Have We Met Before?

AURELIA MARLOWE

“Can you believe he tried to get me to take lactation tablets so I could breastfeed him?”

I nearly inhaled my tea, coughing into my hand while Seraphina made a strangled sound beside me and Ivy carried on as though she had just announced the weather.

“He actually sent me links,” she said. “Articles. Forums. Some woman explaining how you can get your tits producing milk without ever having a baby.”

“Ivy,” I managed between coughs.

“What?”

“Please tell me you dumped him.”

“Obviously. I told him if he wanted warm milk that badly, Tesco was open until eleven.”

Seraphina burst out laughing just as I finally recovered, setting me off all over again.

“And that wasn’t even the worst of it,” Ivy continued.

“There’s worse?”

“Oh, darling.” Seraphina patted my knee. “There is always worse with Ivy’s men.”

“Fuck off. You dated a man who cried during sex.”

“He had feelings.”

“He rang his mum afterwards.”

“That was completely unrelated.”

My stomach hurt from laughing by then, which was exactly why I loved afternoons with them. Ivy had spent most of the past hour sprawled somewhere to my left, judging from the occasional creak of the sofa and the steady disappearance of biscuits from the tray beside her, while Seraphina sat close enough on my right for her jasmine perfume to drift towards me whenever she moved.

I found the handle of my cup again. “So what exactly did your former boyfriend expect you to do?”

“Take the tablets, grow myself a pair of functioning milk jugs and let him suck on my tits like some massive newborn,” Ivy said.

I dropped my forehead into my hand as Seraphina sighed.

“Imagine being six-foot-two and asking your girlfriend to become your personal dairy cow.”

“He said it would make us feel closer,” Ivy replied.

Seraphina made a disgusted sound. “He needs therapy.”

“I did offer him an alternative,” Ivy continued.

Coming from her, that could only mean something dreadful. “What?”

“I told him I’d buy him a bottle, a bib and one of those little machines that warms milk.”

Seraphina’s laugh broke into an undignified snort.

“Ivy!”

“What?” Ivy sounded genuinely offended. “I was trying to be supportive.”

“You have never been supportive a day in your life,” Seraphina told her.

“I supported him on his way out the door beautifully.”

The drawing-room door opened before I could answer, and Ivy’s sudden silence told me who had entered even before my father’s footsteps crossed the hardwood and softened over the rug.

“Seraphina.”

His voice warmed when he greeted her.

“Mr Marlowe,” she replied sweetly.

“Always a pleasure.”

A brief pause followed.

“Ivy.”

“Mr Marlowe.”

They were perfectly polite to each other, but neither of them had ever liked the other.

My father had never understood my friendship with Ivy. Seraphina came from the sort of family he approved of—old money, the right schools and charity boards—while Ivy’s mum had raised three children in a council flat before building a better life for them.

None of that mattered to me. They were simply Sera and Ivy, even if Father had always made it clear which one he preferred.

“I’m afraid I need a private word with Aurelia,” he said. “Charles will have the car brought round for you.”

Ivy got to her feet. “Well, that sounds ominous.”

“Ivy,” Seraphina murmured.

“What? It does.”

Ivy leaned down and kissed my cheek. “See you later.”

“Bye.”

Seraphina hugged me next. “Ring me when you can.”

“I will.”

Their footsteps faded into the hallway, and the moment the door closed behind them, the room felt different.

“Father?”

I started to rise, but he stopped me gently. “Stay there, sweetheart.”

The strain beneath his voice sent me straight back onto the sofa. “What’s happened?”

He sat beside me, close enough for the cushion to dip beneath his weight, and covered my hand with his.

“Marlowe Group is in trouble.”

My stomach tightened. “What sort of trouble?”

“Financial.”

The word left me cold. “How bad is it?”

“Bad enough that we need outside investment, and we need it soon.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because there was nothing you could have done.”

“I’m a shareholder.”

“And you’re my daughter first.”

“Father.”

He let out a quiet sigh. “I thought I could sort it before it ever became your problem.”

Of course he had. He had spent my entire life putting himself between me and anything unpleasant, as though keeping it out of my reach could stop it from touching me altogether.

“What can I do?”

“There is someone willing to invest enough to stabilise the company.”

Relief came too quickly. “Then what’s the problem?”

“He wants something in return.”

My fingers tensed beneath his. “What?”

“A permanent alliance between our families.”

I waited, expecting him to explain, but the silence stretched until the meaning found me on its own.

“You mean marriage.”

“Yes.”

For a few seconds, I couldn’t find anything to say.

Marriage had never felt impossible to me simply because I was blind, but it had always felt distant. My life had been protected, arranged and watched over so closely that I had stopped imagining anyone simply walking into it, much less becoming my husband.

Now my father was asking me to marry a stranger to save the company.

The idea unsettled me, but curiosity slipped in beside it, followed by the smallest spark of excitement I was almost embarrassed to admit.

 “Who is he?”

“Ronan Blackwell.”

The name meant nothing to me.

“He owns Blackwell Capital.”

“I’ve heard of the company.”

“Then you know he has the resources to give Marlowe Group exactly what it needs.”

