THREE MONTHS OWED TO A TYRANT CEO
Chapter 2 — The Terms
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I changed my outfit three times before the meeting.
Not because I was trying to impress anyone. I want to be very clear about that. It was more that I refused to walk into a room full of expensive lawyers looking like someone who had just spent the morning delivering coffee — which, technically, I had. But still. There's a difference between what you are and what you let people think of you before you've even opened your mouth.
I settled on dark jeans, a white blouse that only had one small iron mark near the collar that you couldn't see unless you were looking for it, and the black blazer I kept for job interviews and funerals. I pulled my hair out of the ponytail and put it back in a ponytail again because I couldn't decide and I was running out of time.
I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror.
"You are not intimidated," I told my reflection.
My reflection looked skeptical.
"You are calm. You are reasonable. You are going to walk in there, hear what they have to say, and handle this like an adult."
I grabbed my bag and left before my reflection could argue back.
---
The address James Holt had given me was not a law office.
It was the forty-second floor of Harrington Tower.
The same building. The same marble lobby with the gold V on the floor that I had stared at this morning while coffee dripped off the world's most expensive shirt. I stood outside on the pavement for a moment looking up at the tower and had a very serious conversation with myself about whether I could simply not go in.
The conversation was short. Rent, I reminded myself. Derek's panicked face. The very real possibility that if Adrian Voss decided to pursue this through legal channels — however ridiculous that was — Zipline Express would drop me so fast I'd leave a crater.
I went in.
The elevator to the forty-second floor required a security badge that the front desk woman — different one from this morning, just as polished — issued me after checking my ID and making a phone call and looking at me the way people look at things they can't quite categorize. The elevator itself was glass on one side, overlooking the city as it climbed. I watched the streets shrink below me and focused on breathing normally.
Forty-two floors. The doors opened into a reception area that probably cost more to furnish than my entire building.
Everything was white and gray and sharp-edged. The kind of design that makes you feel like you shouldn't touch anything. A young man at the reception desk — dark suit, perfect posture, the energy of someone who had been trained to be professionally unwelcoming — looked up as I stepped out.
"Miss Carter?"
"That's me."
"Mr. Holt is expecting you. Follow me please."
---
James Holt was a small man with a large presence.
He was maybe fifty, with silver hair combed back neatly, half-moon glasses pushed down his nose, and the kind of calm that comes from spending thirty years in rooms where very large amounts of money change hands. He stood when I entered the conference room and extended his hand like we were meeting for a pleasant chat.
"Miss Carter. Thank you for coming."
"I wasn't sure I had much of a choice," I said, shaking it.
He smiled the way people smile when they're professionally obligated to find things charming. "Please sit down."
I sat. The chair was uncomfortably comfortable — the kind that costs a thousand dollars and makes you feel vaguely unworthy. I sat on the edge of it with my bag on my lap and looked around the room.
Adrian Voss was not there.
I noticed that first — the absence of him. There was just Holt, a woman beside him who I assumed was an assistant, and a folder on the table between us that was closed and neat and felt somehow threatening just sitting there.
"Mr. Voss won't be joining us?" I said.
"Mr. Voss asked me to handle the arrangements."
Of course he did. He probably couldn't be bothered to show up to a meeting about someone as inconsequential as me. I filed that away somewhere and kept my face neutral.
"Arrangements," I repeated. "For eight thousand dollars."
Holt opened the folder. "Miss Carter, Mr. Voss is a reasonable man—"
I pressed my lips together to stop whatever sound wanted to come out of them.
"—and he understands that pursuing this through formal legal channels would be disproportionate." He slid a document toward me. "He's prepared an alternative arrangement."
I looked at the document. It was several pages long, printed in a font small enough that you needed good lighting and patience to read it properly. At the top, in clean bold letters, it said:
TEMPORARY EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT — DURATION: THREE MONTHS
I read it twice. Then I sat back.
"He wants me to work for him."
"As a personal assistant, yes. Directly reporting to Mr. Voss. The role would cover the value of—"
"I have a job."
