BOUND BY NECESSITY

Chapter 2: The Heir Who Must Marry

[CRANE'S POV]

I was still annoyed about her by the time I got into my car, and that annoyed me even more.

I sat there in the parking lot for a good two minutes, replaying the whole thing in my head. That look on her face when I accused her of staging the fire for attention and the way she didn't even back down, not even an inch, when most people in this city fold the second I raise my voice at them was what is getting me wucked up right now.

I told myself I was mad because she'd literally embarrassed me in front of my own family's venue. I did not let myself sit with the other reason, the one that had nothing to do with embarrassment at all.

"She's just an event planner," I said out loud literally to nobody, which is usually the moment you know you're lying to yourself.

Then my phone rang, and I nearly let it go to voicemail out of pure irritation until I saw the name on the screen.

It was my grandfather's assistant calling. I had one rule when it came to my grandfather.

Which is, never to keep him waiting, because the one time I did, he sold a building out from under me just to prove he could.

"Mr. Smith wants you at the house by eight," the assistant said, skipping his greetings and going straight to the point.

"What's this about?"

"Well, sir, he didn't say, but I think it was just a family emergency." He replied as the line went silent.

I hung up and sat there for a second with my irritation about Selene draining out of me and replaced by something colder.

My grandfather does not call emergency meetings for small things, and the last one had cost my father his seat on the board. He built this company from one small office fifty years ago, and he never let any of us forget it.

He decides who gets promoted, who gets fired, who gets a seat at the table, and who gets shown the door.

He made those decisions the same way he made everything else, without asking for permission from a single soul.

I grew up watching grown men who were twice my age go quiet the minute he walked into a room, and by the time I was old enough to sit at his table as an equal, I had already learned there was no such thing as equal as far as Harrison Smith was concerned.

So whatever this is, it must have been a big deal, and I am not going to walk out of that house smaller than I walked into it.

But unfortunately I broke that promise to myself in under ten minutes immediately after I got there.

I found him sitting behind his desk and not coming around to shake my hand the way he usually did when he wanted something from me.

He let me sit down first, and he let the silence between us stretch more than it needed to, the same trick he always used before saying something he already knew I wouldn't like.

"You know I've been watching Nicholas closely these last two years," he said, finally, folding his hands on the desk in front of him.

"Your brother is settled. He's got a fiancée, a five-year plan, and a woman who knows how to run a household and stand next to him at every dinner that matters. People trust a man who's built something solid at home, and it tells them he can be trusted to build something solid everywhere else."

"And why are you telling me all of these, Granddad?" I said, though some part of me already knew exactly where this was going.

"Well, because the board's been asking questions, Crane. About your stability and whether the man who's going to inherit this firm can hold anything together longer than a project deadline." He leaned back in his chair, watching me the way he watched a building he wasn't sure would pass his inspection.

"Crane, you need to be married before the end of this quarter, or the shares and the family trust go to Nicholas instead." He said, and before I could even process everything, I let out a painful and mocking laugh, because for a second I thought he was testing me, the way he used to test me on job sites when I was twenty-two and still afraid of him.

"You're joking, Papa?"

"Do I look like I'm joking to you?"

"Wait! You want to hand over my entire life's work to Nicholas just because I'm not married? That's insane, even for you."

"Well, I want a Smith running this company who understands what it means to build something that lasts," he said coldly, which even somehow made it worse.

"You have a marriage, family, and roots. That's not me being cruel, Crane. That's me protecting fifty years of work from a man who might decide, three years from now, that he'd rather chase blueprints than raise this company the way it deserves to be raised."

"Dad, you know I've built this firm's current reputation from the ground up," I said with my voice boiling in fury.

"I did that by myself, not Nicholas, and not you either, me alone, and you're telling me none of that counts unless I put a ring on somebody's finger by some arbitrary deadline?"

"It counts," Harrison said, "but it doesn't count enough on its own, not to the board, and frankly, not to me either."

For a second I couldn't find a single word, because hearing my own grandfather say my work wasn't enough despite all I've built was something else to me.

"And if I refuse?" I replied, expecting nothing but the worst.

"Then the shares go to Nicholas, all of them, and even the trust funds too."

"You cannot be serious, Papa."

"Well, I want a Smith running this company who understands what it means to build something that lasts," he said again, and slower this time, like he needed me to actually hear it. "Nicholas already has that. But you have blueprints and an empty apartment."

"I'm not marrying some stranger because you're scared of what happens to your money once you're gone," I said, with my hands curling into fists on my knees without me even noticing.

"You'll marry somebody by the end of this quarter, or you'll watch your cousin sit in your chair, run your projects, and put his name on buildings you designed. All of them die with the inheritance, because it was never fully yours to begin with. It belonged to the firm, same as everything else you've ever built under this family's name." He said finally as I stood up so immediately.

"This is insane, Father! And you know it. What the f**k is this decision of yours?"

"Go home, Crane, and think about what actually matters to you. You've got until the end of the quarter, and not one day more."

I looked at him, and not knowing what else to say, I stormed out of the building and walked out without another word, because if I'd opened my mouth again, I don't know what would have come out of it, and some small, furious part of me didn't trust myself to find out.

****

I came back to the venue that afternoon to sign off on repairs from the fire damage, and that was when I saw her again.

Selene was standing near the entrance, dealing with a client clearly trying to weasel his way out of paying the full balance on his contract.

He kept shouting at her, with his finger jabbing toward her, of which someone who doesn't have confidence would have folded under that kind of pressure just to make him stop.

But she didn't freak out, not for one second, but kept her voice leveled and her hands still at her sides with her eyes locked on his the whole time, and within five minutes the man was signing off on the remaining balance himself, still annoyed, but paying in full all the same.

I stood there longer than I needed to, just watching her work through it.

My grandfather wanted somebody intelligent and somebody who didn't scare easily and who could sit across from difficult people and hold her ground without ever raising her voice.

Just somebody controlled enough to survive a family like mine.

I was looking right at her, and I waited until the client's car pulled out of the lot before I walked outside after her.

"Selene." I called as she turned immediately, and something in her face went guarded the second she saw it was me, like she was already bracing for another complaint about candles or contracts.

"Good day, Mr. Crane. Please, if you're here to tell me I handled that man wrong too, save it," she said, folding her arms. "He tried to shortchange my service by four thousand dollars, and I got every cent of it."

"It's okay, I watched the whole thing," I said. "And you didn't handle it wrong but better than most people twice your age with twice the experience."

That caught her off guard as her arms loosened a little, though she still didn't look like she trusted where this was going.

"Okay, so is there a but coming?"

"No, but," I said.

"Just an observation and a question, if you've got five minutes."

She glanced at her watch, then back at me, clearly deciding whether five minutes was worth the risk.

Then she heaved a sigh of relief. "Five minutes and that's it."

"Fair enough," I said, as there wasn't really a graceful way to say what I'd come out here to say, so I said it straight.

"Selene, I have a business proposal for you."