Forced To Marry My Dead Fiance's Brother

024 The Move I Should Have Seen Coming

Sebastian

"She can't do that," I said, though even as the words left my mouth, I already knew Beatrix well enough to understand that she wouldn't have filed anything she didn't believe she could win.

"She can petition," Sophie said carefully. "Whether the court grants it is a separate question. Given that she's named in the trust as a family representative, and given that the position has sat vacant for three years without objection from your side, she has a reasonable procedural argument. It's not automatic, but it's not nothing either."

"How long do we have to contest it?"

"Thirty days from the filing date to submit a competing petition or formal objection." Sophie checked her notes. "Which means, given when she filed, you have twenty eight days remaining."

Twenty eight days. I did the math without meaning to, the number landing somewhere uncomfortably close to the timeline of everything else that had happened in the last three weeks, the marriage, the eighteen month clause, the audit findings, all of it compressing into a window that felt less like coincidence and more like a plan executed with more patience than I'd ever given Beatrix credit for.

"I want to file a competing petition," I said. "Someone neutral. Someone she can't argue is biased toward me."

"That narrows the field considerably, sir, given how few people in your circle don't have some connection to the company or the family."

"Then find someone outside the circle. I don't care how far outside. I want this decided by someone who has never taken a check from either side of my family in their entire career."

Sophie nodded, already making notes, and Christabel sat quietly beside me through the rest of the logistics, her hand finding mine again under the desk at some point without either of us commenting on it, a small anchor in a conversation that felt like it was spiraling further out of my control with every passing minute.

We left the office an hour later, the winter sky already going dark despite the early hour, and I found myself unable to shake the sense that we'd just been handed a countdown neither of us had asked to be part of.

"Twenty eight days," Christabel said quietly, once we were in the car. "That's not long."

"No."

"What happens if she wins? If she gets appointed?"

"Then she decides, essentially unilaterally, whether our marriage counts as legitimate under my father's terms. And given everything we now know about what she stands to gain if it doesn't." I didn't finish the sentence. I didn't need to.

"Then we make sure there's no argument to make." Christabel turned to face me fully, something fierce and determined in her expression that I was starting to recognize as entirely, uniquely hers. "We stop hiding this like it's a secret we're ashamed of. We stop performing it for galas and investors and start actually building it, so that by the time anyone asks a court to judge whether it's real, there's nothing left to argue about."

"You make it sound simple."

"It's not simple. It's just clear." She squeezed my hand. "I'm not doing this halfway anymore, Sebastian. Not for the shop, not for the company, not even for Jane, though God knows I'd do anything for her at this point. I'm doing it because somewhere in the last three weeks, this stopped being an arrangement to me. I don't know exactly when. But it did."

Something in my chest cracked open, wide and unguarded, in a way I hadn't let it since before Elena died. "Christabel."

"You don't have to say anything back. I just needed you to know where I actually stand, in case the next twenty eight days get as ugly as I think they might."

I didn't say anything. I couldn't, not with words, not in that moment, so instead I did the thing I'd been holding myself back from since the almost-kiss by the window, since the pancake fight, since every small unguarded moment we'd built without either of us fully naming it. I leaned across the car and kissed her, slow and certain, no hesitation left in it at all, and she kissed me back like she'd been waiting exactly as long as I had for one of us to finally stop being careful.

The car pulled up outside the penthouse before either of us was ready for it to. We broke apart, both a little breathless, both, I think, a little stunned by how far past careful we'd just gone, and Christabel laughed softly, resting her forehead against mine.

"Well," she said. "That's certainly one way to build a case."

"I promise my motives were pure."

"Mostly pure."

"Mostly pure," I agreed, and kissed her again, quick, easy this time, before either of us had to face whatever waited for us upstairs.

What waited for us upstairs was Odette, standing in the entryway with an expression I didn't like at all, twisting a dish towel in her hands like it was the only thing keeping her upright.

"Mr. Vettel." Her voice shook. "Jane's gone. I put her down for her nap an hour ago, and I just went to check on her, and her room is empty, and the window, sir, the window in her room is open, and I don't understand how, because I know I locked it, I always lock it, and."

The rest of what she said disappeared under the sound of my own heartbeat, loud and violent in my ears, and Christabel's hand went ice cold in mine as we both bolted for the stairs.