Author's note: Welcome, and thanks for reading! This will undoubtedly end up a bit unlike most fics with this particular pairing and fandom, but I've been craving a story like this for awhile, and so I hope you all enjoy. There are, of course, some rather dark themes in this story, including non/dub-con and bdsm, so if you are not interested in such things or are made uncomfortable by them, this fic is not for you. If, however, you are interested in exploring a female dominant, modern work of fiction between Mr. Thornton and Ms. Hale, please do read and let me know what you think! I've never been the best at first chapters, but here we go!

Chapter One: The Bargain

John Thornton was not a man who liked to be kept waiting, but sometimes there was nothing for it. It had taken him over a week to get this appointment – a week spent hounding various staff members via telephone and email, and once even in person when he'd grown too fed up of the run-around. One would think he'd asked to meet with some foreign dignitary, rather than one of the chief officers of a law firm. In fairness, Helstone was one of the largest international legal firms in the world, a fact he was reminded of as he stepped from the elevator onto the highest floor of the imposing skyscraper. It was all marble and finely polished wood, tasteful leather chairs and expensive looking art. Amongst other textile owners John was usually overdressed, but here his finely fitted suit and crisp white shirt were all but a necessity if he didn't want to stand out. Which he almost never did.

As he sat there in that sleek, quiet lobby awaiting his scheduled meeting, the only reassurance he could give himself was that he had not come begging. This was a business proposition, plain and simple… or it would be, as far as others were concerned. In fact he did not require legal services, but it so happened that the factory he operated, Marlborough Mills, used a building and plot of land owned by the COO of Helstone herself. Usually that didn't mean he ever had to see her; he simply made his checks out when they were due and signed his name. But this time was different, and it had been a devil to get in touch with the woman. She'd only just returned to the country a few days ago, sure, but it had still irked him to be made to wait when he was already pressed for time.

He narrowed his eyes at his own fingers as he noticed their drumming along his knee, and abruptly the motion stopped. Spine stiff, he forced himself to lean back in his seat, stilling himself once more. Men did not fidget, and he would not have his damnable nerves broadcast to the world. Not that there were many around to see – he was alone in the waiting room, save for a secretary typing busily away at her computer. The sound was aggravating after so long, an arrhythmic clicking punctuated by the clack of the especially loud spacebar every so often. She would pause for a moment, the sound of a paper page turning filling the silence, and then it would start all over again. He could do nothing about it, of course, but glare uselessly over at some empty corner, blue eyes dark and narrowed. How long had he been here? It was as though he was being made to wait on purpose, damned to sit here until the anticipation and the clicking drove him mad. It wasn't unusual for that handsome face to hold a frown, but this was a truly pensive look that graced those dark features this time.

For all his impatience, when the woman called his name at last his throat tightened all the same, and he managed only a nod as he rose to his feet and straightened his suit. Eyes barely glanced towards the secretary as she motioned for him to follow her through the broad doors and down the long hallway, heels loud on marble flooring. They passed by several doors, offices that grew larger and nameplates with ever more impressive-sounding titles as they continued onward. The ones that stood ajar allowed a glimpse of men and women seated at desks overflowing with paperwork, a phone at their ears and fingers at a keyboard as they spoke rapidly in all manner of languages.

The sight was oddly calming. John was a businessman, and he knew how to talk to businessmen – or to a business woman, in this case. An atmosphere of hard work and high expectations was like home for him, and it eased some of the tension from his shoulders. He'd only needed to be reminded, that was all.

That sense of ease faded dramatically as they reached his destination, the office at the very end of the hallway. Margaret Hale, Chief Operations Officer. John's eyes moved over the plaque briefly, and once again he had to will his fingers to still at his sides. The rap of knuckles on the door might have made him jump had he not steeled himself, and as a voice called out to admit them he took a steadying breath, shoulders squaring. His guide pushed the door open and held it for him, gesturing him inside with a nod while she remained in the doorway.

