Grace
The key is a solid weight in my pocket. A promise. I walk away from my grandmother’s estate, not through the overgrown gate, but out the main drive. The sun is low, painting the sky in bruised shades of purple and orange. For the first time since my eyes snapped open to this second life, the air doesn’t taste like poison. It tastes like possibility.
A car door slams shut, the sound unnaturally loud in the evening quiet. I stop. Theo’s sleek black car is parked half on the gravel, half on the manicured lawn, a blatant violation of a dozen property rules. He stands in front of it, blocking my path.
His perfect hair is slightly disheveled. The charming, calculated smile is gone, replaced by a tight, ugly twist of his lips. This is the real Theo. The one I saw in my final moments.
“Quite a day you’re having,” he says, his voice a low snarl. “Rejecting me. Declaring yourself a businesswoman. What’s next, Grace? Are you going to run for office?”
“If I did, I’d win,” I reply, my tone flat. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m leaving.”
I move to step around him. He moves with me, blocking my way again. He’s bigger than I remember. More imposing.
“We’re not done here,” he says. “You don’t get to detonate my life, our families’ futures, and just walk away to play with your little flower essences.”
“They’re my flower essences. And it’s my life. You seem to be confusing the two.”
His eyes flash with fury. “This is a game to you. A little dramatic scene to get attention. Fine. You have it. Now it’s over. You will call my mother, you will call your father, and you will tell them you had a moment of panic. We will release a statement saying the engagement is back on.”
I almost laugh. The sheer arrogance is breathtaking. “You seem to be under the impression that my ‘no’ was a negotiation tactic. Let me be clearer. No.”
He takes a step closer, invading my space. I can smell his cologne, the same expensive, cloying scent he wore the night he killed me. My stomach turns over.
“Don’t be a fool, Grace,” he hisses, his voice dropping. “You’re a dreamer. An artist. You don’t have what it takes to survive in the real world. You need me. Without me, your family will sideline you, and you’ll be nothing.”
“I’d rather be nothing than be your wife.”
That’s when he snaps. His hand shoots out and grabs my arm. His fingers dig into my flesh, hard and bruising. “You will fix this. You owe me.”
“I owe you nothing.” I try to pull away, but his grip is like iron. Panic, cold and familiar, begins to prickle at the edges of my composure. This is how it starts. The casual dominance. The belief that he owns me.
“I suggest you take your hand off her.”
The voice cuts through the tense air, calm and lethally sharp. It comes from the shadows of the ancient oaks that line the drive. Edmund Sterling steps into the fading light.
Theo lets go of my arm as if he’s been burned. He spins around, his face a mixture of shock and anger.
“Sterling,” he spits out. “This is a private conversation. Stay out of it.”
Edmund takes another slow step forward. He doesn’t even look at Theo. His steel-gray eyes are fixed on me, on the red marks blooming on my arm where Theo’s fingers were.
“It stopped being private when you put your hands on her,” Edmund says, his voice deceptively mild. “And it became my business the moment you did it on the edge of my family’s property.”
Theo puffs out his chest, a pathetic attempt to reclaim his authority. “The Tellers and the Durants have a long history. This is just a small misunderstanding between fiancés.”
“She doesn’t look like your fiancée,” Edmund observes coolly. “She looks like a woman who wants you to leave.” He finally turns his gaze on Theo, and the effect is chilling. Edmund doesn’t look angry. He looks utterly bored, as if Theo is a piece of lint to be brushed away. “So, leave.”
“You have no right…” Theo begins.
“OmniCorp,” Edmund says, the single name cutting Theo off.
Theo freezes. His face goes pale.
“That risky deep-sea venture you’re about to sink your family’s capital into?” Edmund continues, his voice still quiet, yet it carries like a death knell. “My analysts project a ninety-seven percent chance of catastrophic failure within six months. Market collapse. SEC investigation. It will be a bloodbath.”
My breath catches. It’s the same investment I warned my father about. But Edmund’s knowledge is more precise. More terrifying.
