The Billionaire's Limited-Time Romance

Through the hidden acoustic panels of the VIP room at The Sterling, the low, thumping bass of a curated jazz playlist vibrated.

Ansel Schultz leaned back against the tufted leather of the Chesterfield sofa.

Stretching his long legs out under the solid mahogany table, his fingers expertly flipped a custom clay poker chip over his knuckles.

The chip's soft, rhythmic clicking punctuated the air.

With a sharp slap that broke the low hum of the saxophone, Sterling Prescott-Lowell tossed his hand of cards onto the polished wood.

Sterling leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees.

A mocking gleam lit his eyes as he stared directly at Ansel.

"You missed the yacht party again this weekend, Ansel."

By the private bar, Jax Adler stood swirling a heavy crystal glass of bourbon over a single large ice cube.

He took a slow sip and let out a dry laugh.

"Maybe our boy finally got a leash put on him by that little Brooklyn girl."

The rhythmic motion of Ansel's thumb over the edge of the poker chip ceased.

A sharp spike of irritation hit the back of his neck.

He willed his expression into a mask of utter relaxation.

He allowed a lazy, indifferent smile to curve his lips.

With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the chip perfectly into the center of the pile on the table.

The chip clattered loudly against the others.

"Don't project your own domestic nightmares onto me, Jax," Ansel said.

Jax walked over and dropped into the armchair across from the sofa.

"It is not just us talking. The Wall Street Journal had a front-page rumor yesterday about the Schultz and Lamb families announcing a merger."

Suddenly, the air in the room grew thick.

Sterling and Jax both locked their eyes on Ansel's profile.

Under the dim amber lighting, Ansel was a marble statue, his jawline sharp and unmoving.

He reached for his own glass of dark liquor.

He took a swallow, letting the burn of the alcohol coat his throat.

"The press writes what sells papers. There is no engagement."

Sterling raised a single eyebrow.

"Isela Lamb flies back into JFK from Paris next week. You cannot dodge that bullet forever."

The muscle in Ansel's jaw ticked.

To ground himself, he pressed his thumb hard against the rim of his glass, tracing the cut crystal.

He kept his posture wide, taking up space on the sofa to project absolute control.

Jax leaned in closer.

"So, if the merger happens, what are you going to do with Ellie? The good student is not going to fit into the new family portrait."

Ellie's name was a physical blow; Ansel's heart skipped a single, hard beat against his ribs.

His chest tightened.

He let out a harsh scoff, a sound meant to crush the unfamiliar physical reaction.

He set his glass down on the leather coaster with a heavy thud.

He leaned his head back against the sofa.

"Ellie is a convenience. A pressure valve for my schedule."

Sterling smirked.

"Those good girls are dangerous. Once they fall, they wrap around your neck like a vine and choke you."

A low, dark chuckle vibrated in Ansel's chest.

"She is perfectly behaved."

He looked at the men in the room with absolute certainty.

"She does not check my phone. She does not ask for diamond tennis bracelets. She is zero maintenance."

Jax let out a loud whistle.

"A contract girl who does not need emotional hand-holding. That is the rarest commodity on the Upper East Side."

Just as Jax finished his sentence, the heavy mahogany door to the VIP room swung open. Bryan Roth stood in the doorway, a sneer already twisting his face, having clearly overheard the last few words.

"She is just a middle-class leech staring at your trust fund, Ansel. Throw enough cash at her, and she will disappear."

Ansel's fingers curled into a tight fist around his glass.

His knuckles turned stark white.

A violent urge to cross the room and smash the glass into Bryan's face surged through him.

But his survival instincts, drilled into him since childhood, kicked in.

Defending her now would prove he cared.

It would prove he was weak.

One by one, Ansel forced his fingers to uncurl.

He let out a cold, empty laugh that matched Bryan's tone.

"Exactly."

"This is just a limited-time engagement," he said, his voice dropping to a flat, dead pitch. "A performance."

He picked up his glass again.

"When the credits roll, I will write her a nice recommendation letter for her resume, and we will part ways."

