Chapter 2 - THE CONTRACT
Mateo stepped away from her.
“Put your glasses back on.”
Adelaide hesitated.
“You don't like them?”
“I don't care what you wear.”
She slowly replaced them.
Mateo returned to his desk.
“Sit.”
She sat across from him.
A thick folder rested between them.
Adelaide recognized the Moretti crest stamped in black wax.
“I assume my father explained the arrangement.”
“He explained that you wanted fifteen million dollars.”
Mateo's eyes narrowed.
“No. Your father wants fifteen million dollars.”
Adelaide said nothing.
Mateo opened the folder.
“I offered Rockford Jones a choice. Repay what he stole or give me a reason not to liquidate Jones Financial.”
“You said marriage.”
“I said I wanted a Jones daughter married to me.”
Adelaide stared at him.
“Why?”
“Because I needed a wife I could trust around certain family interests.”
She almost laughed.
“You met me for twenty seconds.”
“I've known about you for three years.”
That stopped her.
Mateo slid a document across the desk.
It wasn't a marriage contract.
It was a financial report.
Her financial report.
Pages she had prepared anonymously while repairing her father's books.
Adelaide looked up.
“You have this?”
“You wrote it.”
“My father submitted it under his name.”
“I know.”
She turned the pages.
Every hidden liability she'd discovered was there.
Every unexplained transfer.
Every shell company.
Every suspicious technology investment.
Mateo had marked several entries in red.
“You knew.”
“I knew your father was lying.”
“You knew he was stealing.”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn't you expose him?”
“Because I wanted to know who else was involved.”
Adelaide's fingers tightened around the paper.
“Evelyn.”
Mateo's silence answered.
“And Chloe?”
“Possibly.”
Adelaide looked down.
The pieces she had spent years refusing to connect suddenly began forming a picture.
“Why me?”
“Because you're the only person in that family who has been trying to save the company instead of yourself.”
The answer hurt more than an insult would have.
Mateo pushed another document toward her.
“You'll have your own room. Your own accounts. Your own attorney. No intimacy is expected without your consent. You may continue working. You may leave the estate whenever you wish.”
Adelaide looked at him.
“You're a mafia boss.”
“Yes.”
“And you're offering me more freedom than my own family.”
“I've noticed.”
She almost smiled.
Almost.
Mateo leaned back.
“You have forty-eight hours to decide.”
“What happens if I say no?”
“Your father's debt becomes due.”
“And if I say yes?”
“I protect you from your family, your father's creditors, and anyone else who thinks marrying me makes you disposable.”
Adelaide stared at the contract.
Then she remembered Chloe's laughter.
Send the ugly one.
She picked up the pen.
“I'll marry you.”
Mateo didn't celebrate.
He simply nodded.
“Then there's something you should know.”
“What?”
“You're not marrying the man your family thinks they're selling you to.”
Adelaide frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Mateo closed the folder.
“It means I don't buy people.”
His eyes held hers.
May you like
“I make agreements with them.”
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