chapter 2
The room spun around me, faces blurring into a single, approving mass.
Only my mother remained in focus, silently warning me not to crack, not to shatter the pristine veneer we’d spent a lifetime polishing.
“What a brilliant match, Gunther,” Mr. Henderson said, clapping my father on the shoulder. “The Wallace and Harris dynasties united. Brilliant strategy.”
Strategy.
As if my life were nothing but a corporate merger. My body the fine print of a contract I never signed.
“You’re a lucky girl, Mikaela,” Mrs. Covington gushed, her diamond bracelet catching the light as she reached for my hand. “Anthony Harris is only three years your senior—handsome, Harvard Business School, and heir to one of the most prestigious investment firms in the country.”
I forced my lips into the shape of gratitude while inside, something primal clawed at my ribcage, desperate for escape.
“How… fortunate,” I managed before taking a sip of my wine, the words tasting like ash.
Across from me, Josie’s usual sharp wit had dulled to a silent try of comfort.
Her eyes met mine, a brief connection in a world suddenly tilted on its axis. I watched my parents lean toward her, their voices lowered but not enough.
“She’ll thank us eventually,” my mother whispered, her smile smug with satisfaction. “Some girls search their whole lives for what we’ve handed Mikaela on a silver platter.”
Every word sank into my flesh like tiny hooks, pulling me apart cell by cell.
I wondered if it was possible to disappear while everyone watched.
To dissolve into the expensive air of this restaurant and float away, leaving nothing but an empty emerald dress in my place.
“I believe it’s time we call it a night,” Father announced, rising from his chair with the authority of a man accustomed to ending conversations at his convenience.
“Caleb, you’ll stay at the estate tonight. We have much to discuss in the morning.”
I hadn’t known Caleb would be coming home with us.
The knowledge sent a strange current through my veins—fear and anticipation twisted into something I couldn’t untangle.
In the car, silence wrapped around us like a shroud.
Caleb sat in the passenger seat beside our driver, while I was sandwiched between my parents in the back.
Father’s voice sliced through the quiet, each word another brick in the wall he’d built around my existence.
“Excellent evening, wouldn’t you say? The announcement was received perfectly. The Harris family will be pleased.”
Mother nodded. “The fall wedding will be magnificent. September light is the most flattering for photographs.”
They discussed my life as if I weren’t there, as if I were a project to be managed rather than a person with a beating heart.
I stared at the back of Caleb’s head, at the way his dark hair curled slightly at the nape of his neck.
Once, his eyes caught mine in the rearview mirror, and something electric passed between us—a current of mutual recognition, of understanding.
The connection broke when he looked away, and I felt its loss like a physical pain.
The estate loomed before us, a monument to wealth disguised as a home.
In the grand foyer, Father summoned the staff with a snap of his fingers.
“Show Mr. O’Brien to the blue guest suite. Give him whatever he requires.”
Caleb thanked them with a warmth my father never showed the staff. Before following them upstairs, he turned to me, his gaze lingering for a fraction too long.
Something unspoken passed between us—a silent acknowledgment of the storm brewing beneath the surface of this perfect tableau.
I watched him ascend the staircase, my eyes tracing his movements until he disappeared from view. Taking with him some vital element I hadn’t known I needed until it was gone.
“Goodnight,” Father said curtly, already turning away, Mother a shadow at his heels.
The dismissal ignited something in me—a spark of defiance I’d suppressed for twenty-two years.
“I need to talk about this engagement,” I said, my voice low but sharp enough to cut glass.
They froze, twin statues of privilege and power.
Mother turned slowly, fear flickering across her face like a candle in the wind. Father’s expression darkened, thunderclouds gathering on the horizon of his features.
“We’re not having this conversation in the hallway,” he snapped. “Both of you—my study. Half an hour.”
Thirty minutes later, I sat rigid in one of the leather chairs facing my father’s imposing mahogany desk.
Mother perched beside me, her posture perfect even in her discomfort.
Father paced behind his desk, each step a threat.
“Your attitude is not just disappointing, Mikaela, it’s ungrateful,” he began, his voice a scalpel cutting through any illusion I had of being heard. “And Camille, your failure to properly instill respect in our daughter is evident tonight.”
Mother flinched as if struck, but remained silent.
“Do you have any idea how fortunate you are?” he continued, stopping pacing.
He was now pointing at me with a finger that had crushed business rivals without remorse.
“The Harris family is our equal—strong, traditional, powerful. They want their son to marry a woman who embodies their values. A pure, virgin woman from a respectable family, raised with discipline and honor. You fit that mold perfectly.”
The word ‘virgin’ in my father’s mouth made me want to claw my skin off.
That my purity was a selling point in this transaction twisted something deep inside me.
“This arrangement isn’t just a marriage, it’s a statement. A model for what family should still mean in this broken world.”
His words settled in the room like lead, heavy and poisonous.
“And let me be absolutely clear: if you fail to fulfill your part of this agreement in four months, if you try to run, refuse or rebel, you will be cut off completely. No trust fund. No credit cards. No apartment. No name. Nothing. You’ll learn what life looks like without the Wallace name to protect you. Because beyond this role, Mikaela, you have nothing. There is no other future waiting for you out there.”
Each syllable drove deeper into my chest, puncturing the fragile bubble of hope I’d been nurturing.
But beneath the fear, something else stirred—a fury so pure it burned away the edges of my learned helplessness.
“I’ve been the perfect daughter,” I said, my voice trembling not with fear but with rage. “I’ve followed every rule, kept every appearance. And still, I’m not allowed to choose my own life?”
Father’s laugh was devoid of warmth, a sound made of ice and contempt.
“Your mother and I had an arrangement too, and we built a life others envy. You’re lucky to follow in our footsteps!”
A bitter truth crystallized in my mind as I turned to Mother.
Really seeing her for the first time—the careful makeup that couldn’t quite hide the emptiness in her eyes, the practiced smile that never reached beyond her lips.
“And are you happy, Mom?” The question emerged, razor-sharp and unavoidable. “Because from where I stand, you don’t look happy. You look trapped.”
Mother’s eyes widened, the careful mask slipping to reveal raw terror beneath—not at my words, but at the truth they exposed.
The truth she’d spent decades burying beneath designer clothes and society smiles.
Before Father could respond, she rose from her chair in one fluid motion and struck me across the face with an open palm.
The crack echoed through the room like a gunshot.
My head flew to the side, my hand flying to my burning cheek when the metallic taste of blood bloomed where my teeth had cut the inside of my mouth.
But it wasn’t the physical pain that stunned me into silence—it was the betrayal in that single, violent act.
Twenty-two years of complicity, of silent acceptance, concentrated into one searing moment of truth.
In my mother’s eyes, I saw not anger, but terror.
The terror of a woman who recognized her own reflection in a daughter who dared to speak what she had never been brave enough to acknowledge.
