised. Didn’t look angry.

He just stared like I was a risk he hadn’t decided whether to take.

Royal lounged across from him with one ankle propped on his knee, drink in hand.

He wore his grin like armor, all sin and teeth.

His eyes dragged down my body in a slow, deliberate pass—from my worn shoes to the curls pinned too high on my head—like he was already bored by the sight of me and was daring me to try and change his mind.

Wolfe stood apart, leaning against the far glass, arms crossed. His dark shirt strained at the shoulders, sleeves rolled to his elbows, exposing forearms lined with tension. He didn’t look at me at first. Didn’t have to.

Because even from the corner, I could feel him watching.

Loyal was the only one who moved.

He stood as I stepped in—too quickly, like reflex—and then froze. Sat back down. His jaw clenched, his throat bobbed. His eyes flicked to mine and away again, like the sight of me cost him something.

For a heartbeat, none of them spoke.

The tension filled the air like a pressure system, like gravity itself shifted.

Then Barron said it.

“Cloe Woods.”

Not a greeting.

A verdict.

My name landed like a slap, sharp and familiar. Like he’d waited to say it just to see how I’d flinch.

I opened my mouth. No sound came. My fingers tightened on the strap of my purse until I felt the fraying leather cut into my palm.

“You’re not on our schedule,” he added, voice smooth and flat.

“I—I know. I’m sorry. I just…” My voice cracked like glass. “I was hoping I could talk to one of you. Or—” I swallowed hard. “All of you, I guess.”

Another beat of silence. Royal arched one dark brow, his smile deepening. Wolfe didn’t move. But I felt him turn. Like a wind current. Like a tide.

Barron didn’t shift. But the way his body leaned forward slightly—like a shadow lengthening—told me everything.

Loyal’s voice broke the stillness. “What’s going on, Cloe?”

His voice wasn’t cruel.

But it wasn’t kind either.

It was distant. Hesitant. Like he was trying to remember something he used to feel about me.

“I need a job.”

The words dropped like a stone. Naked. Humiliated.

“A job,” Barron echoed, tone unreadable.

“I’m not asking for favors,” I rushed. “I just—I’ll do anything. Admin. Phones. Filing. I’m good with people. I can learn. I just?—”

“You want to work here,” Royal cut in, his voice a lazy drawl, “at Lawlor Diamonds . The girl who ghosted after our sister’s funeral. Who disappeared for two years and comes back with scuffed shoes and a sob story.”

My cheeks went hot.

“I didn’t disappear.”

“You didn’t come back,” Wolfe said from behind me. His voice slid down my spine like smoke. “Same thing.”

I turned toward him—and it hit me .

His eyes weren’t just dark.

They were void.

Observant. Detached. Dangerous.

Wolfe Lawlor wasn’t just angry.

He was remembering.

And remembering me didn’t look like a good thing.

“I was nineteen,” I said, throat tight. “I didn’t know how to stay.”

“No,” Wolfe said. “But you knew how to leave.”

The silence turned razor-sharp.

I looked back to Barron. His stare didn’t shift. But something in the air did.

The temperature.

The charge.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know I don’t deserve anything. I just—I’m out of options.”

“You’re not asking for a job,” Barron said, rising slowly from his chair. “You’re asking for mercy.”

He came around the desk, walking slowly, deliberately. A hunter, not a CEO.

His presence filled the room.

The air thinned.

He stopped just short of me—close enough that I could smell his cologne. Something dark. Clean. Expensive. It wrapped around me like a snare.

“What exactly are you offering, Cloe?” he asked.

My throat went dry.

“I’ll work. I’ll stay late. I’ll clean the floors if you want. I just?—”

“That’s not what I asked,” he said.

Royal shifted in his seat, setting his drink down with a soft clink .

“You said you’d do anything,” Wolfe added, still from the shadows. “ Anything’s a big word.”

I swallowed.

Held my ground.

“I meant it.”

That made Royal smile. “Now that’s dangerous.”

Loyal said nothing. But he looked away.

Barron studied me like he was trying to see beneath my skin.

“To be clear,” he said, “we don’t need you. We don’t want your apologies. We don’t want your grief.”

“I’m not offering grief,” I whispered. “I’m offering my work. My hands. My time.”

Barron stepped closer. Just half a foot. But it felt like stepping into the blast zone.

“Why here?” he asked. “Out of every company in this city, why this one?”

“Because,” I said, voice shaking, “no one else will even look at me.”

And there it was.

Laid bare.

The silence that followed wasn’t cruel.

It was calculating.

Like they were all turning the idea of me over in their hands.

“Let’s say we said yes,” Wolfe murmured. “Let’s say we did. What would you do for it?”

“I told you,” I said, lifting my chin. “Anything.”

Barron didn’t blink.

Behind me, Royal’s voice was softer now. “That’s a dangerous word, sweetheart.”

Barron held my gaze .

Then turned to his brothers. A silent message passed between them.

When he looked at me again, his voice was colder.

“Be here tomorrow. Eight a.m. Sharp.”

“I—thank you,” I breathed.

“I didn’t say you had the job,” he added. “I said we’d see.”

Wolfe pushed off the glass wall.

And as I turned to leave, I felt his eyes trail the length of me. Slowly. Deliberately.

I walked out of the office on legs made of glass.

And I didn’t breathe until I hit the elevator.

Everything inside me wanted to run. My body remembered the kind of danger these men carried, even if my pride didn’t. The scent of them—cologne and control—wrapped around my lungs like a noose. My feet didn’t move, but my resolve did. It cracked, just slightly.

But when the elevator doors closed behind me, I wasn’t sure if I’d just been hired…

Or claimed.

My hands were trembling. I didn’t realize how much until I missed the button for the lobby and had to jab it twice.

I swallowed back the taste of shame and sweat.

The moment the doors opened at the bottom, I walked fast. Too fast. I didn’t glance at the receptionist. I didn’t look at the polished women who glided across the marble floor. Or the sleek men in perfect suits who barely noticed me.

I kept my head down.

Out the doors. Onto the street.

Into the chaos of car horns and smog and heat.

And that’s when I cracked.

Just a little.

A breath stuttered out of me. Not quite a sob. Not quite a sound. My eyes burned. My chest ached. But I didn’t cry .

There was no space left for softness.

I stopped on the corner, hand gripping the edge of my purse.

Then I reached inside.

And pulled out the envelope.

The one I’d stuffed into the lining that morning.

The one I hadn’t shown them.

The one I couldn’t bring myself to take out upstairs.

The paper was thick.

The name at the top?

Bold. Cold. Precise.

Selene Lawlor.

Barron’s ex-wife.

And the woman who’d blackmailed me into coming here.

Inside the envelope was everything she wanted me to deliver.

Photos.

Financial records.

Contracts.

A single note, handwritten in slanted ink:

Make him bleed, or I make you disappear.

My fingers trembled as I folded the envelope shut.

Zipped it back inside.

I couldn’t breathe.

They thought I came for a job.

But I came carrying a threat.

And whether I wanted to or not...

I’d just stepped into the fire.