“Is there another way?”

The pause before he answered told me enough.

“No, love.”

I swallowed. He would never have brought this to me unless he had run out of options, and holding on to that made the decision easier than it should have been.

“All right.”

His hand closed more firmly around mine. “Aurelia—”

“I’ll do it.”

He lifted my hand and kissed my knuckles, and for a little while we simply sat there together before one question pushed its way past everything more sensible.

“How old is he?”

Father laughed, and some of the pressure in my chest loosened with the sound.

“Young enough that I don’t have to object on those grounds.”

I smiled. “Is he handsome?”

“I’m told women seem to think so.”

“That sounds suspiciously like a yes.”

He moved closer until his forehead rested against mine. “He’s thirty-three, handsome, successful and still nowhere near good enough for you.”

A laugh slipped out. “You’re terribly biased.”

“Entirely.”

For the first time since he entered the room, the pressure in my chest began to ease.

Maybe this wouldn’t be awful.

******

I had been sitting in our smaller drawing room with Father beside me and Mr Harrington, our family solicitor, across from us for long enough to recite most of the marriage agreement from memory.

It had been sent to me digitally, and I had listened to every bloody page twice. The terms were painfully practical: a civil ceremony in three weeks, separate assets, no automatic voting authority over each other’s holdings and Blackwell Capital’s investment in Marlowe Group beginning once the marriage took place.

There was something rather bleak about hearing my future marriage reduced to clauses, signatures and investment schedules.

I was still thinking about that when the front doors opened somewhere beyond the drawing room and voices carried faintly through the foyer. A moment later, footsteps crossed the marble toward us, heavy and unhurried enough that I knew our missing guest had finally arrived.

My fingers curled against my dress before I relaxed them. I had agreed to marry the man. Surely meeting him shouldn’t make me this nervous.

The footsteps stopped outside the drawing room, and a moment later the door opened as Mr Harrington rose to greet him.

“Mr Blackwell.”

“Apologies.”

The sound of his voice sent an odd chill through me. It was deep and controlled, but there was something in it that tugged at my memory strongly enough to make me frown.

I tried to place where I might have heard his voice before, but Father was already getting to his feet beside me.

“Ronan.”

“Victor.”

Their brief exchange was followed by the rustle of fabric somewhere in front of me, and when neither man bothered with an introduction, I gave them a few seconds before rising on my own. I knew the drawing room well enough not to need my cane, and a few familiar steps brought me beside Father’s desk.

“Mr Blackwell.”

The room seemed to quiet around me. Somehow, I knew he was looking at me.

“It’s lovely to finally meet you,” I said.

“Miss Marlowe.”

He offered nothing else, not even the courtesy of pretending the feeling was mutual, which told me rather quickly that my future husband might be a bit of an arsehole.

Father cleared his throat. “Shall we get on with it?”

Once we were seated, Mr Harrington took us through the final amendments to the agreement, most of which had already been covered. Ronan spoke only when something required his input, yet every time he did, that strange familiarity returned, brushing against a memory I couldn’t quite reach.

It was still bothering me when Mr Harrington placed the signature guide over the correct line.

I found the edge with my fingertips and signed my name, trying not to think too hard about the fact that Aurelia Marlowe would soon belong to the past in a rather significant way.

The papers were passed across the table, and a moment later I heard Ronan’s pen moving over the page as he added his own signature.

Father let out a soft breath. “Excellent.”

Mr Harrington had started gathering the documents when Ronan spoke again.

“There is one final matter.”

“What is it?” Father asked.

“I want the ceremony brought forward.”

I turned towards his voice as Father replied, “We agreed on three weeks.”

“I want it in one.”

“One week?” I asked, but Ronan gave me no answer.

“That is hardly enough time,” Father said, more sharply now.

“I don’t care about the arrangements.”

“You don’t have to. My daughter still deserves the time.”

Ronan let the silence stretch for a moment before finally directing his next question to me. “Would one week be a problem, Miss Marlowe?”

I lifted my chin. “If I’m marrying you either way, I fail to see what difference another fourteen days will make.”

Mr Harrington covered a laugh with a cough.

“Very well,” Ronan said, giving me no clue whether my answer had pleased him.

Father and Mr Harrington left soon after to discuss the investment schedule, and the closing door left me alone with a man who seemed perfectly content to let silence fill the room.

I heard the faint movement of fabric before his footsteps brought him closer, slow and measured, stopping somewhere in front of me.

“May I ask you something?”

“You may.”

“Have we met before?”

He waited long enough that I began to wonder whether I had offended him.

“No, Miss Marlowe.”

I rubbed my thumb along the side of my finger. “There’s something familiar about your voice. I can’t seem to place it.”

His footsteps brought him closer, and with them came the scent of cedar, clean musk and something faintly spiced. He stopped near enough that his presence seemed to take up all the open space in front of me, and when he spoke, his voice came from far enough above mine that I found myself tipping my face towards him.

“You’ve mistaken me for someone else.”

He sounded certain enough that I should have let the matter go, but even with him standing this close, the strange familiarity refused to leave me.