MY BROKEN RULE

CHAPTER FIVE:THE MERGER

Marcus Blackwood had a way of walking into a room like he already owned everything in it — which, in most rooms that mattered to the family business, he did.

"You've been photographed with her twice this month," he said, not looking up from the quarterly reports spread across his desk. "Ms. Hayes. The marketing girl."

"Creative director," Julian said. "And it's called working together, Marcus. It's in the contract you signed."

"It's called a distraction." Marcus finally looked up. "The Adeyemi merger closes in six weeks. Their daughter, our expansion into three new markets — everything we've built for the last decade rides on this, and you're spending your evenings on rooftops with a copywriter."

"Her name is Bella."

"I don't care what her name is." Marcus's voice stayed level, which was somehow worse than if he'd shouted. "Father built this company on decisions, not feelings. You've had the luxury of being the interesting brother, Julian — the one who gets to want things. I need you to be the useful one, just this once."

Julian stood, jaw tight, the boardroom composure cracking at the edges for the first time since Marcus had walked in. "You want me to marry a stranger to close a real estate deal."

"I want you to do what this family has always done." Marcus's eyes didn't soften. "Choose the company over the girl."

Julian didn't answer that. He walked out instead, down forty floors of glass and certainty, and didn't stop moving until he was standing outside Bella's office building with no plan and no idea what he was going to say to her — only the sudden, furious clarity that for the first time in his life, he didn't want to choose what his family had always chosen.

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