The room erupted into loud, knowing laughter.

The men clinked their glasses together, celebrating the ruthless rules of their world.

As the laughter echoed around him, Ansel lowered his gaze to his phone, resting face-up on the table.

A text from Ellie, sent thirty minutes ago, wished him a good night.

A sudden, sharp ache twisted in his gut.

He grabbed the phone and flipped it face-down against the wood.

He needed to shut off the feeling.

Across the room, the heavy mahogany door was not completely shut.

A two-inch gap allowed a dim, yellow sliver of light from the hallway to slice into the dark room.

And outside, standing perfectly still in that sliver of light, Ellie Hartman heard every single word.

On the thick Persian carpet of the hallway, Ellie stood motionless.

Her stiletto heels sank into the expensive wool beneath her feet.

She did not move.

From the men's restroom at the far end of the hall, Bryan Roth emerged, wiping his hands on a linen towel.

He tossed the towel onto a side table and turned his head.

His gaze locked onto Ellie, a cruel smile stretching across his face as he saw her standing in the shadows.

He walked toward her, his footsteps completely silent on the thick carpet.

From inside the room, Ansel's voice drifted through the crack in the door.

"This is just a limited-time engagement."

Bryan stopped exactly one step away from Ellie.

He lifted an arm, pressing his elbow against the wall to trap her between his body and the doorframe.

He leaned his head down, staring at her face.

He waited for the tears, for her shoulders to shake.

A single flutter of her eyelashes was the only sign of life.

Her chest rose and fell at the exact same slow, measured pace as before.

Her mind processed Ansel's words like a machine sorting data: the expected outcome of a social experiment.

Bryan frowned when no tears came.

He leaned closer, his breath smelling of stale smoke and mints.

He made a loud, mocking clicking sound with his tongue.

"Game's over, Brooklyn," he sneered, his voice dripping with venom. "Time to crawl back to whatever bridge you came from."

Ellie turned her head slowly.

Her clear brown eyes were completely dry.

There was no anger in her expression, only a clinical, almost pitying calmness.

She let her eyes drag up and down his flashy, overly tailored suit.

The clinical pity in her stare was a physical slap to his ego.

His face flushed red.

He stepped even closer, trying to use his height to intimidate her.

"Isela is the only woman the Schultz family will ever accept. You need to pack your cheap bags and get out."

Ellie took a smooth half-step backward.

Her movement was fluid, the graceful sidestep of someone avoiding a puddle of dirty water.

Her voice was perfectly even when she spoke.

"Are you in such a rush to clear the path for Isela because you are secretly in love with her, Bryan?"

She tilted her head slightly.

"Or is it just because you know you will never be good enough for her?"

Bryan's breath hitched in his throat.

The veins in his neck bulged against his collar.

He raised his hand, reaching out to grab her bare shoulder.

Ellie did not flinch.

She lifted her Prada clutch, holding it flat against her chest.

As his hand came down, she angled the hard, metal corner of the bag directly into his path.

Bryan's knuckles slammed into the metal.

He yanked his arm back with a sharp hiss of pain.

"You bitch," he muttered, dropping all pretense of high-society manners.

The laughter inside the VIP room began to die down.

Footsteps moved closer to the door.

Bryan rubbed his bruised knuckles.

"If you run out of here crying right now, you will be the joke of New York by morning."

Ellie looked down at her dress.

With her free hand, she smoothed out a wrinkle that did not exist.

She lifted her chin and looked Bryan directly in the eyes.

A perfect, polite smile formed on her lips.

"An anthropologist doesn't cry," she said, her voice a silken blade, "when the monkeys in the enclosure throw mud at her."

Bryan's mouth fell open.

His brain short-circuited trying to process the insult.

He opened his mouth to yell.

Ellie did not give him the chance.

She turned her back to him completely.

She faced the heavy mahogany door.

She did not run toward the elevator.

She did not hide in the bathroom to cry.

Lifting her bare arm, she pressed her palm flat against the cold brass handle.

