“Yes.” My father looked at me. “He came to me eight months ago. Told me what he knew. Gave me the same choice he gave everyone, cooperate with his timeline or be destroyed by it.” Something hardened in my father’s face. Something I had never seen there before. “I told him no.”
“And then you built this instead,” Sebastian said slowly, looking at the drive. “You’ve been building a counter case.”
“For eight months,” my father said. “Quietly. Carefully. Waiting for the right moment.” He looked between the two of us. “I didn’t know about the contract marriage until after it was announced. When I found out……” his eyes found mine, “I was terrified. I thought Julian had gotten to you somehow. That you were being used without knowing it.”
“I was,” I said. “We both were.”
“Yes. But you’re not an
