Mom freezes with her phone halfway to her ear, the tinny voice of our family’s attorney barely audible through the little speaker.
Sarah makes a noise that sounds like she’s choking.
Dad stares at Harry with his jaw jutting out, goading a response.
And I feel like the floor is disappearing out from under me again.
“I’m—” Harry starts, swallowing as he takes a step back. “I’mmarried, Ralph?—”
“Don’t give me that,” Dad snaps. “Geraldine’s been gone twelve years, Harry.Twelve. Don’t stand there pretending like you’ve never once considered remarrying.”
Harry’s face doesn’t change. But something sharp flickers across it, so quick I almost miss it. “That was a low fucking shot,” he says quietly.
“And this is a high-stakes deal,” Dad counters. “You think you’ll come out fine if this falls through?Maybeyou will. But I won’t. My company won’t. My family won’t. This deal anchors everything, Harry, you know that. So if you want to keep the alliance from going up in flames and want to keep some semblance of good graces in the public’s eye, then you’ll marry my daughter. Here. Today.”
I feel like I’m floating somewhere above my body, looking down at all of this in horror. The dress, the boning, the sweatcollecting on the back of my neck — it all disappears under the weight of Dad’s words.
“No,” I say, but it’s too quiet, barely loud enough to be heard. I try again. “No.”
Dad turns. The look he gives me is hard enough to strike a match of fear inside me. “You agreed to marry into this family,” he says. “You agreed to all of this. If you’re too spoiled to handle a single change, I’ll give them Sarah instead.”
Sarah makes a sound like a wounded animal. “Dad.”
“You’d seriously put her through this?” I rasp, blinking, the rage slowly starting to catch up to the shock. When I speak again, the words are stronger, angrier,scared. I’ve shielded Sarah for almost all of my thirty years, and he knows exactly how far I would go to do so. “She wants nothing to do with this deal. She didn’t ask for this. You can’t just?—”
“The contract allows for a substitution,” he says, his jaw steeling again. “From both sides, might I add. She’s not married, and that’s all that matters.”
“You wouldn’t,” I whisper.
He doesn’t even blink, just stares me down with that hollow expression I’ve known my whole life. “Try me, Elena.”
As if someone reached out and grabbed me by the throat, I’m yanked back into my body instead of hovering somewhere above.
The dress is suffocating again.
My ribs ache.
My hands are trembling, but I ball them into fists to hide it.
And my father is serious.
Harry hasn’t moved. He’s watching me, silent, unreadable, his arms crossed loosely like he’s waiting to see how this plays out — like he doesn’t want to be here, like he’s trying to work his way out of this.
But Harry doesn’t know the lengths my father will go to if this doesn’t happen.
There's only one thing I can do.
Something shocking.
Something unthinkable.
I meet his eyes and swallow every bit of pride I have.
“Marry me,” I say.
His brow twitches.
His eyes squint.
