Chapter 4: "Looking forward to working with you."
Charles's POV
When she said it, I wasn't surprised.
I was just annoyed. I drew my hand back from the armrest and leaned into my chair, studying her, already running through every possible version of this conversation in my head—a demand for higher pay, some form of public recognition, or more likely, using this moment to finally say out loud what she'd been angling for all along.
Honestly, the whole arrangement had felt absurd from the start. Lining up a group of women at the gates of the estate like it was some kind of open call—that was my mother's idea. She said Ethan needed a mother.
She said she was getting older and didn't know how many years she had left to care for him. I'd wanted to refuse, but she stopped me before I could finish.
"Caleb is already a child who's had to grow up without enough," she said. "Are you really going to let history repeat itself with Ethan?" I hadn't had an answer for that. She brought up Ethan—how he'd been withdrawing more and more over the past two years, how he'd almost stopped talking altogether—and I couldn't keep saying no.
I have two sons.
Caleb's mother was a waitress at The Bulgari Hotel. I'd gotten drunk one night and slept with her—one night, nothing more. I spent eight months trying to track her down afterward, hoping to take responsibility, or at least offer her something.
When I finally found her, she was in a public hospital. She abandoned the baby on the hospital bed and disappeared without a trace. A paternity test confirmed the boy was mine. I didn't go looking for her after that. It was her choice, and I respected it. I brought Caleb home.
He was seven now. Because Mia had never wanted him around, Caleb had been enrolled in a boarding school at five years old. He was a perceptive kid—too perceptive for his age—and that made him all the more heartbreaking to look at. I knew I had failed him. I knew it the way you know something that never quite lets go—buried deep in my chest, permanent and shapeless.
All I could do was try to make it up to him with money or whatever else I had. But when Ethan stopped talking six months ago—when he started closing himself off, growing quieter and more distant—I knew. This had to be God's punishment. I was a capable businessman, but I was never a good husband, and I was never a good father.
In business, I knew how to win. I knew how to read a room, close a deal, outmaneuver people who'd been in the game twice as long as I had. But I couldn't take care of my own two sons. I couldn't even keep the one person I had loved most. Mia was gone. Caleb was alone at a boarding school. And Ethan had stopped speaking.
So I agreed.
Then I stood on the terrace and looked down at them, and my first thought was that I must be losing my mind. They were lined up in the courtyard, makeup flawless, perfume heavy enough to reach the upper terrace. I scanned the group—it took less than ten seconds—and my gaze stopped on the one standing in the far corner.
Sneakers, a jacket washed so many times the color had faded, hair pulled back without much thought. Nothing flashy, but something about her stood out. So I told Shirley to bring her in. That was all.
I had thought she was different from the others. But now, apparently, not that different. I watched her, not entirely sure how much patience I had left.
"Go ahead," I said.
Amanda sat with her back straight, both hands resting on her knees, eyes meeting mine without flinching.
"During the marriage," she said, "I won't fulfill any marital obligations. No physical intimacy of any kind." She paused, and when she continued, her voice carried the same flat, transactional clarity. "I know what my role is here. I know why I came. I'm here to do a job. I just need that in writing."
I didn't respond immediately. For the first time, I actually looked at her—not the quick scan I'd done before, but a real, deliberate look, head to toe. She wasn't bad-looking.
Strong features, wide-set eyes, but her complexion had a worn quality to it—the kind that comes from years of hard labor and sleepless nights. And a few freckles.
According to her file, she worked three part-time jobs: a restaurant, a convenience store, a cleaning company, twelve-plus hours a day. Her hands rested on her knees, and I noticed a faint, pale scar across the back of one hand. No idea where it came from.
Then I thought about her expression when she'd been talking earlier. The moment she mentioned her daughter, something had lit up in her eyes—not performed, not practiced, but real in the way most things in that room weren't.
I let that sit for a moment.
"Add it in," I said, and the lawyer started writing immediately. "The agreement runs for three years. After three years, the contract terminates automatically—regardless of where the Group stands at that point." Three years was enough. Long enough for Morrison Group to maintain its position under the board's pressure, and long enough for me to clear my schedule and actually be there for Ethan and Caleb myself.
Amanda nodded. She didn't ask why three years, and she didn't negotiate. The lawyer slid the revised contract across the table, and she looked it over at her own pace—unhurried, methodical—then turned to the last page and picked up the pen. She signed.
Then she looked up and extended her hand toward me.
"Boss," she said. "I look forward to working with you."
It was the kind of thing you said after closing a deal, not after signing a marriage contract.
I paused—I don't know why I paused—and then I shook her hand. Her hand was cold, colder than I'd expected, and her palm was rough with calluses built up from years of gripping things. Before I could let go, she'd already pulled back—smoothly, naturally—not lingering a second longer than necessary.
"Would it be all right if I took a few days to settle things for my daughter before I officially move in?" she asked, her tone carrying the careful uncertainty of someone who wasn't sure she had the right to be asking at all. "It won't take long."
"Fine."
She stood, gave me a brief nod, and followed the butler out. The door closed quietly behind her.
The lawyer was gathering documents. My assistant was flipping through the schedule beside me. Everyone in the room had something to do, and nobody was looking at me. I leaned back in my chair and stared at the signed contract on the table for a long moment.
The last time anyone had said something like that to me was ten years ago, closing my first venture capital deal. After that, nobody had ever had the nerve.
I got up and went to Ethan's room.
He was sitting alone on the carpet, a few toy cars arranged in front of him, but he wasn't playing with them—he was just sitting there, staring at something that wasn't there. I walked over and crouched down, reaching out to touch his head, and he shifted away from me.
Something pressed against the inside of my chest, not hard, but precise. The therapist had said he needed companionship, needed love. But it was obvious I couldn't give him that right now. Everyone called me a successful man. Only I knew I wasn't a decent father.
I picked up one of the toy cars that had fallen over on the carpet and set it back in front of him. He looked down at it for a moment and didn't react. Shirley appeared in the doorway and said quietly, "Once Amanda moves in, things will get better for Ethan."
"I hope so," I said. I stood, straightened my jacket, and added, "To the airport."
The departure lounge was quiet.
My assistant John was beside me going through the next month's itinerary—the opening ceremony for the F4 racing championship that Morrison Group was sponsoring was in Las Vegas, and between the business negotiations and media events that followed, I'd be there for nearly a month.
A message came in from Shirley.
Should I arrange a specialist consultation for Mrs. Amanda's daughter?
I stared at the message for a moment. My mind drifted back to the way Amanda had looked when she left—that brief expression on her face, and those words: I look forward to working with you.
I typed back.
Amanda is now Mrs. Morrison. She answers to no one on this—whatever she needs, make it happen. Everyone needs to be clear on that.
