Chapter 4 - The Terms of EngagementAvery sat down on the edge of the leather armchair, keeping her posture straight. She crossed her ankles, resting her hands on her knees.
Nicholas didn’t sit immediately. He walked over to a low credenza by the window, poured two cups of black coffee from a ceramic French press, and brought one over to her, setting it on the glass table between them before taking the opposite seat.
“Cream or sugar?” he asked.
“Black is fine. Thank you, Mr. Marino.”
“Call me Nicholas,” he said, taking a slow sip of his coffee. He set the cup down and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees, his intense gaze locking onto hers. “Grant tells me you were a pre-med student at Columbia. Senior year. Top ten percent of your class.”
Avery blinked, surprised. “Did you run a background check on me in less than twelve hours?”
“I run background checks on everyone who enters my orbit, Avery. It’s how I survive in my line of work,” Nicholas answered smoothly, without a shred of apology. “Though in your case, the check yielded some interesting anomalies. Like the fact that you dropped out four years ago because your mother suffered a massive stroke, leaving you with fifty thousand dollars in medical debt and a restaurant job that pays minimum wage plus tips.”
Avery felt a hot flush of defensive pride prickle behind her cheeks. “My personal life is not your concern, Mr. Marino—Nicholas.”
“Everything that touches my survival becomes my concern,” he countered softly, his voice dropping an octave into something hypnotic. “You saved my life on Tuesday night. Not because you happened to be nearby, but because you were paying attention when my own closest executives were blind, deaf, and drowning in panic.”
“Anybody with basic medical training would have recognized the signs—”
“No,” Nicholas interrupted firmly. “Grant didn’t. The board members didn't. The restaurant manager didn't. Only you did. And more importantly, you had the absolute ice-cold composure to take charge of a room full of powerful, terrified men and force them to listen to a thirty-year-old waitress.”
Avery looked down at her coffee cup, stirring the dark liquid with a small silver spoon. “It wasn't about power. It was about common sense.”
“Common sense is a luxury most people in my world lost years ago,” Nicholas said, standing up and walking over to the window, looking out over the New York skyline. He folded his hands behind his back. “I don't like owing debts, Avery. Especially debts of the biological variety.”
“I didn't save your life to collect a reward,” Avery said sharply, her head snapping up. “If you’re planning to write me a check with a bunch of zeroes on it to clear my conscience or buy my silence, you can take your checkbook and shove it.”
Silence stretched across the office. For a terrifying second, Avery wondered if she had crossed an invisible line—if she had just insulted a man who could crush her career with a single phone call.
Then, a low, rumbling laugh escaped Nicholas’s throat.
He turned around, a genuine, amused glint in his dark eyes. “Good. I was hoping you’d say that.”
“What?”
“If you had accepted a check, you would have proven yourself to be just like every other opportunist who circles Marino Atlantic looking for a payout,” Nicholas said, walking back toward his desk and picking up a slim manila folder. He tossed it across the glass table toward her. “Open it.”
Avery frowned cautiously. She picked up the folder, untied the string, and pulled out a stack of heavy cream-colored documents.
Her eyes scanned the first page.
Then she stopped breathing.
“This is...” She looked up, her voice catching in her throat. “This is the deed to a fully outfitted, independent catering and event-planning LLC in downtown Manhattan. Completely debt-free. Backed by a five-year corporate catering contract with Marino Atlantic Holdings worth two million dollars annually.”
“It’s not a handout, Avery,” Nicholas said, leaning against his desk and watching her expression closely. “It’s an investment. You’ve been wasting four years carrying plates for ungrateful tourists at Hawthorne House when your mind is wasted on service work. You know logistics, you know human behavior, and you have the kind of situational awareness that money can't buy. I need someone to oversee our corporate events division—someone I actually trust not to panic when things go sideways.”
Avery stared at the papers in her hands, her mind spinning wildly. Two million dollars in guaranteed corporate revenue. Her own business. Her mother’s medical debt completely wiped out by the startup endowment clauses buried in the contract.
“Why?” she whispered, looking up at him. “Why do this for me?”
May you like
Nicholas walked slowly around the desk until he was standing just inches away from her chair. He looked down at her, his amber eyes steady, unreadable, and intensely magnetic.
“Because on Tuesday night, when I thought my heart was going to stop beating for good, the last face I saw before the darkness hit wasn't a doctor, and it wasn't a board member,” Nicholas said softly. “It was yours. And in my world, Avery Cole... people like you are entirely irreplaceable.”
