Scrunching up my eyebrows, I asked, “Wait, 'expected?' That's what's going to happen.” Paranoia raced through my blood. I stared at my parents. “Right? I... that's my future, isn't it? CEO of Halloway Inc?”

They said nothing.

I let my tone get louder. “That's what you always told me. Talk to me. Tell me what's going on—why is he asking about my future?”

Abell rocked back in his chair, but he was no longer smiling. All of us were feeling the heaviness in the air.

“Nix,” my dad whispered. “Let him finish.” His face was pale.

Sweat poured down my neck, I looked back at Corin expectantly. He slid the papers to me, nodding at them. “Miss Halloway, you'll find your answers in there.”

Turning the stack around, I read the words. “This is a contract,” I said slowly, reading deeper as I flipped the pages. “It says that... no. It can't be.” In disbelief, I gawked at my parents. “You sold the majority of the company to Birch Industries? To him? Why didn't you tell me?”

My mother's lips were fiercely puckered. “It was over twenty years ago. We needed the money Corin had, or we would have gone completely under.”

Abell's chair creaked as he adjusted in it. “Why is this only coming up now?”

I had the same question. Staring at Corin, I bent to read further. What I came across in that document made me start laughing. I knew I sounded unhinged, but I didn't care. The contents of that contract were pure insanity.

“This is a joke,” I said, smiling in a way that never reached my eyes. “You're all messing with me.”

“No,” Corin said. “It's not a joke. Not even a little bit.”

Waving the papers, I tossed them at Abell. “Read that. Go on, read what it says.” A joke, I told myself firmly. A giant fucking joke.

Abell turned the pages, and when he reached what was making me laugh, he froze. “This is a joke. It says her and I are supposed to—”

“Get married!” I cut him off, pushing my chair away from the table. “Isn't that hilarious? They expect me to marry you, of all people, so that your father will return the majority ownership to my parents!”

Insanity. Ridiculous.

I couldn't, even for a second, allow myself to think this was real.

My mother pinched the bridge of her nose. “That's what I agreed to when he loaned us the money. Corin wants you to marry his son and give him a grandchild.”

“It's a giant fucking joke,” I nearly shouted.

She scowled and said, “Don't overreact.”

“Overreact!” Throwing my hands up, I looked at them one by one. “You're trying to tell me that after all these years of killing myself for this company, years of working with the expectation that I'd take it over someday, that now I could lose everything, and you want me to not overreact?”

My mother shut her eyes, saying nothing.

Corin sighed. “Miss Halloway, this is all very real, and all very serious.”

“Fine,” I said, crossing my arms. “This contract is impossible to enforce. You can't make people marry each other or get pregnant! This isn't the eighteen-hundreds.”

He nodded. “True. I can't force you to marry Abell. However, you're deciding your fate—and the fate of everyone working for this company. Marry him, give me a grandchild, or watch as I absorb this company and remove everyone you know and care for from its property. Including you and your family.”

Cold prickles grew along my spine.

He was serious.

This would change everything about my world.

Lifting my chin, I stared Corin down. Then, I turned towards his son; the man I'd slept with last night. A man everyone here expected me to sleep with again. Marriage? A baby? That wasn't the future I'd been chasing.

But if I didn't agree, they'd rob me of the one thing I'd run myself into the ground for.

Not just me. My parents...

And Gram.

What was I supposed to do?

“You,” I said, gesturing at Abell. “You're being really quiet. Aren't you upset? This affects you, too. Don't you realize that?”

His eyebrows went up. “I'm not stupid, of course I know it affects me.”

Suspicion infected me. “Did you know this was going to happen?” He didn't act like he recognized me last night, or this morning, but...

Abell curled his lip in disgust. “I had no fucking clue.”

“Then say something! Tell me what you're thinking!”

“About which part?” he asked, tilting his head. “The bit where I'm supposed to marry you, or the part where, if I don't, I lose nothing?”

I opened my mouth, but Corin spoke first. “You misunderstand, Abell. If you don't marry her, I'll happily cut off your access to my money. It's about time you learned to stand on your own, anyway.”

Shock burned through Abell's expression. “Is that so? How fucking considerate of you.”

My sourness was briefly relieved by Abell's situation. Good, let him see how it feels to be threatened. I didn't want to delight in his misfortune, but it was nice to have someone in the same shoes as me.

“You're awful,” I said softly, seething. “All of you. How can you plan my future like this? How can you just decide I'm supposed to marry a guy like... like him?” I threw my arm out to indicate the tattooed man.

Abell's lips slid into a neutral line. “A guy like me?” Then, a wicked smirk took over his face. “Why do you think 'a guy like me,' who can have any woman, would want to marry you?”

Tensing up, I felt my jaw drop open. He wouldn't want to marry me? Don't think about what he said, that's not important! What did I care if he rejected me? I wasn't marrying anyone! I had dreams, goals, so much to do...

And settling down to pop out babies wasn't in my cards.

Breathing in sharply, I stood out of my seat. “I'm done with this. I'm not going to sit here and let you turn me into some brood mare.”

“Nix,” my father gasped, reaching for me. “Think about what you're doing! If you don't agree to marry him, we'll lose everything!”

I knew he was right, but the disgust—the rage inside of me—was burning away any part of me that could be patient enough to debate this. “I can't agree to anything,” I snapped. “Not here, not without—I don't know, some time to think!”

My mother spoke, but her eyes stayed on her lap. “If you'd read the contract closer, you'd see you have time. Nothing is final until the day of the wedding passes.”

“The day of the wedding,” I laughed bitterly. “Great. Fantastic. When is that?”

“One month from tomorrow,” Corin said calmly.

One month.

That was all I had.

Abell lifted his hand in the air. “Isn't that sort of fast?”

I grabbed the door handle, shoulders hunched. Again, my father called out to me. “Where are you going?”

Gritting my teeth, I glared at him. “I already said I wasn't going to sit here while you guys wrapped me up like a present to hand over to a manwhore like him!”

Abell didn't hide the low boil of distaste that filled his glare. What I'd said or how I'd said it, I'd managed to piss him off.

Let him be mad, I thought firmly. It was his family that had set out to ruin my life.

They thought they could force my hand, but I wasn't going to let anyone choose my future.

Without looking back, I slammed the door on all of them.

- Chapter Three -

Abell

That woman was a piece of fucking work.

Manwhore?

Sure, I'd been called that name and worse before, but somehow when she'd said it—her tone seething with disgust—it had hit me hard. So fuck her, I didn't need her to like me.

My father had dropped a bomb I'd never expected. For years, I'd lived comfortably on the money my family had earned. I never wanted for anything, women and expensive toys were at my fingertips.