BOUND BY HIS TERMS

Lila Hart's POV

Do not flinch. Do not fold. Do not fall apart.

That had been my inner chant for the last ten minutes, ever since I stepped into the boardroom of Vale Industries, a room so sterile and cold it could have been a crime scene. Maybe it was. Maybe this was where dreams came to die.

I clutched the strap of my vintage leather bag as I sat at the long marble table. Across from me, Jaxon Vale leaned back in his seat like a man who owned time. Which, technically, he did. My time. My company. My fate.

"Lila Hart," he said, with a voice so smooth it nearly cloaked the venom beneath it. "I expected you to cancel."

"I almost did," I said, forcing my spine to remain upright. "But then I remembered cowards do not build empires."

His lips quirked, just slightly. "Neither do martyrs."

He slid a folder across the table. I stared at it like it was radioactive. Because in many ways, it was. A single signature would change everything.

My fashion label, HARTLINE, had grown from nothing but sketches and grit. But over the last six months, the cracks had deepened, investors pulled out, collections delayed, and whispers of bankruptcy lingered like smoke. Vale Industries had swept in like a lifeboat.

Except now, it felt more like a leash.

"You will maintain creative control," Jaxon said, tapping the document. "Your name stays. Your team stays. But operations, funding, and distribution go through my board."

"So I become a puppet."

"You become a partner. With power. And twelve months to save your vision. Or walk away."

I swallowed. I wanted to say no. Walk out with my pride intact and my company in flames.

But I had built HARTLINE with blood. I would not bury it out of pride.

I signed.

Jaxon did not smile. He only nodded. "Good. You will report directly to me. Starting now."

The elevator ride down from that high-rise felt more like free fall. I tried to remind myself this was temporary. A means to an end.

But when I opened my phone, a message from Eva, my best friend and business manager, flashed on screen:

You signed?? Without telling me?? Lila what have you done.

I could not answer. Because I did not know.

That night, I sat in my studio apartment, surrounded by swatches of silk and satin, wondering when survival had begun to taste like surrender. My fingers moved on instinct, sketching silhouettes in my worn notebook.

And then a knock shattered the quiet.

I opened the door to find Jaxon Vale.

"What are you doing here?"

He held up a sleek black flash drive. "You missed something in the contract. A clause. One that cannot wait until morning."

Suspicion crawled down my spine. "You came here. Personally. To deliver a flash drive?"

"I do not delegate certain matters. May I?"

Against my better judgment, I let him in.

He moved through my studio like he already knew every corner. Like he had been here before in another life.

I plugged the flash drive into my laptop. A single folder blinked on screen. Project Phoenix.

"What is this?"

"My father's legacy. And now, yours."

Inside were confidential blueprints, tech schematics, and something else, a file labeled HARTLINE-DEEP.

My breath caught. "You were already tracking my company."

"Long before your pitch went viral. You are not just a designer, Lila. You are a disruptor."

I turned to him. "Why me?"

He stepped closer. "Because I have been preparing for this deal since the day I watched you on that Columbia stage. And because power recognizes power."

I should have run.

But instead, I whispered, "What happens now?"

He looked down at me like I was a puzzle he had finally solved.

"Now? Now we begin."

The city did not sleep. And neither did I.

By sunrise, my inbox had turned into a battlefield. Some congratulating me. Others calling me a sellout.

Eva arrived an hour later, fury in her eyes. "You should have told me."

"There was no time."

"There is always time to not sell your soul."

"I did not sell it," I said. "I leased it."

She stared at me like she no longer recognized the woman standing in front of her.

Later that day, I arrived at Vale Industries headquarters for our first joint meeting. The glass tower loomed like a monument to power.

Inside, Jaxon stood waiting beside a digital display of HARTLINE's restructured org chart.

He glanced at my reflection in the screen. "Are you ready to lead or just follow orders?"

I squared my shoulders. "I am ready to rewrite the rules."

A flicker of approval passed through his eyes.

As the boardroom filled with executives, I realized something chilling.

Half of them had dossiers on me before I even walked in.

One of them, a silver-haired man named Royce Dane, watched me with the same calculation I had seen in Jaxon.

"She is not a risk," Jaxon told him flatly. "She is the reason we will win."

And just like that, the room shifted.

I was no longer the girl begging for a bailout.

I was their sharpest asset.

Their gamble.

Their queen on a board of kings.

But later that night, something shattered the illusion.

I returned to my studio to find the lights already on.

I never left them on.

And someone had left a folder on my desk.

Inside:

A printed copy of my contract.

And a clause highlighted in red ink.

One I never agreed to.

One that did not exist in the version I signed.

It read:

Subject agrees to exclusive commitment, professional and personal, to Vale Industries until termination is executed mutually or permanently.

My vision blurred with panic as the weight of the contract sank in. What exactly had I signed? A sudden noise behind made me whirl around. A shadow flickered past the glass. My breath caught, then everything went dark.