The Proposition

The electricity was going to get shut off tomorrow.

I stared at the notice in my hand, trying to make the numbers say something different. They didn't cooperate. Past due. Final warning. Service termination scheduled for 9 AM.

"Gemma?" My assistant Priya appeared in the doorway of my office, if you could call this cramped space above a dry cleaner an office. "Your two o'clock is here. And you're not going to like who it is."

"Mrs. Patterson? I thought I convinced her to move the Henderson-Walsh wedding to May."

"It's not Mrs. Patterson."

Something in Priya's voice made me look up. She was wearing her crisis face, the one that meant I should brace for impact.

"Then who?"

"Lucas Thornton."

The name hit me like a physical blow. Five years of carefully constructed composure threatened to crumble in an instant. I shoved the electricity notice into my desk drawer and stood, smoothing my dress with hands that weren't entirely steady.

"Tell him I'm not available."

"I tried. He said he'd wait."

"Then tell him I'm never available. Tell him I moved. Tell him I died in a tragic paper-shredding accident."

"Gemma."

"I can't see him, Priya. You know what he did to me."

"I know." Her expression softened with genuine sympathy. "But he's standing in our reception area, such as it is, and he looks like he's prepared to stay there until you come out."

"He can stay there forever. I'm going to climb out the window."

"We're on the second floor."

"I've faced worse falls."

Priya didn't laugh. She knew the story, the whole story, of what happened five years ago when I was a twenty-three-year-old assistant event coordinator and Lucas Thornton systematically destroyed my career before it started.

"Want me to call the police?" she asked. "Report him for trespassing?"

"That would require being able to afford legal fees."

I took a breath. Then another. The electricity was getting shut off tomorrow. My biggest client had been making noises about "exploring other options." And the man who'd nearly ruined me was sitting in my lobby.

Some days, the universe really had it in for me.

"Fine," I said. "Send him in. But if he's not out of here in five minutes, you have my permission to throw coffee at him."

"Hot or cold?"

"Scalding."

---

Lucas Thornton walked into my office like he owned it.

He probably could have bought the building, the block, and most of the surrounding neighborhood without noticing the expense. He was wearing a suit that fit like it had been sewn onto him, charcoal gray, perfectly tailored, designed to make him look like exactly what he was: a man who'd never been told no in his life.

"Miss Chen." His voice was exactly as I remembered, smooth, controlled, absolutely infuriating. "Thank you for seeing me."

"I didn't have much choice. You seem to have developed a habit of appearing in places where you're not wanted."

He had the grace to flinch, almost imperceptibly. Good. I hoped that stung.

"I deserved that."

"You deserve significantly more than that. But I have a business to run, so let's keep this brief." I didn't offer him a seat. "What do you want?"

"I have a proposition."

"The last time you had a 'proposition' involving me, I ended up unemployable for eighteen months. Pass."

"Gemma..."

"Miss Chen. We're not on a first-name basis."

Another flinch. His carefully composed expression cracked just enough for me to see something underneath, frustration? Guilt? I didn't care enough to analyze it.

"Miss Chen." He said it like it cost him something. "I know I don't have the right to ask you for anything. What happened five years ago..."

"Was you telling every major event planning company in Manhattan that I was incompetent, unprofessional, and not worth the risk of hiring. Ring any bells?"

"That's not..." He stopped. Took a breath. "That's not how it happened. But I understand why you believe it was."

"Enlighten me, then. How did it happen? Because from where I was standing, getting rejection after rejection, watching my dream career evaporate before it started, it looked pretty straightforward."

Lucas was quiet for a moment. In the afternoon light streaming through my grimy windows, he looked older than I remembered. Still unfairly handsome, that hadn't changed, but there were lines around his eyes that hadn't been there before. Shadows that suggested he might actually be human.

"I can't explain it here," he said finally. "Not in five minutes. But I can tell you that I've regretted what happened every day since. And I'm hoping you'll give me a chance to make it right."

"By doing what?"

He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out an envelope, and set it on my desk.

"By paying you five hundred thousand dollars to pretend to be my fiancée for one week."