"The hours have been structured to accommodate—"
"I have a job," I said again, because I wasn't sure he'd heard me. "At Zipline Express. I do morning routes five days a week. I can't just—"
"We've already spoken with Zipline Express." Holt said it gently, like he was delivering news to someone fragile. "They've agreed to hold your position. You'd be on temporary leave."
I stared at him. "You spoke to my employer."
"Mr. Voss was thorough."
"He went to my employer before I even agreed to anything."
"He anticipated you might find this arrangement preferable to—"
"That's not the point." I could hear something sharpening in my own voice and I made a conscious effort to dial it back. "The point is that he made moves about my employment before sitting me down and asking me what I wanted. Does that seem reasonable to you?"
Holt looked at me over his glasses. "Miss Carter. With respect — you don't have many options here."
The room was quiet for a moment.
He wasn't wrong and that was the worst part about it. I had done the math on the subway here. Eight thousand dollars was eight thousand dollars I did not have and could not realistically get my hands on in any timeline that would make the problem go away. A legal dispute — even one I might technically win, even one where I could prove he walked into me — would cost money I didn't have and time I couldn't afford and Derek had already looked at me like I was a grenade with a loose pin.
I picked up the document.
"Walk me through it," I said.
---
The terms, as Holt explained them, were straightforward in the way that traps are straightforward.
Three months. Starting the following Monday. I would report directly to Adrian Voss as his personal assistant, a role that apparently required someone to manage his schedule, handle correspondence, coordinate between departments, accompany him to certain meetings, and— and this was where I stopped Holt mid-sentence —
"Accompany him to meetings," I said. "What does that mean exactly?"
"Mr. Voss attends a significant number of external engagements. Dinners, events, certain business functions. His previous assistant handled—"
"What happened to his previous assistant?"
A small pause. "She resigned."
"How many assistants has he had?"
Another pause. Slightly longer. "In the past eighteen months?"
"Sure. In the past eighteen months."
Holt looked at his notes. Then at me. "Four."
I nodded slowly. "Four assistants in eighteen months."
"Mr. Voss has high standards."
"I'm sure he does." I looked back at the document. "What are the hours?"
"Seven AM to seven PM, Monday through Friday. Occasional weekend availability may be required."
"Twelve hour days."
"You would be compensated beyond the debt settlement. A weekly stipend of—" he named a number that, despite everything, made me blink "—has been included in the terms."
I looked at the number on the page. I looked at it for a while.
It wasn't that it changed anything fundamentally. It didn't change the fact that I was being handed a contract because a man had walked into me and decided that his time and his shirt were worth more than my morning and my dignity. It didn't change the fact that four assistants in eighteen months was a number that told a very specific story about the kind of person I'd be working for.
But it was real money. More than I made at Zipline in two months. And three months had an end date. Three months was survivable.
I had survived worse.
"Is there a non-negotiation clause?" I asked.
Holt blinked. I don't think he'd expected that question. "I'm sorry?"
"Can I negotiate the terms? Or is this take it or leave it?"
He glanced at the woman beside him — the first time he'd done that — and something passed between them that I couldn't read. "What terms did you want to discuss?"
I pulled the document closer and flipped to the second page. "The weekend availability clause. I want it capped at two weekends per month maximum, written explicitly. And I want a conduct clause — if I'm asked to do anything outside the scope of a normal professional assistant role, I have the right to refuse without penalty."
Holt looked at me.
"Also," I said, "I want it in writing that this contract settles the debt in full. No additional claims. When three months are up, we're done. Clean."
The room was quiet.
Then Holt made a note. "I'll need to consult with Mr. Voss on the amendments."
"Of course." I sat back. Put the document down. "I'll wait."
---
He came back fourteen minutes later.
"Mr. Voss agrees to the weekend cap and the clean settlement clause." Holt sat down and uncapped his pen. "The conduct clause — he'd like it worded as 'tasks within reasonable professional scope' rather than your original phrasing."
I thought about it. "Fine."
"Then we have an agreement."
He slid the amended document across the table. A fresh copy, the changes already incorporated — which meant someone had been typing in another room while Holt was supposedly consulting. Which meant Adrian Voss had expected me to negotiate. Which meant he had read me before I'd even walked in the door.
