Chapter 3 - The Marriage Everyone Had Already Arranged
Victoria Bowmont had never been told she might marry Nathaniel Ashcroft.
She had been raised knowing she would.
There was a difference.
From the time she was sixteen, adults around her had spoken about Nathaniel as if he were not a person but a future event.
At charity dinners, her mother would nod toward him and say, “One day you’ll understand why families like ours stay together.”
At twenty-one, her father began including her in meetings involving Ashcroft partnerships.
At twenty-five, society columns had already photographed Nathaniel and Victoria together often enough that rumors became assumptions.
Neither family denied them.
Nathaniel disliked the arrangement.
Victoria built her identity around it.
Her mistake was believing those were temporary differences.
When Nathaniel finally called her, she was at her apartment overlooking the East River.
“We need to talk,” he said.
Victoria smiled without humor.
“People usually say that before something unpleasant.”
“I told my father I won’t be marrying you.”
There was no sound on the line.
Nathaniel continued.
“I should have said it years ago.”
“Yes.”
Victoria’s voice remained calm.
That disturbed him more than anger would have.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you aren’t.”
“I’m sorry I allowed expectations to continue.”
“Better.”
Nathaniel closed his eyes.
“Victoria—”
“Does she love you?”
The question stopped him.
“Yes.”
He had not told Clare he loved her yet.
The answer still came instantly.
Victoria heard it.
“And you love her.”
“Yes.”
Something inside her cracked.
Nathaniel never heard it.
“All right,” she said.
“Victoria.”
“You’ve made your position clear.”
“I want you to understand this isn’t about humiliating you.”
“No.”
Her voice remained smooth.
“It’s about Clare Whitmore.”
Nathaniel went still.
“How do you know her name?”
“Do you think our parents weren’t going to tell me?”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Victoria walked toward her window.
Below, Manhattan traffic moved in bright ribbons.
“She works for the Harrington Policy Institute. Thirty years old. University of Pennsylvania. Master’s from Georgetown. Her father died when she was sixteen. Her mother lives outside Philadelphia.”
Nathaniel’s expression hardened with every sentence.
“Stop.”
“She rents a third-floor apartment in Brooklyn.”
“Victoria.”
“She earns less in a year than you spent renovating your kitchen.”
“Enough.”
Victoria finally let anger enter her voice.
“You think you can bring someone into this and expect nobody to ask who she is?”
“She isn’t ‘in this.’”
“She became part of it the moment you chose her over twenty years of agreements.”
“I never signed an agreement.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“That’s exactly the problem.”
Nathaniel lowered his voice.
“If anyone from your family approaches Clare—”
“You’ll what?”
Silence.
For the first time, Victoria sounded almost desperate.
“What will you do, Nathaniel? Destroy a partnership worth billions? Humiliate both families? Blow apart everything your grandfather built because a woman ordered coffee with you?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
Victoria closed her eyes.
There it was.
The answer she had feared.
“You’ve changed.”
“No.”
Nathaniel looked toward the Brooklyn skyline.
“I think I stopped pretending.”
He ended the call.
Victoria stood alone.
Five minutes later, she threw the phone hard enough to crack it against the wall.
By February, Clare noticed a black SUV twice outside her office.
The first time she dismissed it.
The second time she photographed the license plate.
When she showed Nathaniel, he stopped speaking.
“What?”
He enlarged the photograph.
“Do you recognize it?” Clare asked.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Nathaniel’s eyes darkened.
“One of my father’s security contractors.”
Clare stared.
“You said they might investigate me. You didn’t say they’d follow me.”
“I didn’t think Douglas would be this stupid.”
“Stupid?”
Nathaniel stood.
“That’s the polite word.”
He made one call.
“Pull every Ashcroft-contracted unit assigned south of Fifty-Seventh.”
A voice answered through the phone.
Nathaniel listened.
“Who authorized vehicle fourteen?”
Pause.
His jaw tightened.
“Cancel it.”
Another pause.
“I don’t care who signed the directive. Cancel it now.”
He ended the call.
Clare watched him.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Nathaniel hesitated.
“A lot.”
“Nathaniel.”
“My family’s corporate security division isn’t normal security.”
“Meaning?”
“It handles sensitive matters.”
“That sounds like language people use immediately before congressional testimony.”
Despite himself, Nathaniel almost smiled.
Clare did not.
He sat beside her.
“My grandfather built relationships with people who weren’t businessmen.”
“Criminals.”
“Yes.”
“And your father?”
