01

Damn. Damn. Damn.

Yes, I’m speaking profanity. I’ve sunk this low. If you knew the day I’ve had, you will definitely sympathize.

How old am I again ?

Yes. Just turned twenty-nine

A man in his prime.

A man steering the wheel of the family’s very lucrative business and building a fortune of his own.

A man who’s had his fair share of satisfying, mature relationships with beautiful women.

A man with all the opportunities in the world, the power to make or break multi-million dollar deals, the goods and the charm to have any woman he wanted.

And what did I get told when I walked into my father’s house the evening before his trip to Amsterdam ?

I want you to win over the heart and hand of Charlotte Samuels—a great, beautiful girl I know, who will make you a good wife, my father had said. If you haven’t at least gotten engaged to her after I come back from my trip, I’ll push Francis as CEO when I retire at the end of this year.

I had to hold on to the back of the chair in front of me because I felt lightheaded for a moment—as if the rug was pulled all of a sudden from under me, and I spun on my way down to the floor.

Heart. Hand. Charlotte Samuels. Good wife. Engaged. Francis. CEO.

To say that I was livid would be an understatement.

I hated Francis for many reasons, and there was no way in hell he was getting the CEO position that has been long mine.

And who the hell was Charlotte Samuels, and why has she suddenly factored into a decision my father made years ago ?

I was groomed my entire life to take over my father. I didn’t need to marry some girl to have that happen.

I had made this argument very clear to Dad, but that discussion had simply gone from bad to worse to awful.

My father is a good man—one of those noble, generous, fair types. He’s a great father and he has all my respect.

I love the old man.

I idolize him, in fact.

So when I heard his ultimatum, I freaked the hell out.

I admit I was a little busy sitting there, seething, as he told me about this Charlotte girl with a twinkle in his eye that just infuriated me further.

I said nothing when I left that evening.

I sat in my office for an hour, mulling over my father’s outrageous decision.

I knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t going to change his mind because I asked him to.

But what if this Charlotte Samuels asked him to ?

Surely, he couldn’t pressure her the same way he could pressure his own son.

This was the twenty-first century now. No woman could be coerced into marriage anymore.

I would talk to her and persuade her to convince my father that this was a terrible idea. If my usual persuasion didn’t work, I would offer her something substantial in return for her cooperation.

I hated bribery but this is my entire life at stake here. I’ll play dirty if I have to especially since I feel like I’m the one cornered here without a way out.

I’d talk her into my plan, get her to convince Dad, and he would be none the wiser.

He didn’t need the stress of arguing with me over and over again about this. All that needed to happen here was for one vital part of his plan to crumble and he can’t point the blame at me if she will be the one to refuse.

Plans, plans, plans.

It made me happy when they made sense and fit perfectly together.

One way or another, there will be only one end result to all of this : my freedom.