Chapter 2: Mile High Negotiations
The private jet hummed a low, constant thrum, more vibration than sound. Lisbon’s coastal lights receded below, swallowed by the ink-black Atlantic. Inside, the cabin was a cocoon of muted amber light, aged leather, and the faint, expensive scent of barrel-aged whiskey from the empty crystal tumbler on the table. Vanja’s scouting reports for Gonçalo Inácio, Antonio Silva, and a promising left-back from Braga were fanned out on the polished wood, covered in her tight, analytical script.
She wasn’t alone.
Thierry Henry stretched in the wide armchair opposite her, his socked feet propped on the vacant seat beside him. He wore a simple grey henley and jeans, his gaze fixed not on the reports, but on her.
“Benfica’s director of football is notoriously sentimental,” he said, breaking a twenty-minute silence. His voice was relaxed, conversational, as if they were colleagues dissecting film. “He sees Silva as a son. That makes the release clause more a threat than an invitation. He’ll match any offer just to prove a point.”
Vanja didn’t look up. “Sentiment costs money. A lot of it. Benfica can’t afford to be paternal for long, not with their debt. The clause isn’t a threat; it’s an inevitability. We just need to be the one holding the trigger when he decides it’s time to be a businessman, not a father.”
He grunted, a sound of acknowledgement. “You’re a cold bitch, you know that?”
Finally, she lifted her golden-green eyes. A faint smile touched her lips. “You didn’t seem to mind in London.”
“I didn’t,” he agreed. His own smile was slow, predatory. “It was a refreshing change from the usual… fans.”
The air between them thickened, the professional veneer stretching thin. The memory of the hotel room, the brutal, transactional passion, hung in the cabin’s recycled air, as tangible as the reports between them.
Her phone, face-down on the table, buzzed.Once. Then twice.
She flipped it over. A message from an unknown UK number. Then a second.
The first was a single line: Verbal is solid. Camp Nou ’25. Agent taking meetings in Lisbon tomorrow. Wants pressure on Barça for a better sign-on.
The second was a photograph, slightly grainy, taken through a restaurant window. Micky van der Ven’s agent was shaking hands with a man Vanja recognized as Barcelona’s technical secretary. They were smiling. The date and time stamp on the photo was from three hours ago.In Lisbon.
Henry had been right. Absolutely, infuriatingly right. The Dutchman was a lost cause. But the agent was here.Now. Playing games.
Vanja’s mind clicked through scenarios. The agent was meeting Barcelona to finalize, but also “taking meetings” to squeeze them. He was a mercenary, which was fine. Mercenaries could be redirected, if the offer was sharp enough. Bayern’s offer could be sharper. But it needed the right delivery. Not an email. Not a call.A conversation. An undeniable, persuasive, visceral conversation.
She looked across at Henry. He was watching her, reading the shift in her posture, the calculating gleam in her eye.
“He’s here,” she said, her voice flat.
“The agent,” Henry stated.
She nodded.“Tomorrow. He’s shopping the deal around to bump the price. He’s using us.”
“So use him back,” Henry replied, shrugging.“Offer more. It’s simple.”
“It’s not that simple. He needs to believe it’s not just more money. He needs to believe it’s a better path. More prestigious. More certain. He needs to feel he’s discovered a secret advantage, not just been bought.” She paused, her mind racing. “He needs to be seduced. By the idea.”
Henry’s gaze grew more intent. He uncrossed his legs, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “And how do you seduce a man who only sees percentages?”
Vanja stood up. The jet gave a minor lurch, but she moved with fluid balance. She walked to the small, discreet bar, pouring two fingers of whiskey into a fresh glass. She didn’t offer him one.
“You show him a vision he can’t get elsewhere. You make him feel like an insider before the deal is even done.” She turned, leaning back against the bar, the whiskey glass cool in her hand. “You.Me.Him. A private dinner. Tomorrow night. You, the legend, endorsing the move. Not to Barcelona, but to Bavaria. You tell him what it means to play for a club with that history, that relentless hunger. You make it sound like a coronation, not a transaction.”
Henry let out a low whistle. “You want me to be your… spokesman? Your character witness?”
“I want you to be Thierry fucking Henry. And I want him to see that you’re with me. That this project has a gravity he hasn’t considered.”
“And what do I get?” he asked, his voice dropping. “Another night of your very persuasive negotiation tactics?”
She took a slow sip of whiskey, letting the heat spread through her chest. “What do you want?”
He stood. He was taller, broader, his presence instantly dominating the cabin’s intimate space. He crossed to her, stopping inches away. The hum of the engines seemed to grow louder.
