The Billionaire's Legacy Bargain

xty-eighth-floor office back down to the indiffere

inal, coolly uttered words about a "forty-eight-hour timeframe for her decision"; the silent descent in that soulless elevator, where her own ragged breathing sounde

ubways, the indistinct roar of a million conversations – crashed over her like a

to commerce and ambition, seemed to lean in, their countless windows like blank, judging eyes. The scent of exhaust fumes, roasted nuts from a st

grotesque, insistent loop. A civil union. A binding co

rand. He hadn't even had the decency to look uncomfortable, to ac

igned to save her grandfather's legacy. The irony was a cruel, hacking cough in her soul. To save the Press, a bastio

dangled salvation, then attached to it a price so personally ruinous it was tantamount to extortion. And the terrible, unpalatable truth was tha

hair across her face, and she realized she was trembling, not from the cold, but from the internal earthquake that had just leve

fer to buy us out? Was it awful?" Clara's voi

no sound came out. A dry, r

to me! Whe

ely, hot and shameful, down her cold cheeks. "Clara, you... you won't bel

rds punctuated by gasps of renewed disbelief and outrage. On the other end of the line, Clara's initial shocked silence gave way t

saction? Is he certifiably insane? That's... that's grotesque! It's medieval! You told him to go to hell, righ

... I think I was too stunned to say much of anything,

ing to decide! You tell him no! We'll... we'll figure something else out. We'll chain ourselves to

Clara?" she asked, her own voice flat with a despair that was beginning to eclipse even the anger. "We've exhausted every avenue. We have less than a week

ced by a heavy, dawning horror. "Oh, Nora," s

s frail health, the crushing weight of guilt he already carried for the Press's predicament. Telling him about this... this m

she thought of her grandfather, his laughing eyes, his passionate

stark and brutal: ruin. The end of Ainsworth Press. The loss of

re the... the complete financial security and editorial independ

ally spoke, her voice was raw. "It's a devil'

" Nora w

office on the second floor, a warm, inviting glow against the encroaching darkness. It looked so solid, so permanent, yet she knew with a chilling certainty how fragi

n. Alexander Hawthorne had offered her a pen, fashioned from her own despair, with which to sign away her soul. And the most terrible part