Married To Bury His Secrets: Caught Between Two CEOs

Chapter Two

Beep beep beep.

The voice at the other end of the phone went quiet as the line disconnected. For a moment my world went quiet too.

I must have looked like I'd just been given the worst possible news.

"Are you alright Soph?"

"Yeah. I'm great. He is probably joking. This is another one of his jokes obviously."

Lily was lost. She shot me a puzzled look. But my mind was too jumbled to explain anything.

I saw her mouth move to form a word but I just couldn’t wait to entertain any questions. I stood up, picked up my jacket that had been hanging from a chair, and hurriedly left the room.

"Soph? Sophia Emilia Williams!" Lily tried chasing after me but she was too far behind by then.

It normally took about forty minutes to get to the hospital from campus but this bus ride felt much longer than forty minutes to me.

Dominic Coleman? The richest young entrepreneur in New York City. That same Dominic Coleman, the heir to the prestigious Coleman Group where my father had worked before he was fired?

Room 410… Room 411… There it was. Room 412.

I burst in. "Explain yourself."

My father took off his respirator. "Aren't you supposed to be in school, Sophie?"

"How could I possibly stay composed in a classroom after that bomb you dropped. It was a joke right? I mean, Dominic Coleman?" I sat on the bed next to him.

"He's like the last person in the world I would get married to."

I noticed my father was looking everywhere but at me. He did not seem to share my amusement.

"It is not a joke, my dear."

"So what? I'm supposed to just marry some stranger you chose for me?"

"Listen," his voice grew quieter, more serious. He pulled me closer to him. "You need to trust me. I have already arranged for the both of you to meet. This is something you need to do. For me."

But I could still not understand. My father had always been the one to ensure that I got the best education. He wanted me to be an independent woman and never had he spoken about marriage with me. I was just twenty one years old too.

"This is about the hospital bills, isn't it Dad? You don't think I can handle it anymore?"

"This is not about the goddamn hospital bills!" His voice came back louder and firmer, almost angry.

I sensed the anger but would not back down. My brows furrowed and I let go of my father's hand.

"Well I won't do it. I will not marry a stranger for a reason I don't understand, especially not Dominic Coleman!"

I left the room, faster and a lot angrier than I had stormed in. My mind ran through every possibility, every reason my father could have had but I could not help but feel like I was getting sold.

Part of me still thought that it was a joke. How could he possibly have arranged a marriage with the Coleman family?

Outside the hospital room, on my way back to school, I decided that I would not do it. I would never get married to Dominic Coleman.

"I called the hospital. What happened, Soph?" Lily was waiting in my dorm room when I got back.

"My dad just sold me." I landed head first on my bed, right next to Lily.

"What?"

"I'm supposed to marry Dominic Coleman," my response came begrudgingly.

"The Dominic Coleman?"

"Yep, the one and only."

"How is that even possible?"

"I wish I knew."

For a moment Lily did something very uncharacteristic, she was quiet. It was like the two of us shared in our sadness but for different reasons.

I hated the idea of an arranged marriage, worst of all, with the city's playboy but I knew Lily would do anything to be with Dominic Coleman.

"It can't be that bad," Lily finally broke the silence in the room.

My phone started ringing before I could react to her.

"Of course, it's you dad."

"Answer it."

"Why? So he can tell me more about how to live my life?"

I just watched as my ringtone blared throughout the room, I didn't pick up, even after he called the second time.

Third call. Lily reached out, answered the phone and put it on loudspeaker.

The voice that came from the other end was not that of my father. "Sophia Williams?" It was a woman, she sounded impatient, troubled.

I sprung up from bed immediately.

"This is she, what's wrong?"

"You need to come to the hospital right now. Your father just passed out."

Lily heard the entire thing. She rose to action quicker than I did while I was trapped in a trance after the caller hung up. In my mind, I kept thinking of the worst case scenarios. I could never forgive myself if anything happened to him right after our fight.

"Let's go, Soph! I called Robin, the guy with the car. He can take us."

The ride to the hospital was quiet and even though Robin was driving beyond the speed limit most of the time, the journey still seemed longer than usual.

One of them announced, "we're here." It could have been Lily or Robin, I was not paying enough attention to tell their voices apart.

"Come on, Soph, you're overthinking this. I'm sure your dad's okay. It's just like last time."

There was a nurse outside my father's room, just like last time, but when I looked inside through the transparent glass doors, there were no doctors or nurses gathered around him. He just lay there, on his bed, alone.

‘Lily was right, he is fine. Thank God,’ I thought.

The nurse at the door had most of her face covered in a face mask. She stopped me from going in, just like last time.

"It's fine. I'm here to see him. I'm his daughter, Sophia Williams."

"Oh, I am very sorry for your loss, ma’am. He passed away twenty minutes ago."