“I want to see you lose control,” he said, his voice rough. “Just once. In London, it was a draw. A strategic fuck. I want a surrender.”
A spark of defiance ignited in her gut. “I don’t surrender.”
“Everyone does,” he murmured, his hand coming up to trace the line of her jaw. His thumb brushed her lower lip. “Eventually.”
She captured his thumb between her teeth, biting down just enough to make his eyes darken. Then she released it. “Help me get this agent. Get me the face-to-face tomorrow, with you there. Make him believe. Do that, and we’ll see about surrender.”
It was a bargain. Another transaction. But the currency was rapidly becoming something more volatile than money.
His hand slid from her jaw to the back of her neck, gripping her hair, pulling her head back gently but firmly. “Deal.”
His mouth crashed down on hers. This kiss was different from the first—less frantic, more possessive. It was a searing, deep exploration that tasted of whiskey and intent. One of his hands fumbled with the button of her tailored trousers, then the zipper. He shoved them down over her hips, along with her underwear, the fabric pooling around her ankles. His other hand pushed up her cashmere sweater, over the lace of her bra. He palmed her breast, his thumb rasping over her nipple.
He broke the kiss, breathing heavily. “On the table. Now.”
Vanja didn’t hesitate. She pushed the reports aside, sending papers fluttering to the carpeted floor. She hoisted herself onto the polished mahogany, the wood cool against her bare thighs. Henry stepped between her legs, his fingers hooking into the sides of her panties and tearing them away with a sharp rip. The sound was obscenely loud in the quiet cabin.
He unfastened his jeans, freeing his erection. He was already fully hard, thick and veined. He didn’t wait, didn’t tease. He guided himself to her entrance, which was slick and ready—her body’s cynical betrayal of her mind’s calculated reserve. He drove into her with a single, deep, filling stroke.
“Fuck,” he groaned, his head dropping forward. “You’re so goddamn tight. Even like this.”
She wrapped her legs around his hips, her heels digging into the small of his back, pulling him deeper. The table rocked slightly with their rhythm. He set a brutal, steady pace, each thrust jolting through her, friction and fullness coalescing into a sharp, building pleasure. He leaned over her, one hand braced on the table by her head, the other gripping her hip hard enough to leave bruises.
“This what you wanted?” he panted against her ear, his breath hot. “A legend on your side? A tool for your deal?”
She answered by arching her back, taking him even deeper, a gasp tearing from her throat.“Yes. Exactly that.”
He laughed, a harsh, thrilling sound, and increased his pace. The slap of skin, the creak of the table, the low drone of the engines—it all merged into a single, animal soundtrack. She clawed at his back through the henley, her mind fragmenting. The agent, the reports, the phone with its damning photo—all of it blurred, receding behind the physical onslaught. This wasn’t surrender, but it was a temporary, potent oblivion.
His thrusts grew erratic, harder. “Look at me,” he growled.
She forced her eyes open, meeting his. His gaze was locked on hers, fierce, demanding. “I’m going to come inside you,” he stated, the words raw and explicit. “And you’re going to come with me. Because I say so.”
The command, the sheer dominance of it, acted like a trigger. The coil in her belly snapped. Pleasure erupted, radiating out from her core in violent, pulsing waves. She cried out, her body clamping around him, milking his length. He cursed in French, his own body seizing, and she felt the hot, insistent pulse of his release deep inside her.
He collapsed against her, his weight pressing her into the hard table. They stayed like that for a minute, joined, breathless, slick with sweat.
Slowly, he pushed himself up, withdrew. He fastened his jeans, his movements practical. Vanja slid off the table, her legs shaky. She gathered her clothes, not looking at him.
“The agent,” Henry said, his voice back to its normal timbre, as if the last five minutes hadn’t happened. “His name is Stefan De Vries. He’s staying at the Palácio do Governador. I’ll set the dinner. Nine o’clock. The Varanda restaurant. Be persuasive.”
He walked back to his seat, picked up a discarded magazine, and began to read.
Vanja dressed in silence, the feel of him still leaking from her. She smoothed her hair, collected the scattered reports from the floor. Her phone blinked with another message, this one from Sebastian Kehl: Board pushing for progress on Silva. Pressure is on.
She typed a reply, her fingers steady. Meeting set with van der Ven agent tomorrow in Lisbon.Henry facilitating. New angle. Stand by.
She sent it, then stared out the window at the featureless night. The plane sped east, back towards Germany, back towards the endless game. The sex had been a transaction, a release, a weapon. But as she felt the faint ache between her legs and watched the impassive profile of the man across from her, a new, disquieting variable entered her calculation.
