Chapter 1: Lily Harper's POV
I was on my knees in front of a man who owned half my father's future, and he still wanted more.“Twenty four hours, Miss Harper.” Mr. Whitfield did not look up from his desk. “After that, the bank takes the warehouse.”My hands shook in my lap. I pressed them flat against my skirt so he would not see. “My father is sick. He cannot come here himself. Please, if you could just give us until the end of the month.”“I have given your family three extensions already.” He finally lifted his eyes. There was no kindness in them. “This is a bank, not a charity.”I stood up so fast my chair scraped the floor. My sister Nora needed surgery in six weeks. My father's company was the only thing standing between us and losing everything: the house, the small savings, all of it.“There has to be something,” I said. My voice cracked on the last word, and I hated myself for it.“There is nothing.” He waved a hand toward the door. “Unless you can bring me eight hundred thousand dollars by tomorrow morning, the warehouse belongs to the bank.”Eight hundred thousand dollars. I almost laughed. I made forty-two thousand dollars a year doing other people's accounts, wearing the same three blouses on rotation, and eating rice at my desk so I could save enough to help my father with the loan payments he thought I did not know about.“My father built that warehouse with his own hands,” I said. “He carried the first bricks himself. You would take that from a sick man over a number on a page?”“Sentiment does not appear on a balance sheet.” Whitfield slid a paper toward me. “Sign here to confirm you received the notice.”My hand hovered over the pen. Signing felt like agreeing. I set it down instead and stood taller than I felt.“I am not signing anything today,” I said. “Give me until tomorrow morning. I will find a way.”He did not answer. He only turned back to his computer screen, already done with me.I walked out of his office with my chin high because that was the only thing I had left to hold onto. The hallway outside was long and cold, with glass walls on both sides, the kind of building that made people like me feel small on purpose. My heels clicked too loud against the marble.I was still blinking back tears when I turned the corner too fast and ran straight into a wall of a man, dropping my folder, papers scattering across the marble floor.“Watch where you are going,” he said, not even looking down.Something in me snapped. I had just been humiliated in an office. I did not need it from a stranger, either.“Maybe watch where you are walking,” I shot back, dropping to gather my papers.He crouched too, faster than I expected for someone his size, and handed me a page before I could reach it myself. That was when I looked up and made the mistake of meeting his eyes.They were dark, almost black, and completely unreadable. His suit fit like it had been made for exactly his body and no one else's. Everything about him said money, the kind that did not have to explain itself.“You should be more careful,” he said, but his voice had changed slightly. Less sharp. Almost curious.“I had a rough morning,” I said, snatching the last page from the floor. “I do not need a lecture.”The corner of his mouth moved, not quite a smile. “Noted.”“Bad morning at Whitfield's office,” he said. It was not a question.“It is none of your business,” I said, standing quickly.“No,” he agreed, rising to his full height, a full head above me. “It is not.”I stood up, smoothed my skirt, and walked past him without another word. I did not look back, but I could feel his eyes on me the whole way to the elevator, a weight between my shoulder blades that did not lift until the doors slid shut.I did not know his name yet. I did not know that in four days, he would offer me eight hundred thousand dollars for something far more dangerous than money.I did not know he would ask me to marry him.