Sunlight streamed in through walls made of glass, illuminating the large, immaculate office. A spectacular view of the city from so high up served at the backdrop to a stylish yet professional workspace, like something out of a magazine. Nothing quite so obscenely splendid as one might have expected, given the generally lavish look of the whole floor, but impressive as befitted the COO of such a company. Though it was rare that he didn't wear a suit, John found himself glad he'd worn the best one.

"Mr. Thornton to see you, ma'am." The secretary's voice drew the attention of the room's occupant, and suddenly bright green eyes were studying John from across the finely made desk settled against the back wall of window. A man of composure when his temper was not roused, John's face remained still even as he took in the sight of her with some surprise. Ms. Hale, he presumed, did not look quite as he'd pictured her: younger by far, for she could not have been much over thirty, and quite striking. Rich red hair framed a pale face with high cheekbones and full lips, and the aforementioned eyes which were large and inquisitive as she looked at him, meeting his cool gaze evenly.

"Ah." She stood from her chair, walking around the desk to meet John as he approached. He could not help but notice the confident way in which she moved, posture straight and self-assured. The style did not end at her furniture arrangement, he could see, and the dark charcoal of her skirt and jacket made the brightness of both the blue blouse and her own green eyes pop dramatically. She had managed to avoid a mannish appearance and yet could never have been said to look lurid for all that she maintained a bit of sensuality. Yes, she was lovely indeed, but he pushed such thoughts from his mind immediately – they would get him nowhere, and how she looked was no concern of his.

She shook his hand without hesitation and with mutual firmness, grip strong for all that her hands were soft. "A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Thornton," she said as their hands pulled away, his fingers fighting the urge to twitch again as he looked down at her. Glancing behind him, she gave the secretary a nod. "Thank you, Emily." A moment later, the door clicked shut behind them.

"Ms. Hale." He kept his own greeting short, following her leading hand and taking the seat across from her desk as she returned to it. His own back was straight, hands placed on his knees as he squared himself, running through his thoughts one final time. When she offered him a drink of water he refused it, and only just waited for her to make it back to her chair before he jumped into why he'd come. "I assume you've received the documents I sent over in preparation for our appointment."

For a moment he thought he saw a flicker of surprise cross her face, and then her lips twitched upwards as though she were somehow amused. She didn't give him time to puzzle over such a reaction, however; almost immediately she nodded her head, and smoothly reached into a nearby drawer to pull out a file that she placed on the desk. Marlborough Mills, it read across the top, and now it was John's turn to feel a bit of surprise, for it was far thicker than it should have been if it had contained only what he'd sent her.

"Indeed I did. I thank you for sending them well in advance – it gave me time to do some research of my own. Being that this is a matter of my personal finances, rather than that of the Helstone firm, the work had to be done personally, of course." She thumbed through a few of the pages, scanning them quickly as though to refresh her memory, and John spoke up while she did so.

"You'll see, then, that Marlborough Mills has been successful far beyond what initial surveys and estimates could have predicted." He leaned forward slightly, clasping his hands together as he stared directly at her, face displaying the purposeful focus of business as he began his pitch. "In the past five years we have climbed quicker and more assuredly than any other starting factory in the textile business in the nation, turning profit far earlier than had been promised. From local to statewide to now national, we have buyers committed to our product and the demand is always rising."

She was watching him closely, he could tell by the way her eyes shifted about his face as he spoke. It did not surprise him that she had the brains to accompany her looks; one did not climb as high as she had without wit and shrewdness. This was not a woman to trifle with, and he did not intend to. As he continued on about the various successes of his company's beginnings, she eventually held up a hand to stop him, and he paused to await her input.

"But?" she asked simply, raising her brow. She knew he would not be here if things had truly gone so well, and from the look on her face perhaps she knew far more than that. It was a struggle not to swallow obviously just then, but John met her gaze stubbornly. Clearly, she was keen on getting to the heart of the matter. He would not waste her time.

