The Tycoon's Ultimatum

Claire Ashford has been at every council meeting for a year. Griffin Hale arrives with three lawyers and no notes. What she brings to the podium is arithmetic he cannot use. *My father has owned that building for forty-two years.* *He's employed seventeen people in that time.* A children's reading programme serving two hundred families. A folder holding *eight hundred and forty-two people who signed the petition to save Ashford Books.* What he brings is a demolition permit that has already been granted. Then he asks her into his office and explains the part nobody in the room knew. His grandmother founded Hale Development in 1974 and, six months before she died, added a codicil. *I have to be married for six months before I can take full control of the company. If I'm not, or if I divorce before the six months are up, control passes to Victor Cheng.* Her stated reason, according to Griffin: *She said I needed to learn that some things mattered more than profit.* His offer is not flattering and he does not pretend otherwise. *Because you have nothing to lose.* Her father is dying, the experimental treatment costs more than the store and the savings together, and the permit clock is running. The terms: *Six months. A wedding ceremony, a shared residence, public appearances as a couple.* In exchange, the medical bills in full, and Ashford Books placed under a preservation easement that blocks demolition for at least ten years. She signs. Her closest friend texts her *Whatever you do, don't trust Griffin Hale.* What she finds later, in a drawer that opens like it had been waiting for permission, is a small leather-bound book embossed H.H. The diary names a second codicil. The codicil names a witness. The witness is her own father, who never mentioned any of it. And Claire has something of her own buried nine years back, a thing she took and sold to pay for treatment once before, which somebody has photographed and is entirely prepared to use. A closed-door marriage of convenience romance set in a harbour town fighting over its own waterfront, with a bookshop, a diary, a hostile takeover and a contract neither party manages to keep at arm's length.