Theo stares at him, speechless. He’s been outmaneuvered and exposed by a man who wasn’t even part of the conversation.
“You should be less concerned with managing your ex-fiancée and more concerned with keeping your family out of bankruptcy court,” Edmund says, the dismissal in his tone absolute. “Now, I won’t ask you again.”
Humiliation and rage war on Theo’s face. He shoots me a look of pure hatred, a promise of future retribution, before turning on his heel. He wrenches his car door open, gets in, and speeds away, tires spitting gravel.
The sudden silence is heavy. My arm throbs. I rub the sore skin, my mind racing.
“He won’t stop,” Edmund says, stating the obvious.
“I know.”
“He’ll use his family, your family, the media. He’ll paint you as hysterical. Unstable. He’ll try to force you into a position where accepting him back is your only option.”
“I won’t let him.”
Edmund turns his full attention to me. The setting sun catches in his dark hair. “You declared war last night, Grace. But you showed up to a gunfight with a handful of seeds and a key. It’s admirable. But it’s not enough.”
“I have my grandmother’s support,” I say, my voice defensive.
“Anya Teller is a legend. But she can’t be your shield in every battle. The Durants will attack you on all fronts. Socially. Financially. They will isolate you until you break.”
His logic is cold, flawless, and terrifyingly accurate. It’s exactly what they would do.
“What’s your point, Edmund?” I ask, my patience fraying. “That I should have just said yes and walked quietly to the slaughter?”
“My point,” he says, taking a step closer, “is that you need a better shield. You need a fortress.”
The air between us thickens. The crickets in the long grass begin their evening song.
“And I suppose you’re selling fortresses now?” I ask, a touch of sarcasm in my voice.
“I’m proposing an alliance,” he says. His expression is unreadable, carved from stone. “One that makes you untouchable.”
I stare at him, waiting. The silence stretches.
“A marriage,” he says finally. The word drops into the quiet twilight like a stone into a deep well.
I physically recoil. “What?”
“Not a real one,” he clarifies immediately, his tone all business. “A contract. A strategic partnership. We present a united front to the world. Grace Teller, soon to be Grace Sterling. My name, my family’s influence, the full weight of the Sterling Conglomerate becomes your shield. Theo wouldn’t dare touch you. Your father would have to recognize your power.”
I can’t breathe. My mind struggles to process the audacity of it. He wants to marry me?
“And what do you get out of this… arrangement?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper. “You said yourself, you have analysts. You know the Durant-Teller alliance is a threat to your market share. This union would shatter it permanently. It gives me a strategic advantage in my own ambitions to disrupt their expansion.”
It’s cold. It’s calculated. It makes a horrifying amount of sense.
“You want to marry me as a corporate strategy,” I say, the words tasting like ash.
“It’s the most logical way to achieve both our objectives,” he states, as if discussing a merger. “I provide you with the platform and protection to pursue your work, to reclaim your legacy from Durant and that sister of yours. In return, our union serves my business interests. It’s mutually beneficial.”
I look into his eyes, searching for something beyond the cold logic. The last man who proposed to me spoke of love and forever. This man speaks of objectives and mutual benefits. It should be insulting. It should be horrifying. But strangely, it feels… safer. More honest.
Then I see it. A flicker. A deep, subtle intensity in his gaze that has nothing to do with market shares or corporate strategy. It’s the same unnerving focus I saw in the garden. Something ancient and possessive.
His voice is perfectly level, but his eyes tell a different story. They betray a personal stake in this that his words carefully conceal.
“You’re trapped, Grace,” he says, his voice softening just a fraction. “Theo and your father have built you a very pretty cage. They expect you to fly back into it eventually.”
He takes one final step, closing the distance between us. The scent of bergamot and cedar surrounds me.
“I’m offering you a fortress instead,” he murmurs. “The choice is yours.”
He doesn’t wait for an answer. He gives me a slight, almost imperceptible nod and turns, walking back into the growing darkness under the trees, leaving me standing alone in the twilight with the weight of an impossible choice.