The game was no longer just on the board. It was in the room. It was in her. And for the first time, she wasn’t entirely sure she knew the rules.
And for the first time, she wasn’t entirely sure she knew the rules.
Her phone buzzed as the taxi pulled up to the heavy stone façade of the Palácio do Governador the next evening. A new number. Belgian code. United Press-Up? For fuck’s sake, not now.
She silenced it, her focus locking on the silent hotel. Thierry’s contact had been seamless. A table for three at Varanda, discreet, with the full view of the Tagus. A stage, set perfectly.
But Henry was absent.
A polite email at noon: Unexpected issue with punditry booking in Milan. Regretfully cannot attend. De Vries is expecting you at nine.
He’d left her to do it alone. Withdrawing his character-witness gravity. Another move in the game she hadn’t fully fathomed. Was this punishment for a perceived lack of surrender? Or was he testing the sharpness of her blade without his weight behind it?The bastard.
She exhaled, her breath a ghost on the cool evening air.Alone. It was always going to be the only real state of things.Fine.
She strode into the restaurant, past the host stand with a confident nod. She knew which table she needed. The agent, Stefan De Vries, was seated facing the water, his profile angular in the candlelight. She clocked the details before he turned. Early thirties, tailored slate-grey suit, blond hair worn just long enough to be deliberate, not accidental. He cut an irritatingly elegant figure, fingers curled loosely around a glass of mineral water.He turned. His eyes were a pale, discerning blue. They tracked her approach, scanning from the black stiletto heels up the lines of her fitted charcoal dress that left her shoulders bare, to her face. Recognition flared in his gaze, immediate and complete.
Stefan De Vries was hot. He was Vanja’s age or younger, tall, blond and fucking delicious. He looks at her, recognizing her. He put his glass down.
"You are playing games with us," she says, stopping by the table.
He smiled. It didn’t reach those cool eyes. "Miss Vrantz. You are here."
He’d used her grandmother’s maiden name, her carefully constructed secondary identity for sensitive, deniable approaches. A reveal. He was better informed than she’d hoped.
"Yes," she says, sliding into the seat opposite him, the heavy linen napkin in her lap a defensive gesture. "Like you knew I would be. I need to talk to you."
The waiter appeared. Vanja ordered a Suze on ice without looking at the menu. De Vries raised a finger for another water.
"Talk," he says, his smile thinning, as the waiter retreated. "Not here. Somewhere discrete."
Ten minutes later, she was following him through a nondescript door near the hotel kitchens, down a corridor of service lifts and humming laundry carts, and into a private elevator with a keycard slot. He swiped a black card. The lift ascended smoothly.
His hotel room was a penthouse suite. Expensive, not opulent. A wall of windows showed Lisbon as a sprawl of amber jewels. His briefcase lay open on a low table, a MacBook glowing beside neat stacks of contracts.
He didn’t offer her a drink. He leaned against the desk, arms crossed, dispatching with any pretense of hospitality.
"Micky wants to fuck you," he said, his English accented, precise. "He has wanted ever since you watched him play for Ajax four years ago. The woman in the executive box who never took notes. He asked around. Found out who you were. Or who you pretended to be."
Vanja remained standing, her pulse a steady, controlled drum against her ribs. She said nothing.
"He built the fantasy in his head," De Vries continued, watching her like a scientist might watch a volatile reaction. "Him playing for Bayern, you on his arm. The perfect package. The elite club, the elite woman. It’s adolescent. And powerfully motivating."
"And you can't let that happen," she says, keeping her voice flat, a clinical observer of this dissection.
"No," he smiled, a brief flash of white. "He is twenty-two. He is a child with the body of a god and the mind of a racehorse. Blinkered. He would sign for Bayern Munich tomorrow if he believed it was the only way to have you in his bed. He’d take less money. It would be terrible business."
"I'm not interested in Micky," she said. "Not in that way." It was the truth. The player was a component, a set of tactical data and physical potential. The thought of his hands on her was abstract, distasteful.
"I know," De Vries said. He uncrossed his arms, pushed off the desk. "But he does not."
He took a step towards her. The space in the room compressed. She caught his scent—sandalwood soap, a hint of crisp linen, something else beneath it: a cold, metallic ambition.
"Why are we here then?" she asked, not moving back. She held her ground, the confrontation now entirely on his terms, in his domain, and she needed to reclaim a shred of it.
Another step. He was close enough now that she could see the faint stubble on his jaw, the exact shade of his irises in the city’s reflected glow.
