What They Didn’t See Coming

Ava's POV

I heard footsteps again, coming from the direction of the kitchen and I quickly pushed off the wall and moved.

I walked quickly past the guest bathroom, the footsteps grew louder.

I turned the corner into the main hallway and slowed immediately, smoothing my sleeves, dropping my shoulders, rearranging my face into something unhurried.

My father rounded the opposite corner four seconds later.

He stopped when he saw me.

I stopped too, blinking at him like I'd simply been wandering. Like I hadn't just been inside his study with my phone pressed to every document in his top two drawers.

His eyes moved over me.

I felt each second of that look like a held breath.

Then he said, "Go back to the sitting room. Diana is still here."

I nodded and turned around.

My hands were steady even though my heart pounded.

Diana left forty minutes later.

I sat through the remainder of her visit with my hands folded and my expression soft, nodding in the right places, accepting the pat on my hand she gave me on her way out like I was something fragile she was being generous toward.

"Think about what I said," she told me at the door.

I nodded and Ethan walked her to her car.

Vivian watched him from the window.

I turned and went upstairs to my room.

I closed the door, and sat down on the edge of the bed.

Then I pulled out my phone.

The photographs loaded slowly, one after another. Fourteen pages from the merger folder alone. The Chen Industries letter. Two additional documents I hadn't had time to properly identify before I heard my father's footsteps.

I heard a knock on the door and I locked my phone and slid it under my thigh.

I pressed my lips together and then the handle turned and my father stepped inside.

He looked around the room the way he always did when he entered it.

His eyes landed on me.

"You've been up here since Diana left?" he asked.

I nodded.

He closed the door behind him and remained standing near it, his hands in his pockets.

"We need to talk," he said.

"Diana called me before she left," he said. "She thinks you've been under too much stress."

I kept my face blank.

"I told her that wasn't the case." His voice was sharp. "You're going to make me a liar?"

I shook my head slowly.

"I'm going to speak plainly," he said. "Because I think we're past pretending you don't understand what's at stake."

I folded my hands in my lap and waited.

"The Arande Group is in debt." His voice was flat. "The Chen merger is the most efficient solution I have available. Your marriage to Ethan is a financial instrument, Ava."

I held his gaze and kept my breathing steady.

"I know you're unhappy," he continued. "I'm not blind to that. But unhappiness is temporary. Financial ruin is not." His tone was firm. "You'll marry Ethan at the end of the month as planned. The engagement dinner proceeds next week and what happened yesterday in front of everyone, it won't happen again."

The room was very quiet.

I nodded slowly.

He studied me for a moment longer, like he was searching for something in my face that would contradict the nod I'd just given him but he didn't find any.

"Good," he said finally.

He straightened his jacket and moved toward the door. His hand found the handle and then he paused without turning around.

"The engagement dinner is next week," he said. "I expect you to be presentable and cooperative. No signs,no performances. You smile, you sit beside Ethan, and you let the evening go smoothly."

I said nothing.

He took that as agreement because it was easier than considering the alternative.

"Get some rest," he said.

The door clicked shut behind him.

I listened to his footsteps move down the hallway, down the stairs, and fade into the floor below.

Then I sat very still for a moment.

The room felt different when he was gone. Like the air had stopped holding its breath.

I reached under my thigh and pulled out my phone.

I went back to the documents first, scrolling through the photographs slowly this time without the pressure of a ticking clock. The merger terms, the liability clauses, the Chen Industries letter with its careful, cordial language wrapped around something that was neither careful nor cordial.

I read everything twice.

By the time I had finish reading, the house had gone quiet around me. No voices, just the distant sound of pipes settling and the occasional creak of the floor below.

I set the documents aside and let my mind go still for a moment.

I needed a way out of this engagement that didn't depend on my father's permission or Ethan's cooperation. I needed leverage that came from somewhere else entirely. Something neither of them could anticipate or block.

I opened my news app without thinking about it, just habit, just something to do with my hands while my mind worked.

The first headline stopped me cold.

DONOVAN ENTERPRISES IN CRISIS: INVESTORS PULL OUT AS HOSTILE TAKEOVER LOOMS.

I sat up straight.

I knew that name. I knew that crisis.

I knew exactly how it started, how it escalated, and the exact moment when everything would become irreversible if no one stepped in.

I also knew that almost no one stepped in.

In my previous life, I had read about it weeks after it happened, a collapsed empire, a CEO who had fought alone and lost, a company destroyed and absorbed by people who had been circling it for years.

But I was a year earlier now.

The collapse hadn't happened yet and I knew exactly how to stop it.

I stared at the screen, my thumb hovering over the article.

He had dark eyes and a llittle girl with a stuffed rabbit asking if I was okay.

Marcus Donovan.

I opened the article and started reading.