An Arrange Marriage

SERAPHINA

The scent of aged whiskey and cigar smoke lingered in Viktor Morelli’s office, curling around me like a noose. I sat stiffly in the leather chair across from his massive oak desk, my fingers digging into the armrests, my spine locked in place.

Viktor leaned back, studying me with the same cold detachment he used when handling business deals. Because that’s all I was to him—a transaction. A problem to be solved. Whatever little girl dreams I had of him as being a father to me that I never had were scraped and marred the moment I took away his precious son from him.

“You’ve grown,” he remarked casually, as if he was just noticing me for the first time and maybe he was as he had barely paid me any attention since the day I ruined everything. “You look just like your mother.”

The comparison burned even though it was half right. I do have my mother’s blue eyes and her jet black hair, and the figure that I inherited from her, or maybe it aas due to all the diets my mother subjected me to. But even when all those things made me textbook beautiful, I never felt like it. The reason was no one except my mother, when people say I looked like my mother I hated it because she wasn’t beautiful in my eyes.

She was the woman who never cared for her little daughter, never spared her more than a glance and never gave her a full meal to fill her stomach.

But I didn’t let it show how much it affected me, his comparison to my mother as I asked, “You wanted to see me, Mr. Morelli?”

His lips curled at my formality, but he didn’t correct me. He never did, so he never became anything except Mr Morelli. The man my mother married, the man whose son I sent to prison, the man who hated me. “Yes. There’s an arrangement that needs to be made.”

A sinking feeling twisted in my stomach. “What kind of arrangement?”

“A marriage.”

The single word landed like a slap. I barely kept my expression neutral, but inside, my mind was already spinning. “What?”

“I have arranged a marriage for you to Fernando Houston,” he continued smoothly, as if he were discussing the weather. “He was looking for a wife from a respectable family. He has an empire for which he needs an heir and is a distant cousin to a duke. Marrying into his family will help ours a lot. And as it happens, I happen to have a perfect candidate right here. It’s a perfect match.”

My heart was beating so loud, I think people outside the room would be able to hear it. But I knew even if I threw a tantrum, broke out in tears like I wanted to, it won’t change a thing.

I let out a slow breath. “And if I refuse?”

Viktor’s dark eyes, just like his son’s but they were not as hateful as his son’s had been that night. “You won’t, Seraphina. If you know what’s good for you and your mother.”

Helpless anger curled in my gut, but I bit it back. “Why would I agree to this?”

His expression didn’t change. “Because you owe me, Seraphina. You put my son in prison. Do you think that came without consequences?” He stood up, his eyes furious. “I have kept you under my roof instead of throwing you and your mother out like I should have. But I took pity on you two, now it’s time you pay me back.”

My fingers curled into fists. “Dante—”

“Is my blood. My fúcking son that you sent to prison!" he interrupted, voice quiet but filled with warning. “You disrupted the balance of things, and now, you’ll fix it. I didn’t only keep you under my roof and safe from the local mob who would’ve torn you apart for what you did to my son. But I also made it possible for you to attend the best high school the London has to offer and then have you admitted in the Elite Lords University so you could make a life for yourself.”

“And now you want me to marry someone, how does it help? Everything you did for me will be in vain, won’t it?”

He waved his hand. “Of course not. Fernando is a nice man, he’ll allow you to study further and you can even help him in the business. He has many of those.”

My throat tightened. “I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“Did you give my son and his friends any choice?” He asked, his eyes narrowing on me.

“I did the right thing. What they did—” His eyes flashed and he took a step toward me. I silenced and murmured, “I didn’t have any option.”

“You had many. You chose the wrong one. You could’ve kept your mouth shut and nothing would’ve happened. My son wouldn’t have been in prison for two fucking years!”

I flinched back, my hands trembling. “I am sorry.” I didn’t even remember how many times I have apologised to him and dozen other people over my sin of sending their precious Lords to the prison.

“If you are sorry you will do this.”

____

A. Gupta