The Rival I Let In

The Proposal

I spent the better part of a week trying to find a way out.

I met with Aldric twice, going through the will line by line, looking for a clause, a loophole, anything that might let me keep the company without keeping the condition attached to it.

"Can it be challenged?" I asked him the second time, sitting across from his desk with a copy of the will spread between us, sections highlighted like I could argue my way out of my grandmother's handwriting.

"You could challenge it, "But contesting a will of this size typically takes months, sometimes longer. And during that time"

"Vesper runs the company."

"Would the trust structure be in effect? Yes!

I closed the folder. "So the challenge itself hands him exactly what the condition would be."

"Essentially."

I sat with that for a long moment, staring at the highlighted lines that suddenly felt useless. "There has to be something else."

"I've looked, Sabine. I wouldn't say this to you if there were another option." He softened his voice slightly. "I know this isn't what you wanted to hear."

It wasn't. But at least now I knew for certain there wasn't a door hiding somewhere I hadn't tried.

Vesper, meanwhile, had found his own way to remind me exactly how unstable my position was.

He didn't say anything direct. He never did. He mentioned to two board members, in passing, that he hoped I was "settling in well" despite "everything currently unresolved." He suggested in a meeting that certain decisions might be best delayed "until matters were more stable." He smiled at me across conference tables like a man who already knew how this ended.

Every comment was polite. Every comment was a small reminder that my authority was borrowed, dependent, one missed deadline away from disappearing entirely.

By Thursday, the dark circles under my eyes were almost the color of charcoal and this had nothing to do with sleep.

I met Mireille for coffee that afternoon, mostly because if I didn't talk to someone who wasn't circling me like a shark, I was going to lose my mind.

"You look terrible," she said, sliding into the seat across from me.

"Thank you."

"I mean it lovingly." She wrapped both hands around her cup. "Aldric found nothing?"

"Nothing that doesn't take longer than thirty days and hand Vesper the company in the meantime."

Mireille was quiet for a moment, studying me the way she did when she already knew what she wanted to say and was deciding how to say it without me snapping at her.

"You know there's a solution sitting right in front of you."

"Don't."

"Sabine."

"I am not marrying Julianii Marchetti."

"I'm not saying marry him. I'm saying get engaged to him. Publicly. Temporarily. Buy yourself time, secure the company, and then walk away once you don't need him anymore." She shrugged, like it was the simplest thing in the world. "It's not a relationship. It's a transaction."

"It's humiliating."

"It's strategic." She reached across the table and put her hand over mine. "You've spent years proving you don't need anyone to hand you anything. This isn't that. This is using the one resource your grandmother left you, whether either of you likes it or not."

I hated that she was right. I hated it more that I had already thought of it myself, days ago, and kept pushing the thought away because accepting it meant admitting I didn't have a better option, and I honestly didn't.

I called Julianii that evening and asked him to meet me. He suggested his office. I would have preferred neutral ground, somewhere it didn't feel like I'm walking into his territory, but I didn't have the energy to argue about location on top of everything else.

His office was exactly what I expected, clean lines, dark wood, a view of the city that probably cost more than most people's yearly salary. He stood when I walked in, which surprised me slightly. We'd spent three years across conference tables from each other. I couldn't remember him ever standing for me before.

"Sabine."

"Julianii."

"Sit."

I didn't sit. I stood near the window instead, arms crossed, trying to look more composed than I felt. "I have a proposal."

"I assumed as much." He leaned back against the edge of his desk, watching me with that same unreadable calm. "Go on."

"Six months," I said. "A public engagement. We appear together when necessary. We convince my family and the board that this is real. At the end of six months, we separate, quietly, and go back to our own lives. No expectations beyond that. No emotional involvement."

He didn't respond right away. He just studied me, the way he studied a contract before signing it, looking for whatever he might be missing.

"Why six months?" he asked.

"Because by then I'll have secured my position with the board. I won't need the engagement anymore."

"And after that?"

"We end it. Publicly, but cleanly. No scandal. No mess."

He was quiet again, longer this time. I made myself hold his gaze, refusing to fill the silence the way I wanted to.

"Alright," he said.

I blinked. "That's it? Alright?"

"You proposed an arrangement. I agreed."

"You're not going to negotiate terms? Ask for something in return?"

"Should I?"

"Most people would."

Something flickered across his face, not amusement, something quieter. "I'm not most people."

"Then what do you want out of this?"

"I'll tell you when I know."

I stared at him, waiting for him to elaborate, to explain, to give me anything that made this feel less like stepping into a room with the lights off. He didn't.

"That's not an answer, Julianii."

"It's the only one I have right now."

I should have pushed harder. I should have refused to move forward until he gave me something more concrete than an unfinished sentence. But I was tired, and I was out of options, and some small, uneasy part of me had already decided that whatever he wanted, I would deal with it when it surfaced.

"Fine," I said. "I'll have my assistant coordinate the details. We'll need to be seen together within the week. Dinner, something public."

"Understood."

I turned to leave, already regretting the entire conversation, already wondering what exactly I had just agreed to.

"One more thing," he said.

I turned back.

"If we're going to convince your family this is real, you can't keep treating me like an enemy."

I gave him a cold smile. "Then stop behaving like one."

His expression barely changed. Just a little shift, something almost thoughtful behind his eyes.

"That might be harder than you think.”