---

I stared at the envelope like it might explode.

"I'm sorry, you want me to what?"

"My grandmother's eightieth birthday is this weekend. She's been asking when I'm going to settle down, find someone who makes me happy. She's also..." He paused, and something genuine flickered across his face. "She's dying. Cancer. The doctors give her six months, maybe less."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Are you?"

"Despite what you might think, I'm not a monster. I can be sorry about your grandmother while also wanting you to leave my office."

"Fair enough." He gestured toward the envelope. "Five hundred thousand. One week at my family's estate in Vermont. All you have to do is play the role of my devoted fiancée. At the end of the week, we'll stage a mutual decision to 'take a break.' No one gets hurt."

"Except for your dying grandmother, who you want me to lie to."

"She wants to see me happy before she goes. That's all. If I can give her that, even if it's not real, it's worth the deception."

I should have thrown him out. Should have torn up the envelope without even looking inside. Should have maintained the wall of righteous fury I'd been nurturing for five years.

Instead, I thought about the electricity bill in my drawer. About Priya's salary that I could barely make. About the Henderson-Walsh wedding that might disappear if Mrs. Patterson found a more established planner.

Five hundred thousand dollars.

"Why me?" I asked. "You must know dozens of women who'd be happy to play this role. Women who don't actively despise you."

"Because my grandmother asked about you specifically."

That caught me off guard. "What?"

"You planned her seventy-fifth birthday. Five years ago, before..." He stopped. "She loved you. She still talks about 'that lovely young woman who made everything perfect.' When she started asking about my romantic life, she specifically mentioned hoping I'd found someone like you."

"So you tracked me down to... what? Present her with the real thing?"

"To give her what she wants. One week. You play the part, we convince my family, and Eleanor gets to believe I've found someone worth keeping."

"And you get to look good in front of your relatives. How convenient."

"I don't care about looking good. I care about her." His voice was harder now, real emotion breaking through the polished surface. "She's the only person in my family who's ever genuinely loved me. I would do anything, pay anything, to make her final months happier."

The sincerity in his voice was unsettling. This wasn't the cold, calculating man I remembered. This was someone desperate, willing to beg if that's what it took.

It changed nothing.

"No," I said. "I'm sorry about your grandmother. I'm not sorry about you. And I have no interest in spending a week pretending to be in love with someone I can't stand."

I slid the envelope back across the desk.

Lucas didn't take it.

"Keep it for twenty-four hours," he said. "Think about what that money could do for your business. For your employees. For yourself." He rose, buttoning his jacket with practiced ease. "I'll be at the St. Regis until tomorrow evening. If you change your mind..."

"I won't."

"Then I'll have wasted a trip." He paused at the door, looking back at me with an expression I couldn't read. "For what it's worth, Miss Chen, you're exactly as remarkable as I remember. I'm sorry I didn't get to tell you that five years ago."

He left.

I sat at my desk, staring at the envelope, feeling the walls of my carefully constructed hatred starting to crack.

Five hundred thousand dollars.

One week.

And a dying grandmother who'd once told me I had the gift of making people feel celebrated.

I picked up the envelope.

I definitely wasn't going to open it.

---

I opened it.

Inside was a check, already signed, made out to me personally. Five hundred thousand dollars. More money than I'd make in the next five years if my business continued on its current trajectory.

Also inside: a photograph. Eleanor Thornton at her seventy-fifth birthday party, beaming at the camera, her hand on my arm. I'd forgotten about that photo. Forgotten how much I'd liked her, this sharp, elegant woman who'd treated her granddaughter's event planner like a valued guest rather than hired help.

"He's not worth it," Priya said from the doorway.

"I know."

"Whatever he did to you, whatever he's offering, it's not worth your dignity."

"I know."

"So you're going to tear up that check and throw it in his face?"

I looked at the check. At the photograph. At the electricity notice peeking out of my desk drawer.

"I'm going to think about it," I said. "Just for tonight. And then I'm going to tear it up."

Priya didn't believe me.

Neither did I.