The alarm had been ringing for a while. I surfaced from sleep with a groan and slapped a hand over my phone. 5:30. Shit. I missed the first two.
I forced myself out of bed and into a quick shower. I was halfway through drying my hair when my phone rang again on the nightstand. I knew who it was even before I looked—the timing was pure Ariana.
But the screen didn't show my assistant's name. It flashed: OLD MAN.
I stared at it. The phone vibrated once, twice, three times against the wood. I'd been avoiding this. I let out a short breath, steeling myself for the inevitable lecture, and picked up on the fourth ring.
"You brat!" his voice barked out, no hello, no preamble. "Why are you ignoring my calls?"
"Shouldn't you be asleep?" I asked, my voice flat.
"I could say the same to you!"
"I have a board meeting, Grandpa. You don't." I tapped the speaker button and tossed the phone onto the bed, going back to rubbing my hair with the towel.
"You ungrateful brat. Don't you know that managing your affairs—since you've decided only your work life is important—is a full-time job? Tsk." He humphed, the sound crackling with disapproval.
I sighed into the towel. "What do you want? You didn't call just to scold me."
"I called yesterday for your opinion on something," he said. I could practically hear the smug smile in his pause. "But since you were so busy, I went ahead and decided for you."
I stopped toweling. A deep, familiar sense of mischief-tinged doom settled in my chest.
"I have a bad feeling about this," I said, my voice dry. "Your decisions are usually detrimental to my health."
"Your lack of faith wounds me!"
"My past experience educates me. What have you done this time?"
"So I was calling because I compiled files of suitable matches for you. I wanted you to pick, but…"
I sighed, pulling on my blazer. "Spill it, Grandpa. I'm late."
"There were so many choices to make, but three excellent ones really caught my eye."
"So you want me to pick one of them. Right?" I said, fastening my watch, already moving toward the door. "Email the files. I'll look later."
"Well… something like that," he said, his voice suddenly dripping with faux innocence. "But I've already reached out to the three families."
My hand froze on the doorknob. The world seemed to narrow to the crackle of the phone line.
"You did… what?"
"I told them," he said, each word slow and deliberate, "that I am willing to marry you off to them."
Silence. Heavy, disbelieving silence. Then my own voice, sharp and too loud in my empty apartment.
"YOU DID WHAT?!"
"Now, now, there's no need to shout," he chided, but I could hear the sheer, unrepentant glee beneath it. He was loving this.
"Grandpa," I said, forcing my voice into a low, dangerous register. "Let me be sure I understand. You have arranged three potential marriages. For me. With three different—and I assume, from your 'excellent' criteria—very powerful families?"
"Precisely!" he chirped, as if he'd just reminded me to pick up milk. "You should be grateful I didn't just pick one for you."
"That's because you know I would not go through with it," I was shouting again as I ran my hand through my hair, storming out into the hallway. Only this man could make me lose my cool like this. "And I've told you a thousand times, I'm serious about someone else!"
"Your job?" he shot back, the word coated in disdain. "Is that the 'someone else'? That's not a person, that's a spreadsheet. And yes, you will go through with this. And if you do it with a smile… I might just grant you that little wish you've been whispering about for years."
The elevator doors slid shut, sealing me in a tomb of quiet. His words echoed.
That little wish.
My breath hitched. The air felt thin.
"You wouldn't."
My voice was a whisper.
"Try me." His reply was immediate, smooth as a blade. "I could do it tomorrow. Or I could bury it forever. Your choice."
A soft, knowing chuckle travelled down the line. "But you're not allowed to go back on your word, either. Once you agree, that's it."
"I should be telling you that!" I snapped.
He only clicked his tongue in reply.
The elevator opened to the garage. Ariana stood by the open car door, her professional mask flawless, but her eyes tracked the phone in my white-knuckled grip.
I slid into the back seat, the leather cool through my suit. The partition was up. A tiny mercy.
"I've heard you," I said into the silence, the words tasting like ash.
"Good. Then you understand the terms. Full cooperation. No backing out. Or my offer… vanishes."
I leaned my head against the window, watching the concrete pillars blur as we pulled out. "I can feel your smugness from here. You've been waiting years for leverage like this."
"Also," he barrelled on, seamlessly changing tack, "it's been three days. You haven't set foot in the mansion. That wasn't our deal when I let you have this… apartment experiment."
"A deal?" I said, letting genuine confusion colour my voice. "Did I promise that?"
"You did!" The petulance was instant, glorious, and so quintessentially him. "You said, and I quote, 'I'll be there most of the time, old man, stop worrying!' Well, I'm worrying! And you're not here!"
A real, tired laugh escaped me. "I know, I know. I'll be there tonight." I softened my voice, cutting through the games. "But with the entire west wing full of cousins and uncles, don't you dare tell me you're lonely."
The line went quiet for a beat. When he spoke again, all the mischief and manipulation had bled away, leaving something raw and quiet.
"I am."
Another pause, longer this time.
"No one understands the rules like you do. And no one plays chess with me. They say it's boring. The ones who try…" he trailed off, the sentence hanging with a profound, childish disappointment. "It's not a game with them. It's a chore."
The fight drained out of me, replaced by a familiar, aching fondness. This was the real wound beneath all his scheming.
"I'll be there tonight," I repeated, my voice gentle. "I'll bring the marble set."
"The one you brought from Istanbul?"
"Yes. And I'll even let you win the first game."
"You will do no such thing," he grumbled, but the warmth was back. "Just be here."
The call ended. I let the phone drop into my lap, as I sighed
"Ma'am?" Ariana's voice came softly through the intercom. "The board meeting. We're five minutes out."
"Thank you, Ariana," I said, not opening my eyes.
The car moved smoothly through the city, carrying me toward one battle, while the ghost of three potential marriages and the fragile, glittering hope of a single,long held dream.