“He inherited some of them.”
“And you?”
Nathaniel looked at her directly.
“I’ve spent ten years cutting them out.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“Yes, it was.”
“No. I asked whether you’re involved.”
Nathaniel took a breath.
“Involved enough to know where the bodies are buried.”
Clare’s expression changed.
He immediately added, “Figuratively.”
“Was that supposed to comfort me?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Nathaniel rubbed his hands together.
“Clare, I’ve never ordered anyone hurt.”
She believed him.
That fact unsettled her almost as much as the confession.
“But people are afraid of you.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because fear has value in my world.”
“And do you like that?”
“No.”
He paused.
“Sometimes I’ve used it.”
Clare looked away.
Nathaniel waited.
Finally she said, “I don’t know what to do with this.”
“You don’t have to decide tonight.”
“You always say that when you’re afraid I’m leaving.”
“Because I am.”
That honesty brought her eyes back to him.
He continued.
“If you decide this is too much, I won’t blame you.”
Clare’s expression hardened.
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Turn yourself into some tragic sacrifice so I have to comfort you.”
Nathaniel stared.
“You’re allowed to be scared. Just be scared.”
He gave a small, tired laugh.
“You make everything harder.”
“Good.”
Then Clare’s face changed.
She pressed a hand against her stomach.
Nathaniel noticed instantly.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing.”
“I felt sick.”
“Are you okay?”
“Probably too much coffee.”
But it was not coffee.
Three days later Clare sat alone in the bathroom of her apartment.
Two lines appeared.
She stared at them.
Then checked the instructions.
Then stared again.
Her first emotion was disbelief.
Her second was fear.
Not of Nathaniel.
Of everything around him.
The surveillance.
The family.
Victoria.
The empire.
Clare sat on the closed toilet seat and covered her mouth.
A baby.
She had never planned her life around wealth.
She had never imagined marrying into power.
She had certainly never imagined carrying the next heir to a dynasty she had only recently learned existed.
Her phone rang.
Nathaniel.
Clare let it ring once.
Twice.
Then answered.
“Hi.”
“You sound strange.”
“I’m tired.”
“Are you sick?”
“No.”
Nathaniel became quiet.
“You’re lying.”
Clare laughed nervously.
“How do you know?”
“You pause before lying.”
“That is an incredibly irritating skill.”
“Where are you?”
“Home.”
“I’ll come over.”
“Nathaniel—”
“I’m already downstairs.”
Clare froze.
“You’re what?”
A knock sounded.
She looked at the pregnancy test.
Then toward the door.
Another knock.
“Clare?”
She stood slowly.
There were moments that divided a life into before and after.
Clare knew, even before she opened the door, that this was one of them.
Nathaniel stood outside carrying takeout.
He smiled.
The smile disappeared when he saw her face.
“What happened?”
Clare said nothing.
She simply held out the test.
Nathaniel looked down.
For several seconds, the man who could negotiate hostile acquisitions without blinking seemed unable to process two pink lines.
His eyes lifted.
“Is that—”
“Yes.”
“You’re—”
“Yes.”
He stepped inside and closed the door.
Clare waited for panic.
Calculation.
Questions about timing.
Instead Nathaniel put the food down.
Then he knelt in front of her.
He placed both hands around hers.
“Are you okay?”
Clare’s eyes filled unexpectedly.
“I don’t know.”
“Okay.”
“That’s all you’re going to say?”
“I’m trying very hard not to say thirty things at once.”
A tear escaped.
Nathaniel wiped it away.
“Are you scared?”
“Yes.”
“So am I.”
“You are?”
“Terrified.”
That made Clare laugh through tears.
Nathaniel rested his forehead against her hands.
Then, so quietly she almost missed it:
“I’m happy.”
Clare’s breath caught.
Nathaniel looked up.
“I’m really, really happy.”
She cried then.
Not from fear.
Not entirely.
Nathaniel stood and wrapped his arms around her.
For several minutes neither spoke.
Finally Clare whispered, “Your family is going to lose their minds.”
Nathaniel’s hold tightened.
“They don’t get a vote.”
But that night, while Clare slept beside him, Nathaniel stared at the ceiling.
Because he knew something Clare did not.
The Ashcroft succession agreements were built around blood.
And if Douglas learned Clare was carrying Nathaniel’s child, she would stop being merely inconvenient.
She would become powerful.
Which meant she would become dangerous.
May you like
And somewhere across Manhattan, the people who had followed Clare were still reporting to someone.
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