"Certainly you heard about the strikes." He did not quite spit that last word, but his face tightened all the same. Fingers dug a little tighter into his hands as he nodded at the document she held in her hands, familiar enough to recognize it on sight. "All of us were hit hard, but we remained firm. It lasted about a month, before things started to get ugly. After an instance in which the police had to take down some of the more aggressive strikers, it broke. Unlike some of our competitors, who were forced to close down, we were able to reopen our doors and get to catching up on the work."

"But you're quite behind on the orders, aren't you?" Ms. Hale's voice was soft as she tapped her fingers along some highlighted number, on a document she must have retrieved on her own. "And with the machines you recently purchased due to that high demand, you weren't in a place to receive such a blow to your finances kindly." Feeling his spine stiffen, there wasn't much John could do then but nod, slowly, his face creasing into a frown. He hadn't expected her to be quite so prepared, despite his insistence on not underestimating her. Clearly he had still managed to.

"And normally," she began again, cutting him off before he could reply, "that would hardly be an issue. Very little risk in extending the loan a bit to allow an obviously successful business to keep working away at that deficit. The strike was not your fault. Surely you would catch up quickly, and with so many competitors sunk by the strike, demand can only go up. One wonders, then, why you did not go to the banks to get such an extension."

His mouth was suddenly quite dry, and his grip on his own hands was bruising. The shocked glare on his face could not be hidden, and yet the woman did not so much as blink to see it. Things were very rapidly turning bad, worse than he had imagined, and still she did not wait for him to speak.

"Or I would have wondered, had I not been able to find out for myself the reason why." She slipped a page free from her neat stack of documents, and handed it across the desk to him. Numbly, his hand raised to take it, and as his eyes fell upon the words they swiftly shut in denial, mouthing a silent curse to himself. Opening them again, he found her cool stare watching him with keen attention, her hands steepling atop the desk. She knew.

"Where did you get this?" he asked, his voice hoarse and strained with mounting anger. Of course, the answer did not matter, really. It was all for nothing. He ran a hand roughly through his hair, ruining any sense of order to it as he tried to find his calm, but it would not come. He was ruined, and any hope he'd managed to hang onto upon walking in through that door was now but a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. He very nearly got up and left right then.

Ms. Hale did not answer right away, but rather seemed to note his response. Her own eyes were unreadable whereas his gave away the helpless frustration that was consuming him. She leaned back into her own seat, gaze never leaving his face. "I do not make a habit of investing without careful consideration, Mr. Thornton. It does not matter where I got it, only that I did. It is you that is a liability, not Marlborough Mills."

A deep red flush rose from the collar of his freshly pressed shirt up to his face at those words, and his blue eyes were livid and icy as he stared back at her. He'd always had a temper, and now it was threatening to explode then and there, in the face of such judgment. Lips curling in a silent snarl, the scrape of his chair along the ground as he shoved back and away from the desk was loud, rising to his feet before she stopped him in his place.

"Sit." The word was a command, short and sharp and surprisingly quiet for all it cracked through the air like a whip. The tone was that of a woman used to being obeyed, and her stony demeanor did not falter at the anger radiating from him, even as it spiked in response to her demand. People did not tell him what to do. So while he froze in place, rather than storming out of her office in a rage, he did not comply with the order. Indeed, had he not been so thoroughly stricken with ire, he might have snapped back at her, but as it was his mind was too clouded to formulate such a response.

Ms. Hale's own face suddenly frowned back at him, and her fingers slipped from their steeple to grip at the edge of her desk. The pale skin of her cheeks rose in color as well, as the green of her eyes darkened. "You walk out that door, this conversation is over and you can consider yourself quite simply screwed," she promised him in a voice that was far too level and calm for the content of those words. It was almost hard to hear her, what with his heart pounding so loudly in his ears. Still, the edge was betrayed by the sharpness of her gaze. "Sit down. Now."

