Her face twists, conflicted. Pride. Embarrassment. Fear of owing someone.
I soften my voice. “No one will touch you. No one will talk to you. They’ll do what I say and leave. Understood?”
She nods, small and exhausted. I lean down and kiss her forehead. It’s not sexual. It’s not transactional. It’s a claim and a comfort, and it’s all I can do right now. Her eyes close on instinct, and for a moment, she looks like she’s letting herself have it. Like she’s letting herself believe I’m real. It guts me.
“I’ll be back,” I tell her.
“Anthony…”
I brush my thumb once more along her cheek. “Breathe. Watch something mindless. Take a nap. And stay right here.” I straighten, grab my phone, my jacket, my composure, and walk back out before I do something reckless like sit beside her and admit I don’t want to leave.
————
The boardroom air is clean and cold. Glass walls. Polished table. Faces arranged like chess pieces. My name sits at the head like a crown I’m expected to wear without flinching.
Karen is already there, legs crossed, posture immaculate, expression curated into concern. A few other board members, men who like to call themselves visionaries, watch me like I’m aheadline. The meeting starts without preamble. That’s how they do it when they’re out for blood.
“The last collection didn’t meet financial objectives,” Peter says, voice clipped. “We’re behind projections.”
“We had supply chain issues,” I respond. “We adjusted.”
“It’s not just the numbers,” Lesley adds. “It’s noise. Public perception.”
Karen tilts her head, as sympathetic as a blade. “Anthony, we’re worried,” she says, like she’s a friend. “The press is circling. Investors are asking questions.”
My eyes narrow. “About what?”
She slides a printed photo across the table. It’s glossy, cropped, but it’s me, on a sidewalk, coat open, jaw tight, and April beside me, hair loose, face turned slightly away. Candid. The room watches my reaction like they’re studying a lab specimen. My hands stay still, but my pulse is racing.
“This is being framed as reckless,” Jean says. “A younger woman. Power imbalance. People are using words likepredatory.”
Karen’s mouth tightens into a performance of discomfort. “Whether it’s fair or not, the optics are damaging. It undermines stability.”
“Stability,” I echo, flat.
Braun, near the middle, leans forward, knitting his fingers. “There’s also the trust clause,” he says. “We’ve been patient. But your personal conduct suggests you’re…not serious.”
The word makes my jaw lock.
Karen looks at the photo again, then back at me. “You have two choices,” she says softly, like she’s offering mercy. “Step down and let someone else lead without this distraction, or present the board with an ironclad family structure that satisfies the trust and reassures the public.”
A beat of silence. All those eyes. All that money. All that entitlement. They want me on a leash. They want me to be predictable. They want me to fold. They think April is a liability. I see her on my sofa with a blanket over her knees, red-rimmed eyes trying not to beg me to stay, and something cold and surgical settles into place inside me. An ironclad family structure. My mouth moves before I fully plan it, because my instincts have always been faster than their games.
“We’re getting married,” I say.
Every head snaps toward me and Karen’s smile freezes. One of the board members says, “Excuse me?”
I keep my expression steady, voice calm, as if this was always inevitable, as if I didn’t just light a match in a room full of gasoline.
“She’s pregnant,” I add, and let that land, heavy and undeniable. “There will be no scandal. No instability. No ambiguity. I will meet every requirement of the trust clause. I will secure this company’s future.”
Karen recovers first, eyes sharpening. “That’s… sudden.”
“It’s decisive,” I correct.
My heart doesn’t pound because of the board. It pounds because I can already see the next problem forming like a storm on the horizon. I haven’t asked April. I’ve just promised her to a room full of people who think they can own me, and now I have to go home, look her in the eye, and make the lie into something that holds.
Chapter 23