He says in perfect German, the language of their target club, of home, "We both know why."
The switch to German was a deliberate violation, a bypass of professional filters. It made the conversation intimate, secret. His eyes dropped to her mouth, then lower, to the swell of her breasts against the dress’s neckline.
Her own body responded, a traitorous heat coiling low in her belly. Not from attraction, but from the stark collision of agendas. This was the raw, unvarnished deal-making, stripped of steak dinners and legendary intermediaries.
He reached out, one finger tracing the strap of her dress where it sat on her bare shoulder. His touch was shockingly warm. "Bayern’s financial package is competitive with Barcelona’s. It is not superior. Not enough to make me renege on a verbal agreement and burn a relationship with a club that will be a market for me for the next twenty years."
His finger slid under the strap, pushing it slowly down her arm. The dress gaped slightly. "So you need to offer something else. Something that isn't in the term sheet. Something that makes the risk of burning that bridge worth it for me.Personally."
She understood. The clarity was absolute and strangely freeing. This was not romance, not seduction. It was a tariff. A bodily imposition to secure a commercial advantage. He had no emotional fantasy; he had a price, and part of it was her compliance.
Vanja made a decision. She wouldn’t beg or negotiate this. She would control the levy.
She leaned in, closing the last inch between them, her lips a breath from his. "So take it," she whispered, still in German. "Take your price. See if it's worth the bridge."
He moved with a startling lack of tenderness. His mouth covered hers, hard and demanding. His tongue forced entry. His hands went to her hips, fingers digging into the flesh through the fine wool, yanking her flush against him. She could feel his erection, rigid against her stomach.
She bit his lower lip, a sharp, corrective sting. He grunted, pulling back, a smear of blood on his lip. She saw approval in his eyes. This wasn’t about passivity.
He turned her roughly, pressing her front against the cool glass of the window. Lisbon glittered far below, indifferent. His hands slid up her thighs, bunching the heavy fabric of her dress. He tore at her underwear, a sharp rip of silk.
She braced her hands on the glass. "Don't be gentle," she said, her voice muffled by the window.
He didn’t answer. She heard the rasp of his zipper, the rustle of clothing. A second of cold air. Then the blunt, insistent pressure of him, bare and slick with his own urgency, pushing against her. He shoved into her with one brutal, deep thrust.
She gasped, the breath fogging the glass. He was large, and the sudden intrusion was a shock of full, stretching pressure. He didn’t pause, setting an immediate, punishing rhythm, each slam of his hips driving her against the unyielding window.
His hand fisted in her hair, pulling her head back, arching her spine. His other hand circled her throat, not squeezing, just holding, a terrifying claim of possession. He leaned over her, his breath hot and ragged against her ear.
"Is this your pitch?" he snarled, driving into her harder. "Is this your closing argument, you brilliant fucking cunt?"
"Yes," she hissed back, the word torn from her as he hit a deep, internal angle that sent a bolt of dark pleasure through her core."This.The offer."
He fucked her like he was trying to obliterate a thought, to dominate a negotiation through sheer physical force. The room filled with the sound of it: the wet slap of skin, her muted cries against the glass, his low, guttural curses. He shifted his grip on her hip, his fingers pressing into the muscle, his other hand tightening on her throat, and his rhythm broke into something desperate, final.
"I’m going to come in your tight, scheming pussy," he rasped, his voice shredded. "And you will fucking take it as a down payment."
He hammered into her, lost to all finesse. His body locked. A harsh, choked shout escaped him, and she felt the hot, pulsing rush of his release deep inside her. He held himself there, shuddering, buried to the hilt.
Slowly, he softened. Pulled out. The sudden emptiness was a strange, hollow vulnerability.
He stepped back, adjusting his clothing with brisk, efficient movements. He walked to the bathroom without a word, leaving her leaning against the window, her dress rucked up, her body throbbing and used.
She heard water run. When she turned, straightening her clothes with trembling hands, he was back, handing her a towel.Cool. Professional.
He sat on the edge of the desk, picking up his phone. He didn’t look at her.
"The verbal with Barcelona," he said, his voice utterly normal, as if discussing a stock price, "it’s not binding. It’s a promise. Promises get broken." He finally met her eyes. "Schedule a physical for Micky in Munich for next Thursday. Your club will need to exceed their sign-on proposal by fifteen percent. Not for Micky.For me."
She nodded, the motion stiff. The deal was struck. The bridge was burning.
"The courier with the preliminary terms will be at your hotel by ten a.m.," he said. He glanced at his watch. "The elevator is yours. Goodnight, Miss Nielsen."Her real name. Final reveal.