For a moment they simply stared one another down, the room rife with tension and hostility. The muscles of John's jaw worked visibly, teeth grinding with barely suppressed anger. But she'd allowed him some hope, sliver that it was, in implying that perhaps by staying he might not be, as she put it, "screwed". He was wary at the idea that anything could overcome all that she now knew and could hold against him, but truly did not have a choice. And she knew it. Slowly, so stiffly that it seemed his very bones might crack from brittleness if he moved too quickly, he lowered himself back into his seat, hands gripping the armrests painfully hard.

She relaxed, despite his obvious remaining tension. "Thank you," she murmured, and soon turned to pour herself a glass of water, passing one to him as well no matter that he'd refused once already. Sipping, she continued their now rather one-sided discussion in that same serene tone, ignoring the document he held bunched in one fist.

"I find it very hard to believe that a man of your reputation and seeming sensibility would have been so foolish as to risk so much on speculation, Mr. Thornton." As ever, she did not beat around the bush, cutting to the very heart of what was his waking nightmare. When he did not speak, choosing instead to shift his glare out the window, she pressed him. "Tell me what happened." Another command, but this time spoken more insistently than domineeringly. It earned her a long silence, but eventually the man cracked. There was nothing for it now, anyway.

"My brother-in-law," he said flatly, and the way he paused made it sound like that might be all he had to say. After a while, he continued. "He quite convinced my sister that it was no real risk at all. That it was easy money to be made by investing. I turned him down, for I was in no state to be taking such chances. But my sister had access to the accounts as well." It seemed to exert him to get so much out, but that was all that needed to be said. The sheer fact of what had been lost was plain on that paper he held crumpled on his lap, and it had doomed him. Francine would be fine, of course – her husband had plenty to spare. She had cried when he'd found out and smashed their dining room to bits, screaming that it wasn't her fault. Not her fault that she had gambled with his money – no, the company's money, and lost everything. They'd turned a profit in the last year or so, sure, but he had no way to recover from this and the strike. And it was embezzlement, plain and simple - a crime in his name. Just thinking about it made him feel dizzy, nauseated, and the angry red of his skin went pale as he drank from the water if only to save him from the dryness of his mouth.

"I see." Thornton nearly snorted at the simple statement, wondering at how that could be her only reaction to what was, to him at least such damning information. But then, she was only the owner of the building – the demise of his reputation, his business, and his own life were none of her concern, really. She would not be touched. His one hope had been that she might agree to forgo the rent on the place for quite some time: he could not go to the banks, who would discover the embezzlement immediately, and he would not throw his sister to the wolves. He was stuck, and it was only a matter of time now before the payroll was unaffordable and the authorities came for him. It had been a long shot, dependent on Ms. Hale being far less careful than the banks. Obviously, that was not at all the case.

"Well…" The word drew John from his dark reverie, icy eyes finding hers. Anger and despair were paramount in them, as well as a kind of sickness. He knew what she would say, knew it at his very core. His one shot had blown up in his face, and there was nothing he could do to save himself or the people that depended on him. His mother… one could only hope Francine would take care of her when he was gone.

"I would like to help you, Mr. Thornton." The soft words, spoken in that calm, melodious voice, took a moment to permeate the cloud of unhappiness. Blinking, John tried to refocus his attention on her.

"Pardon?" Surely she had not said what he thought she had. Or perhaps she did, but it would be followed by reasons she wouldn't. His hands clenched, irate with the thought that she might be toying with him. Ms. Hale's eyes dipped down towards those tight fists, and once again she seemed to nearly smile – which of course made them clench all the tighter.

"I have done my research on you as well. You do not oversell yourself, nor the promise of Marlborough Mills. It would be a shame, I think, for the both of you to go under over something like this, serious as it may be." She looked at him now as though appraising the worth of his very being, right then and there. As though he were for sale, and she considering what she might pay for him. He might have been unsettled to see such an expression on her lovely face, had he been able to think beyond the incredulity of being offered a lifeline amidst the sea of turmoil in which he found himself. In a manner very unlike him, he opened his mouth but could do nothing but stammer for a moment, slow to comprehend and even slower to believe.