I wasn't sure if that made me feel better or worse.
I read the full document. Every page, every clause, every footnote, while Holt sat across from me with the patience of a man who billed by the hour and didn't particularly mind waiting. When I was satisfied — or as satisfied as you can be signing away three months of your life — I picked up the pen.
I signed my name.
Lena Carter. Clean and clear at the bottom of the last page.
Holt countersigned. The assistant took the document. It was done.
"You'll report to the forty-second floor at seven AM Monday morning," Holt said, standing. "Ask for Clara at reception. She'll orient you."
"Clara." I remembered the sharp-faced woman from this morning. Wonderful.
I stood and picked up my bag. Shook Holt's hand because I was raised to have manners regardless of how I felt about a situation.
I was almost at the door when his voice stopped me.
"Miss Carter."
I turned.
Holt looked at me over his glasses with an expression I couldn't quite name. Not unkind, exactly. More like — careful. Like a man choosing his words.
"Mr. Voss is…" He paused. Started again. "The role requires patience. And a certain resilience."
I looked at him. "Are you warning me?"
"I'm informing you." He capped his pen. "There's a difference."
---
I stood outside Harrington Tower in the early evening air and looked at the copy of the contract in my hand.
Three months.
Ninety-two days, give or take. Twelve-hour days reporting to a man who had burned through four assistants in eighteen months and whose lawyer felt it was necessary to warn me about resilience before I left the building.
I folded the contract and put it in my bag.
I pulled out my phone and called my best friend Maya, because that's what you do when your life has just taken a turn you didn't see coming and you need someone to react appropriately.
She picked up on the second ring.
"Hey, how did the meeting go?"
"I signed a contract," I said. "I'm going to be working directly under Adrian Voss for three months."
Silence.
Then: "Lena. THE Adrian Voss?"
"Is there another one?"
"The billionaire? The CEO? The one they call—" she lowered her voice like she was saying something sacred "—The Wolf of Harrington?"
I closed my eyes briefly. "They call him that?"
"It's literally his nickname in the business world. It's on his Wikipedia page."
"I didn't Google him."
"LENA."
"I know."
"You signed a contract with a man you didn't Google."
"I was a little preoccupied with not having eight thousand dollars—"
"I'm Googling him right now." I could hear her typing. A pause. Then a very specific silence — the kind that means what someone is reading is worse than expected. "Okay," she said finally.
"What."
"He's very handsome."
"Maya—"
"Like objectively, genuinely, aggressively handsome. Have you seen the photos? There's one from a charity gala last year where he's in a black tux and I fully understand why four women agreed to work for him."
"Four women also quit working for him."
"Details." More typing. "Okay but listen — Forbes called him 'the most ruthless CEO of his generation.' There's a whole article about a company he acquired and dissolved in forty-eight hours. Forty-eight hours, Lena. He bought a company and ended it in two days."
I looked up at the tower above me.
"He's also — oh. Oh this is interesting."
"What?"
"There's basically nothing personal about him anywhere. Like, he exists entirely in a professional context online. No relationship history. No family mentioned. No— it's like he built a wall around the human parts of himself and dared anyone to find them."
I stood there on the pavement outside his building with his contract in my bag and his lawyer's careful warning still sitting in my ears.
The role requires patience. And a certain resilience.
"I'll be fine," I said. Mostly to myself.
"You always say that."
"I'm always right."
Maya laughed — soft and unconvinced. "Call me Monday after the first day. I'll have wine ready either way."
"Either way?"
"Celebration or survival. Both need wine."
I laughed despite myself. "Goodnight, Maya."
"Goodnight, you absolute disaster."
---
I walked to the subway.
I thought about gray eyes and a coffee stain and a contract signed on the forty-second floor of a building where a man had put his initial in the lobby floor because he could.
Three months.
I'd survived a lot of things in my life. A father who left and didn't look back. A childhood spent watching my mother make enough stretch further than it should. Years of working jobs that didn't care about me to save money for a future I hadn't built yet.
I could survive three months of one arrogant, cold, Wikipedia-famous billionaire.
Probably.
I was going to be fine.
I almost believed it.
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