Terms and Conditions

Inside The Lion's Den

Forty-eight hours. That was the window Alison DiLaurentis gave her, short, sharp, and deliberate, like everything about the woman. It was exactly enough time for Emily to unravel.

The hours passed like fog, thick and disorienting. She went through the motions: returned emails, walked to her office, drank bitter coffee she forgot she was holding. But her mind never left that room on the 47th floor, or the echo of Alison's voice as she said the words:

"I want to acquire your company."

There had been a moment—a single breath—when Emily had felt flattered. Wanted. Seen in a way she hadn't since her first pitch meeting years ago when she was still bright-eyed and stupid enough to think success would come from grit alone.

But beneath the flattery, there was something colder. Something calculated.

And that was the part that wouldn't leave her alone.

She didn't trust Alison. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But trust and choice weren't the same thing, and when you're drowning, even a riptide looks like salvation. Still, she needed to be sure. About what, she wasn't certain—only that it mattered.

So she did something she rarely let herself do anymore.

She called Hanna.

—

The café was nearly empty, the kind of place where time felt slower and the music was always a decade out of date. Hanna Marin showed up ten minutes late in a silk blouse and leather jacket, sunglasses perched on her head like she was still deciding whether to be mysterious or maternal.

Emily smiled in spite of herself. Some things never changed.

"Sorry," Hanna said, sliding into the booth. "Traffic. And I had to change twice. Every outfit felt too casual to hear about your mysterious billionaire stalker."

"She's not stalking me," Emily muttered.

"Oh no?" Hanna smirked. "So what do we call it when a woman with more money than God cold-invites you to a private gala and then offers to buy your company without blinking?"

Emily stirred her tea. "Business."

"Please. That's not business, that's foreplay with spreadsheets."

Emily groaned. "Can you be serious?"

"I am being serious. I just do it with style."

There was a pause.

And then Hanna's eyes softened. She leaned forward, her voice quieter.

"Okay. Real talk. Do you trust her?"

Emily hesitated. "I don't know. I don't think so. But I believe she believes what she's saying. And that matters."

Hanna nodded slowly. "So what's really stopping you?"

Emily's hand curled around her mug. "What if I say yes and she owns me? What if I lose the thing I built trying to save it?"

"You're not going to lose it," Hanna said. "You're going to grow it. And maybe... maybe she's the fire you need under your ass."

Emily laughed, a little bitter. "Or the one that burns everything down like she did before."

"Sometimes you have to take the match and figure out what lights and what doesn't."

That night, Emily sat at her kitchen table with her father's latest hospital bill in one hand and Alison's offer letter in the other. It was printed on thick cream paper, signed in ink. There was no corporate branding. Just the name: