To understand how Agaton found himself standing in a billionaire's guest room contemplating a fake marriage, one had to rewind 12 hours to the grand ballroom of the Fairmont Olympic Hotel. The Martin Logistics annual holiday gala was an exercise in corporate excess. Ice sculptures of cargo ships slowly melted in the center of buffets piled high with beluga caviar and Wagyu beef sliders. A string quartet played classical renditions of pop songs in the corner, drowned out by the forced laughter of 500 employees trying desperately to network. Agaton hated these things.
He hated the cheap polyester of his three-year-old suit. He hated the way his manager, a sycophant named Greg, kept introducing him to vice presidents while butchering Agaton's last name. But mostly, he hated being away from Lucinda. He had retreated to a dimly lit corner near the secondary bar, clutching a glass of club soda. He pulled his phone from his pocket for the seventh time in an hour. 101.2.
The text from Sarah the babysitter read. Gave her the Tylenol. She's watching cartoons. Agaton, typing back, "Keep an eye on her breathing. If she starts wheezing, use the nebulizer.
He hit send and shoved the phone back into his pocket, rubbing the bridge of his nose. The medical bills were piling up again. Lucinda's lungs were a constant, terrifying battlefield. The insurance from Martin Logistics was decent, but the deductibles and the out of network specialists were draining him faster than he could fill his meager savings account. He had skipped lunch three times that week just to ensure he had enough cash to cover the co-pay for her upcoming pulmonologist appointment.
You look like you're attending a funeral. Agaton jolted, turning to his left. Crystal Martin stood there holding a crystal tumbler of amber liquid. She was wearing a deep emerald gown that looked liquid in the dim light. Agaton had only seen her in person a handful of times, usually from the back of an auditorium during quarterly all hands meetings.
Up close, she was intimidating, not just because of her wealth, but because of the sheer exhaustion radiating from her. It was a bone deep weariness that Agaton recognized intimately. He saw it in the mirror every morning. "Miss Martin," Agaton stammered, standing up a little straighter. "No funeral, just not much of a party person.
Neither am I. She took a sip of her drink, leaning against the wall beside him. It was a bizarre breach of corporate hierarchy. CEOs didn't hide in corners with supply chain analysts. I've just spent the last 45 minutes letting an ancient board member from Texas explain my own profit margins to me.
If I have to smile at one more bloated ego tonight, I'm going to set an ice sculpture on fire. Agaton blinked, surprised by her candor. The cargo ship or the forklift? A tiny smirk ghosted across her lips. The forklift.
It's aggressively tacky. Silence settled over them, strangely comfortable amidst the noise of the ballroom. Agaton felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He ignored it. He couldn't check it in front of the CEO.
"Check it," Crystal said, not looking at him. "You've been twitching for 5 minutes. Agaton pulled the phone out. "Sarah again. "Breathing is fine.
Fever going down? She's asleep. Agaton let out a long shaky breath. The tension leaving his shoulders in a rush. He typed a quick thank you kid.
Crystal asked daughter seven. She's got a fever tonight. And you're here instead of with her. It wasn't an accusation. It was a flat statement of fact.
HR tracked attendance this year. Agaton said bitterly, tied it to the Q4 bonus eligibility. I need the bonus. Crystal turned her head, looking at him fully for the first time. Her eyes were a sharp pale blue.
They flicked over his frayed suit collar, the tired lines around his mouth, the cheap watch on his wrist. Agaton Morgan, right? Supply chain sector 4. You know who I am? I know everyone who manages more than 50 million in moving assets for me.
She downed the rest of her drink. You found that discrepancy in the Long Beach port fees last month saved us 400 grand. I was just doing my job. You did it well. She looked back out at the crowd.
Let's get a real drink. Club soda isn't going to get you through the rest of this night. Before he could protest, she signaled a passing waiter swapping her empty glass for two fresh tumblers of neat scotch. She handed one to Agaton. To corporate purgatory, she toasted softly.
Agaton clinked his glass against hers to paying the rent. He took a drink. It was Macallan. Incredibly smooth and dangerously strong. He hadn't eaten since a stale bagel at 6:00 a.m.
The alcohol hit his bloodstream with immediate numbing warmth. Over the next 2 hours, the barriers broke down. They didn't flirt. There was no romantic tension. It was something far more potent.
Mutual survival. Agaton talked about the soul crushing logistics of routing freight trains. Crystal talked about the suffocating pressure of taking over her late father's company while a board of octogenarian sharks circled waiting for her to bleed. Agaton drank. He drank because the scotch was free, because his daughter was asleep and safe, and because for the first time in years, someone was talking to him like an equal, not a subordinate or a broken widower.
He lost track of time. He lost track of how many tumblers of amber liquid he had consumed. The last clear memory he had was standing by the coat check, the room spinning slightly. Crystal was next to him, slipping a sleek wool coat over her shoulders. "You can't drive," she had said, her voice cutting through the fog in his brain.
"My driver's outside. Get in. Agaton had nodded dumbly, following her out into the freezing Seattle rain. He remembered the leather seats of the Maybach, the hum of the engine, and then darkness. the heavy, dreamless blackout of a man who had finally let go of his grip on reality, which brought him back to the morning. To the cold, hard light of day and a proposition that defied all logic, Agaton sat down on the edge of the velvet armchair, ignoring his discarded jacket.
He rested his elbows on his knees, leaning forward, trying to ground himself. The headache was coming back, a dull thud at the base of his skull. Walk me through this," Agaton said, staring at the floorboards. "Because right now, this sounds like a plot from a terrible daytime soap opera. You are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
You can buy anything you want. Why are you trying to buy me? Crystal moved to the window, looking out over the rain slicked city. Without the armor of her desk or the dim lighting of a gala, she looked surprisingly isolated. My father built Martin Logistics from a single trucking route into a global empire," she began, her tone clipped and analytical.