Chapter 4 Terms and Conditions
Sloane’s POV
For one stupid heartbeat I could only see his bare chest in Berlin and not the man in my doorway.
You, I had said.
And then my brain finally caught up with the room behind me. Board chair on my sofa. Legal counsel at my dining table beside the NYPD detective. All of them watching.
I felt my stomach drop and my spine turn to stone at the same time. The part of me that remembered his hands on my hips wanted to slam the door. The part that had kept Mercer alive through three acquisition attempts did what it always did. It killed the reaction.
I pulled my expression smooth, turned slightly to the side so they could all see I was in control of the scene, not ambushed by it.
“Ms Mercer,” the board chair said, getting up, voice a little too bright. “This is Eli Ward, CEO of Ward Security Group. He will be leading your protection detail.”
Of course he would. Of course the universe would take the one night I had allowed myself to be human and make him staff.
I extended my hand. “Mr Ward.”
His eyes flicked over my face, searching for something. Berlin. Permission. I gave him nothing. He took my hand in a grip that was firm and impersonal. His expression was all contractor in a suit, not the man who had told me I was enough.
“Ms Mercer,” he said, voice neutral.
I stepped back, letting him into my home like we had never shared a bed.
We all settled into positions dictated by unspoken hierarchy. Board chair and legal on one sofa, detective in an armchair, me in the single seat across from them. Eli remained standing, remote in hand, a held back presence braced by the floor to ceiling windows.
He started talking.
He laid out the kidnapping attempt like a case file. The way the van had blocked me in. The coordination of the two men. Their retreat when building alarms sounded. He did not dramatize. He did not soften. There was no You could have died in his tone, but the images on the screen made the point for him.
“Whoever planned this knew your schedule,” he said. “They knew your car, your habits, your building’s weaknesses. This was not an opportunistic crime.”
The detective nodded grimly. “We are pursuing several angles, but we agree, this was targeted.”
Eli clicked to a slide showing the garage layout, highlighted corridors, our laughable current camera coverage.
“Your lobby procedures are lax. Badge checks are inconsistent. Visitor logging is incomplete. There are blind spots in your parking structure and your elevator access is too easily piggybacked. For someone at your profile, this is unacceptable.”
Unacceptable. It was my least favorite word when applied to me.
“And your recommendations?” the board chair prompted.
“Twenty four seven residential presence,” Eli said. “A lead operator living on site. Armed. Escort to and from all external locations. Full access to Ms Mercer’s schedule, travel plans and key devices for threat mapping. Immediate overhaul of building access control.”
He spoke as if I were not in the room. As if I were an asset to be protected, a set of parameters, not a woman whose throat still ached from the memory of a hand in her hair.
Legal leaned forward. “Our insurers will insist on these measures, or something very close. After this incident, any deviation would be seen as negligence. If there is another attempt and we cannot show appropriate action, Mercer is exposed on every front.”
Richard Kline folded his hands like a kindly uncle. “Investors are already jittery because of the media coverage,” he said. “You know how quickly narratives form, Sloane. A perception that you are reckless about your own safety could spill onto our valuation.”
There it was. Control dressed up as concern.
“I built our valuation by taking risks other people refused,” I said evenly. “Not by hiding in a panic room.”
“No one is asking you to hide,” the board chair said. “We are asking you to be properly guarded while you continue to do what you do.”
Guarded. Like a volatile compound.
The detective cleared his throat. “From a strictly law enforcement perspective, I would strongly advise accepting this. Whoever these guys are, they are not done.”
They were all watching me. Waiting to see if I would flinch.
My wrist throbbed in its brace. I thought of Berlin for half a breath, lying under a stranger whose name I did not know, feeling safe for reasons that had nothing to do with guards or guns. Then I locked the memory away again.
“Fine,” I said. “If this is what it takes to keep the board from hyperventilating, we will do it.”
Legal slid the contract toward me across the glass coffee table. Heavy cream paper, neat paragraphs of obligations and indemnity. The pen they handed me had the Mercer logo on it. Appropriate, since this might own me more thoroughly than any quarterly report.
I had been here before. At eighteen, signing the first documents that put my father’s name on my work. At twenty five, signing settlement papers with Noah instead of retrieving my prototypes with my own hands. Every time, it had felt like handing over pieces I could not get back.
The nib scratched as I signed.
When the ink dried, my life shrank by one degree.
They filed out one by one after that. Detective with a card and promises to be in touch. Board chair with a reassuring squeeze to my uninjured hand. Legal with a tight nod. Richard with a thin smile that said he had gotten exactly what he wanted.
The door shut behind them with a soft click.
Silence rushed in.
Eli was still there.
For a few seconds we only looked at each other across my living room. The Berlin night sat between us like a phantom.
“When did you figure it out?” I asked. My voice sounded too calm in my own ears.
His jaw flexed. “Figure what out?”
“That your one night stand in Berlin is your new client.”
A flicker of something crossed his face. Not guilt. Recognition of a land mine.
“Not in Berlin,” he said. “I thought you were just Lena. I realized when I saw your file and the summit footage.”
I let that sit. It mattered. It meant that night had really been anonymous. That he had not walked into that bar already knowing my net worth and the curve of my profit margins. The violation was cosmic, not calculated.
“And you still took the job,” I said.
“You were almost kidnapped,” he replied. “I am very good at this. I was not going to hand your life to someone else because I once saw you without your armor.”
Heat crawled up my neck. “You wanted that night to be anonymous,” he added, softer. “I am not going to use it against you.”
I drew myself up, needing distance. “Berlin does not exist from this moment forward. There will be no mentions of it. No comments about my private life. You do not enter my bedroom. You do not comment on who I sleep with now or in the future.”
His gaze did not flinch. “You do not leave this building without me or an operator I designate. You wear a panic device at all times. I will take the guest suite next to your room so I can get to you in under ten seconds if something happens.”
We traded rules like weapons, every one pretending to be about logistics and actually about boundaries we did not know how to navigate.
“Fine,” I said.
“Fine,” he echoed.
He disappeared for an hour and came back with a duffel, a gun case, a pair of worn boots. I stood in the hallway and watched his life compress into my guest room. The sight echoed Berlin in a way that made my chest tight. This time, his bag was not on a hotel chair. It was in my home. Indefinitely.
As he passed me in the hall, he paused just close enough that I could smell soap and clean cotton.
“For what it is worth,” he said quietly, “I am very good at what I do.”
“I remember,” I shot back before my brain caught up, the words slipping out with a double edge that made my face burn.
His eyes darkened for a fraction of a second. Then he nodded and went on, the guest room door shutting with a gentle finality.
That night I lay in my bed and stared at the ceiling. Through the wall I could hear the muffled sound of footsteps, of a drawer closing, water running. A man on the other side who had already seen me with every layer stripped away.
He is
a service, I told myself. Not a man. Berlin was a glitch, not data.
Somewhere in the dark, something inside me disagreed.