The Harbor Contract

Chapter 7: Annex C

Clause 31. No debt held under this Agreement may be sold, assigned, or transferred to any third party without the written consent of the Husband.

Lantern Capital, Exclusive Agreement, Annex C

The boardroom on the fourteenth floor of Calloway Shipping had a view of the whole harbor, and today nobody was looking at it.

Rowan sat at the far end of the long table, a folded napkin of sandwiches in front of him that Elena had asked him to bring. She had not asked him to stay. Madam Calloway had made that very clear. But Elena had slid a chair out with her foot, said, "Clause five," and that was the end of it.

Now six directors sat in silence while a woman in a dove-gray suit slid a document across the polished wood.

"Sloane Beck, counsel for Pryce Holdings," she said. "I'll be brief. Lantern Capital, your principal creditor, is currently the subject of an anonymous fraud complaint. We have evidence." She laid a cream-colored card on top of the file.

Rowan's stomach dropped. It was the twin of the one in his pocket.

"An investor under investigation is an unstable investor," Beck went on. "Mr. Pryce is prepared to relieve you of the risk. He will purchase the Calloway debt from Lantern at full value and restructure it on generous terms."

At the head of the table, Victor Pryce smiled like a man offering a hand to someone drowning.

"I'd like to help," he said. "Truly."

Madam Calloway was already nodding. "Elena, this is a gift. We should accept immediately."

"Mother—"

"A gift." She turned to the directors. "We've lived at the mercy of that faceless company for three years. Now someone with a name and a reputation is offering to take it off our hands."

The old directors murmured. Old Hargreave, who had sat on this board for forty years, rubbed his forehead and looked like a man who wanted to be anywhere else.

Lucas leaned back and glanced down the table. "And what's the cook doing here? Did someone order lunch?"

A few uncomfortable chuckles. Rowan said nothing. He was busy thinking.

Annex C.

It was a thin page, stapled to the back of the agreement and signed in a hurry three years ago. Marlowe had drafted it. Rowan had insisted on it. Nobody in the Calloway family had paid it the slightest attention, because it concerned something that seemed absurd.

"Excuse me," Rowan said.

Every head turned. Madam Calloway's face went rigid.

"This is a board meeting," she hissed. "Not the kitchen."

"I know." He kept his voice quiet. "I just think Ms. Beck should read the agreement before she makes an offer on it."

Beck's smile didn't slip, though her eyes sharpened. "I've read it thoroughly, Mr. Ash."

"Annex C?"

A pause. Short, but real.

Elena was already opening the folder in front of her. Her finger ran down the page, stopped, and went still.

"Elena?" Madam Calloway said. "What is it?"

"Clause thirty-one." Her voice sounded strange. "'No debt held under this Agreement may be sold, assigned, or transferred to any third party without the written consent of the Husband.'"

Silence.

Lucas barked a laugh. "That's a joke. Whose husband?"

"Mine," Elena said.

Beck leaned over and read the page herself. Slowly. Then again. The color left her cheeks in careful degrees.

"It's valid," she said at last, to no one in particular. "Badly placed, unusual, but valid. Without his signature, the transfer is void."

The boardroom held its breath.

Six directors, one mother-in-law, one rival tycoon, and every pair of eyes in the room turned toward the man at the end of the table with a napkin of sandwiches.

Madam Calloway found her voice first. "Rowan," she said, and for the first time in three years it sounded almost like a plea. "Rowan, dear. You'll sign, of course. For the family."

Rowan looked at her. At the woman who had called him useless every day for three years.

"I haven't decided yet," he said.

Old Hargreave made a small, strangled noise that might have been a laugh.

Pryce's smile had not left his face, but it had changed. It had gone very still, like a pond before a storm. "Mr. Ash. A moment of candor. I'm told you've been quite helpful to this family." He tilted his head. "Name your price."

"It's not for sale."

"Everything is."

"Then you'll have to wait," Rowan said, "until I find something I want less than my family's name on that paper."

It was a careful answer. Elena's head turned sharply. Madam Calloway's mouth opened and closed.

Pryce stood, buttoned his jacket, and inclined his head in a mockery of a bow.

"Take your time," he said softly. "I'm a patient man."

He left with Beck at his heels.

In the elevator, going down alone, Elena didn't speak for eleven floors.

At the lobby she pressed the stop button. The car shuddered and held.

"Why," she said, "would a stranger give a man he's never met veto power over a four-hundred-million debt?"

"I don't know."

"You're lying." She said it without heat, almost gently. "You've known about that clause for three years. You didn't blink when I read it."

Rowan looked at her reflection in the brushed steel doors. At the faint line between her brows, the stubborn set of her jaw.

"Elena," he said, "I'll tell you everything. Just not yet."

She held his eyes for a long moment.

Then she let go of the button, and the elevator dropped.