"How?" he croaked, clearing his through in a bit of embarrassment when he heard the weakness in his voice. "And… for what price?" He wasn't stupid, and he knew the way the world worked. She had him cornered, that much was obvious, and with his only other option being jail and ruin, there wasn't much she could ask for that he would – or could – refuse. The thought was a sobering one, and his dazed stare became suspicious and guarded immediately. It was only slightly better, being at her mercy rather than simply sealed in his fate.

She smiled at him, of all things, and the expression looked genuine. It was not quite mocking, but rather impressed with him, or begrudging perhaps. At the very least, she did not play coy. Standing up, she took her time walking around her desk, sitting down atop it once she'd closed the distance between them, looking down at him.

"Here is my offer," she began, and he was suddenly aware of just how prepared she was. Clearly she had thought this through in great detail. His jaw clenched to think of how blind he had been to simply walk into this trap unknowingly, but he could not afford to let pride sink his one chance. He listened, willing himself to remain still. "You will sell me just under majority of ownership – 49%, at fifteen percent under market value. That will give you the money needed to keep your payroll secure and the payments on the new machinery going. Of course you'll not end up seeing a penny of it, but at least you won't go under. And you will remain the majority shareholder and owner of the company you've worked so hard to build. Since I will be the other partner, it wouldn't make sense for me to charge rent for the building – and of course, I shall make much more back in profits assuming things go well. What you would normally pay in rent you shall keep for yourself, and through frugality and sense you should be able to replenish what other money you have lost yourself over time, though it may be a bit lean for awhile."

John listened intently, his eyes narrowed and brow creased. To give up nearly half of his company… but it would save him, she was right. He would lose out on a great deal of money he might have earned had he not found himself in such a mess, but he would not go to prison, and not put his workers out of a job. Money would be tight for a year or two, but eventually he would recover. As he puzzled it out in his head, he said nothing, watching her expectantly. This was beneficial to her, certainly – she had a lot to gain from taking such a large share, but it would be a slow-repayment, and she was leaving him an awful lot of benefits considering what they both knew she could demand. Not one to trust in the benevolence of others, he waited silently for the other shoe to drop.

"Of course," she said, eyeing her glass as she took another sip, "I will hang onto the evidence of what you have done. Embezzlement is a serious crime, and of course even if you were to pay it all back it would be no less frowned upon should it all come to light. As the only other partner, if such a thing were to happen I would take over, seeing as I am clear of any blame. But the name would suffer, and I would be stuck with a marked business in an industry that I know nothing about." She looked back to him, drinking again as she let him process her words.

He was reeling from it all, this newest near-threat enough to make his blood run cold. It would never end, then – her ability to blackmail him. Suddenly it felt an awful lot like another type of prison sentence, and out of spite he was actually tempted to refuse her. To be this woman's pawn… he didn't know if he could bear it.

But he thought of his mother, the only person who'd ever shown him unconditional love. The woman who had slaved away for he and his sister both, and given up so much of herself to ensure they were able to succeed. He thought of the business he had built from the ground up, and the workers who depended on it to support their families. Could he damn them all, to save himself? His pride, most of all? For a moment his eyes closed, and he brought fingers up to pinch at the bridge of his nose.

He could feel her eyes on him, but she said nothing else as he brooded, struggling against what he already knew in the bottom of his sinking heart he had to do. An emptiness took hold of him as he opened his eyes and rose onto suddenly unsteady legs, determined to look her in the eye at least. Once more he was taken aback by the sight of her, fearsomely lovely now, he thought, in the midst of it all. Were those the eyes of a person he could trust not to bury him even deeper? He had no real way of knowing.

"I don't have much of a choice, do I?" It was a rhetorical question, and his voice was bitter with the defeat of it even as he put out his hand to shake hers. He'd found a way out of his troubles after all, but who could say where this path would lead?

A soft hand clasped his tightly, nearly dwarfed by his long fingers. A small smile touched those full red lips, but what it promised he did not know. "No, you don't," she agreed simply. Turning, she went back to the proper side of her desk.

"Shall we draw up the paperwork, then?"