Chapter 2 - The Terms of the AccordThe silence inside the cabin grew so dense that Evelyn could hear the rhythmic ticking of her own pulse. She looked down at the gold-embossed leather folder, then slowly raised her gaze to meet the unyielding stare of the older man sitting across from her.
"Are you insane?" Evelyn breathed, her voice a mixture of shock and disbelief. "You're asking me to... what? Marry you? Your own son just dumped me, and your solution is to become his stepmother?"
"My solution is to teach him a lesson in economics and leverage that Harvard Business School failed to instill," Roman corrected, his expression chillingly serene. "Grant thinks he has outgrown his origins. He thinks by casting you aside, he is cutting off the last reminder of the days when he was just an ambitious junior analyst sharing a cramped apartment in Brooklyn. He wants a trophy. I want an empire that survives the next century."
Evelyn opened the folder. Inside lay a thick stack of legal documents, crisp and smelling faintly of fresh ink. Her eyes scanned the first page, and her breath caught.
Pre-Nuptial Partnership and Strategic Asset Allocation Agreement.
"This isn't a marriage certificate," she whispered, turning the pages. "This is a corporate merger."
"Call it what you like," Roman said, leaning back into the leather upholstery. "Under New York law, a legal union between us grants you immediate voting shares in Callaway Holdings—enough to veto any executive appointment, including the CEO seat Grant so desperately covets. Furthermore, my personal holdings, spanning real estate portfolios across three continents, will be tied to your name."
"And what do you get out of this?" Evelyn asked, narrowing her eyes. "You're a multi-billionaire. You don't need a corporate merger with a woman whose coat is currently sitting in a hotel cloakroom."
"I get someone who isn't blinded by greed or vanity," Roman replied instantly. "I have spent forty years building Callaway Holdings from the ashes of a dockside syndicate into a global powerhouse. Grant is weak. If I hand the crown to him, he will sell it to the highest bidder within five years just to impress the Manhattan elite. I need a co-pilot who knows where the bodies are buried—literally and figuratively."
Evelyn stared at the pen resting beside the folder. A terrifying, intoxicating current of power surged through her veins. The humiliation she had felt moments ago under the crystal chandeliers began to curdle into something far more potent: cold, calculated rage.
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"If I sign this," Evelyn said slowly, her voice dropping an octave, "Grant doesn't just lose the company. He loses everything."
"Everything," Roman confirmed, his gray eyes glinting with dark approval. "So, Miss Carter. Do you want to cry over champagne, or do you want to help me ruin my son?"