Without a single second of hesitation, Ellie pushed the door wide open and stepped into the room.

A groan from the heavy brass hinges of the mahogany door cut through the room, making the jazz music feel like it skipped a beat.

Every man in the VIP room stopped talking at the exact same time.

Four pairs of eyes snapped toward the entrance.

Framed in the doorway, the hall light spilling over her shoulders, Ellie was a flawless porcelain figure, completely untouched by the heavy atmosphere of the room.

She stepped inside, her heels clicking sharply against the hardwood border of the carpet.

Ansel was slumped low on the sofa.

At the sight of her, Ansel's entire body went rigid.

His pupils dilated so fast the blue of his eyes almost vanished.

His hand shot out on instinct, grabbing his phone off the table.

His grip on the metal casing was so tight his joints popped in the sudden quiet.

Jax took a sip of his bourbon and inhaled sharply.

The liquor caught in his throat, and he started coughing violently.

Ellie ignored Jax.

She kept her eyes locked on Ansel and walked straight toward the leather sofa.

Right behind her, Bryan rushed in, a sick, excited grin on his face as he anticipated the explosion.

Sterling shifted his weight, sliding further back into his armchair as if trying to escape the blast zone.

Ellie stopped right in front of Ansel's knees.

She looked down at him.

For the first time, she saw it: raw panic bleeding through the arrogant mask on his face.

Ansel's Adam's apple bobbed hard.

He opened his mouth, his brain scrambling for a smooth lie to cover his tracks.

"Ellie, I-"

"I am so sorry to interrupt your boys' night," Ellie said.

Her voice was soft, sweet, and perfectly measured.

Bryan stepped forward, unable to keep his mouth shut.

"Did you hear something you shouldn't have out in the hall, Ellie?"

Ansel's head snapped toward Bryan.

His eyes were lethal, silently promising violence if Bryan spoke another word.

But it was too late.

Ellie turned her head and met Bryan's malicious stare.

"I did," she confirmed, offering him a polite nod. "I heard the pitch for the... limited-time engagement."

The temperature in the room plummeted.

Ansel stopped breathing entirely.

It felt like a giant hand had reached into his chest and crushed his lungs.

Bryan crossed his arms, waiting for the screaming and the tears.

Ellie simply reached up and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

"It is a very creative metaphor," she said lightly.

She turned her attention back to Ansel.

"When the performance ends," she asked, her eyes wide and innocent, "do you think that recommendation letter could get me an interview at Goldman Sachs? The investment banking division, specifically."

The room went dead silent.

Sterling's jaw dropped, his unlit cigar slipping from his fingers to land on the rug. Jax, who had been leaning against the bar, slowly lowered his glass, a look of utter disbelief freezing on his face.

Bryan's grin froze.

He stared at Ellie like she was an alien.

He couldn't comprehend it: a girl with no trust fund, negotiating a job reference instead of begging for love.

Ansel stared up at her.

He searched her clear, calm eyes for any sign of a crack.

He looked for a trembling lip or a forced smile.

He found absolutely nothing.

In that exact second, a cold, terrifying wave of panic crashed over him as he realized he had never held the reins.

Logic evaporated, replaced by a primal need to break her calm, to force a reaction.

Ansel lunged forward.

He grabbed her thin wrist with a bruising grip.

He pulled her hard, dragging her forward until she lost her balance.

Ellie fell right into his lap.

She did not fight him.

She let her body settle against his hard thighs, even lifting her arms to wrap them loosely around the back of his neck.

Ansel buried his face into the side of her neck.

He bit down gently on her earlobe, his breath hot and ragged against her skin.

"What kind of game are you playing?" he whispered, his voice shaking with anger and fear.

Ellie rested her cheek against his temple.

"I am fulfilling my duty as your zero-maintenance girlfriend," she whispered back.

The logic of her words felt like a knife twisting in his gut.

Ansel could not take another word from her mouth.

He grabbed the back of her head, twisted his body, and smashed his lips against hers in a desperate, punishing kiss.