Sold to the Man I Hate

“You’re not marrying for love, Ava. You’re marrying to save this family.” Ava Bellamy stared at her father across his office desk, waiting for the punchline. It never came. “Say that again.” “Julian Cross is willing to save the company.” Her father wouldn’t look at her. That was how she knew it was true. “In exchange for your hand in marriage.” The room tilted. “Julian Cross.” She said the name like it tasted wrong in her mouth — because it did. “The man who destroyed you. The man who took Bellamy Textiles apart piece by piece for the last three years just to watch you crawl. That Julian Cross.” “He’s the only one with the capital to save us before Friday.” “So sell the house. Sell the cars. Sell anything that isn’t me.” “There’s nothing left to sell.” Her father’s voice cracked, and for one unbearable second, Ava saw exactly how far they’d fallen. “Three hundred employees, Ava. Their pensions. Their families. All of it disappears Friday unless I sign.” “Then don’t sign.” “I already did.” The silence that followed had teeth. “You sold me,” Ava said slowly, “before you even asked me.” “I’m asking now.” “That’s not how asking works!” Her father flinched. Good. Let him flinch. Let him feel one ounce of what she was feeling right now, standing in the wreckage of a decision that had already been made for her by two men in a boardroom she’d never even been invited into. “Thirty days,” her father said quietly. “That’s all he’s asking. Thirty days to marry him, and the company survives. After that — “ “After that, what? I’m free to divorce the man who ruined us?” “After that, you’re the wife of one of the wealthiest men in the country.” Her father finally looked up, and what she saw in his face wasn’t cruelty. It was something worse. Desperation. “There are far crueler fates than that, Ava.” She wanted to scream at him. She wanted to throw something through the window of his office and watch it shatter eleven floors down onto the street below. Instead, she stood very still, because falling apart wouldn’t save the company, and it definitely wouldn’t save her. “I want to hear it from him.” “Ava — “ “If I’m being sold, I want to hear the terms from the man who bought me. Not from you.”Julian Cross’s office looked exactly like she’d imagined it would — cold, glass, expensive, built to remind everyone who walked in exactly how small they were. He didn’t stand when she entered. “Ava Bellamy.” He said her name like he already owned it. “I wondered how long it would take your father to send you instead of coming himself.” “You didn’t have to do this.” “No.” He leaned back in his chair, unreadable, dangerous in the quiet way that made her skin prickle. “I wanted to.” “Why?” “Because your father humiliated my family fifteen years ago, and I’ve spent every year since making sure the Bellamy name meant nothing.” His eyes didn’t waver from hers. “Marrying his daughter is the final word in that story. A very satisfying one.” Ava’s hands curled into fists at her sides. “You’re doing this out of revenge.” “I’m doing this,” Julian said, standing now, closing the distance between them slowly, deliberately, “because I can. Because your father is drowning, and I am the only lifeline in the room. And because, Miss Bellamy, I have wanted to watch your family kneel for a very long time.” “I won’t kneel.” Something shifted in his expression — not anger. Interest. Like she’d surprised him. “No,” he said, low. “I don’t think you will. That’s precisely why I chose you.” “I’m not a prize, Mr. Cross.” “No.” His gaze moved over her, slow and assessing, like a man calculating the value of something he intended to keep. “You’re a debt. And I always collect.” “Thirty days,” she said, forcing her voice steady. “That’s what my father told me.” “Thirty days to marry me. A lifetime to regret it.” A ghost of a smile crossed his mouth — the first crack in his composure, and somehow it frightened her more than his coldness had. “Or don’t regret it at all. That part, Ava, is entirely up to you.” She should have walked out. She should have told him exactly what she thought of him, of this deal, of the arrogance radiating off him like heat. Instead, she found herself asking the one question she couldn’t stop herself from needing answered. “What happens if I say no?” Julian’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Then Friday comes,” he said, “and I watch everything your family has built turn to dust. And I promise you, Ava — I will enjoy every second of it.” The choice wasn’t a choice at all, and they both knew it. “Fine,” she said, hating every syllable. “I’ll marry you.” “I know.” Julian returned to his chair like the outcome had never once been in doubt. “I always get what I want.” Ava turned and walked out of his office with her spine straight and her heart pounding, refusing to let him see how badly her hands were shaking. She had thirty days to become the wife of the man who’d destroyed her family. She had no idea yet that surviving him would be the easy part.