Chapter 3 - The Billionaire's Ledger
The train's steel wheels hummed a steady, rhythmic thrum against the tracks, speeding through the Maryland countryside toward Washington. Inside the small, smoke-glass compartment, the air felt thick with a strange, charged intimacy that had nothing to do with romance and everything to do with survival.
Jude fed with a frantic, rhythmic intensity that sent ripples of warmth through my chest. Down in my core, my body responded naturally, producing what this fragile little creature needed to pull himself back from the brink of exhaustion.
Roman sat on the edge of the opposite seat, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, watching every movement with hawk-like precision. He looked as though he was remembering the curve of Jude's ear, the tiny rise and fall of my shoulder, the way my fingers gently supported the baby's back.
"He likes you," Roman murmured, his voice barely audible over the clatter of the rails.
"He likes food," I corrected softly, though a small, involuntary smile touched my lips. "Right now, I'm just an open cafeteria line with a heartbeat."
Marcus, the bodyguard, cleared his throat from his post near the door. He kept his back turned toward us out of professional courtesy, but I could tell every muscle in his frame remained tense.
"Mr. Vale," Marcus said quietly. "We're fifteen minutes outside Union Station. Kincaid's team will have media parked by the private terminal. If we come off this train looking like a domestic disaster, the headlines tomorrow morning won't be about the shipping contracts."
Roman didn't look away from Jude. "Let them talk. My sons nearly starved to death because my private nurse quit at Penn Station and the replacement formula batch was recalled mid-route. The press can write whatever they want about my competence, as long as my boys are breathing."
"That's not all they'll write about," Marcus warned, glancing sideways toward me.
Roman finally raised his head. His dark eyes locked onto Marcus with a cold, unyielding glare that could have cracked concrete. "Are you suggesting we leave her in the aisle, Marcus? Are you suggesting I throw the woman who just saved my son's life back into the coach like an empty coffee cup?"
"No, sir. I'm just saying—"
"Save it," Roman cut him off. He reached out, his large, called thumb gently brushed a stray lock of hair away from my forehead. The touch was so sudden, so shockingly tender from a man built of granite, that I froze. "She stays with us until we clear the terminal."
I looked up at him, meeting his intense gaze. "Mr. Vale, I appreciate that you're grateful, but I have a job interview at the Department of Labor at eleven o'clock. I missed my morning train, and if I miss this appointment, my sister and I are going to be choosing between buying groceries and paying the water bill next week."
Roman's expression shifted, a calculating glint replacing the raw vulnerability in his eyes.
"What kind of job?" he asked.
"Junior policy analyst. Entry-level. Mostly formatting spreadsheets and summarizing labor statistics." I shifted Jude slightly as the baby slowed his feeding, his tiny eyelids fluttering with milk-drunk sleep. "It pays forty-two thousand a year, which in New York is basically poverty, but it has health insurance."
Roman reached into the inner pocket of his wrinkled black blazer and pulled out a heavy, gold-embossed leather business card holder. He didn't offer me a card. Instead, he pulled out a sleek, titanium-finished phone and tapped the screen twice.
"Marcus," Roman said without looking up.
"Yes, Mr. Vale?"
"Call Director Vance at the Department of Labor. Tell him Mara Sterling's interview is moving to two o'clock this afternoon, and she will be arriving via private transport directly from my office."
My jaw dropped. "Wait—what? You can't just reschedule federal interviews!"
"I don't reschedule them," Roman said calmly, locking his phone screen with a sharp click. "I fund the committee that oversees their departmental budget. They will wait."
Before I could process the sheer, staggering arrogance of his statement, Jude let out a soft, milky sigh, his little mouth dropping open as he drifted off into a deep, peaceful sleep.
I carefully unlatched him, pulling the nursing cover back up and cradling his warm, heavy little body against my chest to burp him.
Roman watched me with an expression I couldn't quite read—something similar to profound awe, mixed with a dangerous, possessive determination.
"You're not going back to Queens today, Mara," Roman said quietly, standing up and towering over me. "Not on a regional train with seventy-three dollars in your pocket."
"And why the hell not?" I demanded, my protective instincts flare up.
May you like
Roman reached out, gently taking sleeping Jude from my arms and placing him back into the bassinet with the care of a bomb disposal expert. Then, he turned back to me, extending a hand to help me up.
"Because," Roman Vale said, his eyes locking onto mine with absolute finality, "you just saved the heirs to the Vale shipping empire. And in my world, debts like that are never settled in cash."
