Chapter 4

"I have an appointment," I lied, glaring at the security guard blocking the elevator like his body was some kind of wall.

"Ma'am, I don't have you on the list."

"Then check again." My voice grew higher than I'd meant it to. "Rhys Calloway is expecting me."

Well, he wasn't. I knew he wasn't, but I didn't care. After that public announcement this morning, I rushed down to his company, intending to give him a piece of my mind.

How dare he?!

Two more guards drifted over, drawn by the scene I was making in the middle of a lobby full of people in suits pretending not to stare.

Despite the adrenaline coursing through my veins, I could feel my face heating up. My hands curled into fists at my sides, the whole morning's fury finally boiling over into this one stupid confrontation with a man just doing his job.

Fuck Rhys Calloway. It wasn't enough that he bought my father's company for scraps. It wasn't enough that he humiliated me in front of half the city last night and then had me dragged out by security like garbage.

No, he had to wake up this morning and declare me his fiancée to the entire country. Some kind of sick joke. Some new way to grind my family's name into the dirt, and now I was supposed to just sit at home and take it?

"Ma'am, I'm going to need you to step back—"

A voice crackled through someone's earpiece. I watched the nearest guard go still, listening, and then his whole face changed.

"Let her through," he said, sounding baffled by his own words.

Wait… what?

"Mr. Calloway said let her through."

Immediately, the other guard said that the three of them practically fell over themselves apologizing, stepping aside so fast you'd think I was royalty instead of the woman they'd been ready to physically remove thirty seconds ago.

I didn't say anything. I just walked past them with my chin up, playing along like I hadn't just been shocked out of my own anger for half a second.

By the time I reached the top floor, that anger was back in full force.

His secretary stood up from her desk the second she saw me coming, already saying something about needing to check his schedule, but I didn't stop walking.

I shoved the office door open hard enough that it slammed against the wall.

Rhys was on a call, phone pressed to his ear, standing by the window like he owned the entire skyline outside it. Maybe he did, but I didn’t care one bit.

He glanced at me, unbothered, and calmly wrapped up whatever he was saying before setting the phone down.

That calmness he had going on made me angrier than anything else could have.

I crossed the room at full speed, my hand swinging from my side, and slapped him hard before I'd even fully decided to do it.

The sound of it cracked through the office, satisfying.

His head barely turned with the force of it, and for one second neither of us moved. Then his jaw locked, tight enough that I could see the muscle tick in his cheek, and something dark flashed behind his eyes.

But he didn't say anything. He just looked at me with dark intent, and for the first time since I'd walked in, I felt a flicker of fear crawl up my spine, because he looked like a man who was ready to murder me and probably get away with it.

Had I gone too far? Maybe slapping a man with that much money and power wasn't the smartest move I'd ever made.

I shook the thoughts away, shoving the fear down and letting the anger take over instead.

"How dare you?" I snarled, my voice shaking. "You destroyed my family, you humiliated me in front of everyone last night, and now you wake up and tell the whole country I'm engaged to you? What is this, some kind of game to you? Some new way to punish the Harts for existing?"

He didn't flinch at the hate behind my voice, just stood there with his jaw still locked and his shoulders rigid, watching me like he was waiting for me to run out of air.

"Are you done?" he asked, voice low and even.

"No, I'm not done—"

He reached into the drawer of his desk without breaking eye contact and pulled out a folder, setting it down in front of me hard enough that it slid across the polished wood.

"Read it," he said, and I eyed him suspiciously.

"I don't want to read anything you—"

"Read it, Aurelia."

I froze, immediately hating the way my name sounded coming out of his mouth. I hated it more that my hands were already reaching for the folder despite myself.

What the hell? It was a contract, and anger boiled inside me as I skimmed through it. One year of marriage. Full payment of every medical bill Jace would ever need, past and future, in exchange for my name on a piece of paper and a ring on my finger for the cameras.

I laughed out loud, the sound of it coming out sharp and humorless. "You think I'd actually agree to this?" I waved the file in front of him.

"I think you're smart enough to know what you're being offered."

"And I think you're a monster who wants to own the last thing left of my family, and you're calling it a marriage proposal." I threw the folder back at him, papers scattering across the desk, some of them fluttering to the floor. "I would rather struggle for the rest of my life than owe you anything. I would rather watch every door in this city slam in my face again than let you buy me like you bought my father's company."

A look flickered across his face again, but it disappeared too fast for me to name it. I didn't stick around to figure out what it meant.

I turned on my heel and walked out, past his secretary, and the guards who still looked terrified of me for reasons I didn't fully understand, and out into the cold air outside the building, my chest heaving as if I'd just run a marathon instead of a hallway.

Before I made it to the curb, my phone rang, an incoming call from an unknown number.

My heart leaped out of my chest as my stomach churned uncomfortably. I picked up, heavy breathing sounding on the other end.

"Ms. Hart?” The voice said, and I instantly knew it was from the hospital. I swallowed hard, my heart threatening to claw out of my chest.

The voice was clipped, urgent, none of the gentle padding doctors usually wrapped around bad news. "Your brother's had another cardiac arrest. We need to move up his surgery immediately, we don't have thirty days anymore, we barely even have a few."