The CEO's 25th Hour Bride

Chapter 2

Lyra’s

“No… not now,” I whispered, gripping the counter.

The world lurched sideways, colors warping and collapsing into blinding white. My breath caught, trapped halfway in my chest.

Then the vision slammed into me.

I saw myself on the floor of my room.

My body was twisted unnaturally, one hand clawing weakly at the carpet, the other reaching for something that wasn’t there. My lips were pale, trembling. My chest barely rose. My eyes—God, my eyes were wide with terror, mirroring the same frantic, choking breaths from the fragments I remembered of my mother’s last night.

I felt the terror of it as if I were inside that dying body, drowning in my own airless lungs, my life slipping through shaking fingertips.

My heart pounded so violently I thought it would burst.

“No…” My voice trembled. “It can’t be… it can’t be me.”

Then the store snapped back into focus—harsh lights, humming refrigerators, the smell of cheap candy… and my trembling hands.

I pressed my hands to my chest, trying to steady the tremor of it, but the phantom weight of my own death lingered like a second skin.

I grabbed my bag with trembling fingers, my mind wasn’t done spiraling. I stepped outside, locked the store behind me, and started home.

The night air felt colder than usual. Each streetlight I passed flickered, smearing into a streak of gold as if the world couldn’t decide whether to stay solid or fall apart. I shoved my hands into my pockets, replaying the vision in my head.

It wasn’t a fall, or a cut, or a house about to explode.

It was me.

A chill crawled up my spine.

Had I just seen my own death?

The thought alone made my chest tighten painfully. My visions were always warnings… but what was I supposed to do with a warning about myself?

I replayed the fragments, trying to make a meaning out of the vision. I couldn’t tell if it meant danger was close… or inevitable.

Maybe the universe was just cruel like that.

Maybe I was born to be cursed twice.

By the time I reached our gate, my heart felt like it had been wrung dry. The house loomed in front of me, dark except for the faint light spilling from the hallway.

It was too quiet.

Not the peaceful quiet that comes when a house finally rests…

but the kind that waits for something to happen.

I pushed open the door as gently as I could and slipped inside. My keys clicked softly into the bowl by the entrance. For a second, I considered heading straight to my room. If I moved lightly enough, maybe no one would—

“Lyra.”

My father’s voice cut in from behind me, sharp and cold enough to freeze my steps.

I turned slowly.

He stood in the doorway of his study, half-shadowed, as if he had been standing there longer than he should have. His expression was unreadable.

“Get in here, now.” he said simply, and walked back in.

A sigh escaped me before I could stop it. I was bone-deep tired. I followed behind him, the dread settling in my chest

Whatever he was about to say, it wasn’t going to be something I wanted to hear.

He stood behind his desk, hands clasped behind his back like he was preparing for a business negotiation instead of a conversation with his daughter.

I stayed by the door. “What’s going on?”

“We’ve made a decision,” my father said. “It concerns your future.”

That word “future” landed like a stone in my throat. After the vision I’d just had, it felt almost cruel. Besides, my father had never, not even once, cared about my future.

“What decision?” I asked, though part of me already knew I wouldn’t like the answer. My fingers tightened around the strap of my bag.

My father inhaled slowly. “Maverick Cole sent a proposal,” he said, lowering himself into his chair with the authority of a judge delivering a verdict. “You will be getting married in two weeks.”

“What?!” The word ripped out of me, raw before I could think.

Marriage? In two weeks? And to Maverick Cole?

Images of Maverick Cole flashed through my mind instantly. A tall, silver-haired man with a cane leaning against his chair.

He was my father’s age — maybe older. They've been business rivals for over a decade, someone even my father feared. That man didn’t ask for things — he acquired them and with any means necessary, illegal or not.

My father telling me I was going to marry such a man meant there was more to it.

“No…Dad,” My voice cracked. “You can’t just give me away.”

“Our family is at risk, Lyra. Maverick Cole is ready to provide the security we need,” he replied, his tone infuriatingly calm. “This marriage stabilizes everything, you will be taken care of.”

“I already take care of myself,” I defended. I wasn't ready for marriage, it had never crossed my mind. And now, he wants me to marry someone as old as him for some "security”.

He gave me a long, silent stare before standing from behind his desk. He moved slowly, as if savoring the moment. His eyes never left mine.

I dropped my gaze first.

Even at twenty-four, I still feared this man.

The kind of fear that had been carved into me since I was little and now lived in the bones.

My father had never been the kind who comforted me.

He only demanded, corrected, controlled.

And I learned early — painfully early — that keeping quiet meant survival.

He stepped closer, each footstep soft but suffocating, shrinking the room around me. When he reached me, he stopped just inches away. His presence felt like a wall closing in around my ribs.

“Lyra,” he said my name in a way that made my stomach drop. “The papers are already arranged. All you have to do,” his hands settled on my shoulders, fingers pressing down hard enough to sting—“is sign it. You understand that?”

The pain shot through my shoulders, sharp and humiliating. I winced but didn’t dare move.

I looked up at him, and the truth clicked into place like a knife sliding between ribs.

He had already accepted the arrangement. Signed it in his mind long before saying a word to me.

He wasn’t asking for my opinion, he was simply… informing me.

Part of me wanted to yell, to throw every fear and resentment I’d swallowed for years back at him, that I wasn’t his to trade away but I forced myself to stay steady.

“So that’s it? You made this decision without me?” My voice shook as I spoke, trying to fight back the tears welling up in my eyes.

He looked away, a dismissive flick of the eyes. “You have two weeks to prepare.”

Then he released my shoulders and walked back to his desk, already reaching for another file as if I were nothing more than an item on a to-do list he’d just completed.

I stepped out of my father’s study with my pulse still beating in my ears. The door clicked shut behind me like it was sealing the decision into the walls.

I breathed out slowly, trying to keep my hands from trembling. My skin still crawled where my father’s fingers had dug into my shoulders.

I just needed to reach my room now.

But of course, the universe wasn’t finished with me.

Halfway up the stairs, I heard laughter — Odette’s and Angela’s. They descended the staircase side-by-side, linked like two pieces of a perfect portrait, sharing some private joke the house gladly carried for them.

The moment their eyes landed on me, the laughter snapped off sharply.

I felt myself shrink into the corner of the staircase, my fingers clenched the railing so tightly my knuckles whitened.

I wished the floor would swallow me whole.