The Dominant Ceo's New Contract : The Ruthless Tycoon's Fifty Shades Contract

Nora's POV

"In his sleep," my mother said. "He just — didn't wake up."

I looked at her. "He was fine last week."

"The doctor said it happens. At his age, it—"

"He was seventy-one," I said. "He walked three kilometers every morning. He argued with his cardiologist about being put on blood pressure medication because his numbers were too good."

My mother pressed her lips together and looked away.

I stood in the middle of my grandfather's sitting room and stared at the arrangement of things that didn't fit. The doctor had already come and gone, which felt fast. The paperwork was already being handled, which felt faster. My father's assistants were moving through the house.

Nobody looked devastated. They looked prepared.

That was the thing I couldn't shake.

I found myself standing in the doorway of his bedroom.

He looked peaceful. That's what people always said, and I used to think it was something people said because they didn't know what else to say. Now I understood it. He did look peaceful. His hands were folded. His face was still.

I thought about the last real conversation I'd had with him. Three weeks ago, before I got sick. We'd sat on the back veranda and he'd drunk his tea and said something that had made me laugh uncomfortably at the time.

You trust too easily, Nora-girl. That's your mother's fault. Ashfields don't trust. Ashfields verify.

I'd said, You're paranoid, Grandpa.

He'd looked at me over the rim of his cup. Completely serious. Paranoid men die in their beds at ninety. Trusting men die early and everyone cries and nobody asks the right questions.

I had laughed. Changed the subject.

I wasn't laughing now.

He'd said something else, months before that. I'd filed it away as the dark muttering of an old man who'd spent too many years in boardrooms. Someone is being very patient with me. Patient people are the most dangerous kind.

I looked at him lying in his bed.

Who?

My uncle Garrett was in the hallway when I turned around.

He had his phone in his hand and his jacket on, which meant he was leaving. He was the only person in the house who looked like he was somewhere else in his head — not grief, not shock. Something more like a man checking items off a list.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

He looked up. Smiled the way he always smiled at me — like I was still twelve and asking about something I wouldn't understand. "I have some calls to make. Business doesn't stop, sweetheart."

"Our grandfather just died."

"And your father needs me handling things." He squeezed my shoulder once. "You should be with your mother."

He was gone before I could say another word.

I watched him walk down the stairs and thought about patience. About the most dangerous kind.

My father called me into the study an hour later.

He looked worse up close. Grey around the edges, eyes that hadn't quite focused since I'd arrived. He sat behind his father's desk — which already felt wrong — and folded his hands the same way my grandfather's were folded upstairs, and I had to look at the window instead.

"The company is in trouble," he said.

I looked back at him. "What kind of trouble?"

"The kind that doesn't announce itself." He paused. "Your grandfather was the one holding the key relationships. Without him, two of our largest partners have already signaled they're reviewing their positions. If we don't move quickly—"

"How close to bankruptcy?" I asked.

He didn't answer, which was its own answer.

"There's a deal," he said. "One. If you close it, we stabilize. We buy ourselves enough time to restructure."

I sat down slowly. "And if I don't?"

He didn't answer that either.

I sat with it for a moment. My grandfather's body was still warm upstairs, and my father was already talking about the company, and my uncle had left to make calls, and none of this — none of this — felt like grief.

It felt like positioning.

I said I'd think about it. I hugged my mother for a long time in the kitchen, held her while she cried in a way she'd never let herself cry in front of my father. I made her tea she didn't drink. I told her I'd be back tomorrow.

Then I left.

Yuna had the car running.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, when I got in. "He was a good man."

"He was," I said.

She didn't push. She pulled out of the driveway and let the silence sit, which I appreciated more than I could say.

After a few minutes I straightened and pulled out my phone. My grandfather's voice was still moving through my head — patient people are the most dangerous kind — and I couldn't sit in grief right now. If I sat in it, I'd have to sit in all of it. Derek and Sienna and the invite and the meals and the apartment.

Later. I'd sit in it later.

"I need a deal," I said. "One that can stabilize Ashfield Holdings fast. Who are our options?"

Yuna was quiet for a moment. "Most of the viable partners are joint ventures with your uncle."

I said nothing.

"Which means if the relationships shift after—" she glanced at me— "after today, those deals could get complicated. Politically."

"So not those," I said. "Who else?"

She pulled up something on her phone, balancing it against the steering wheel. "There's one. Voss Enterprises. No existing ties to your uncle, completely independent, and big enough to stabilize you three times over with one contract."

I'd heard the name. Everyone in the industry had heard the name. "Set up a meeting."

"I've tried," Yuna said carefully. "Twice. His people are—" she chose her word— "selective. He doesn't take meetings he doesn't personally approve. Getting past his gatekeepers alone takes weeks."

I almost laughed. Some CEO sitting behind a wall of assistants, deciding who was worthy of his time.

"He sounds insufferable," I said.

"He sounds terrifying, actually," Yuna said. "But that's not the issue."

"Then what is?"

She hesitated. Just briefly. Then she looked at me in the rearview mirror.

"He's on the guest list," she said. "For the wedding. Derek's wedding. He's going to be there."

I stared at her reflection.

"Callum Voss," she said, "is going to be at your ex-boyfriend's wedding in two weeks."

The car was very quiet.

"Say that again," I said.