Challenge Accepted

LIAM

I walk into a house that feels more like a museum exhibit than an actual place people live.

Everything is polished, the kind of perfect that makes you feel like you’re suffocating even though the ceiling is twelve feet high and the windows stretch from floor to goddamn ceiling.

Liam Harrington’s life. My life. It glitters from the outside the way frost glints on a steel blade, but up close it’s just cold.

I drag myself to the long marble table where my father sits, skimming the financial section on his laptop without bothering to acknowledge my existence.

I could stroll in on fire and he would still be scanning stock prices like they are the only thing worth noticing.

He slides an envelope across the table. “Your presence is required at the Grayson dinner next month. A formal confirmation of the arrangement.” So this is why he wanted to see me?

I let the envelope sit there untouched, a small act of defiance that feels pathetically insufficient even as I do it. “I’m not showing up to that.”

He finally lifts his eyes. “You will. As my heir, you don’t get to choose.”

A slow, venomous smile spreads across my lips. “Funny. I always thought choosing my own fiancée would be, I don’t know, a basic human right in this century.”

“The girl is appropriate. Isabella’s father controls half the shipping industry on the East Coast.” He adjusts his cufflinks. “This merger will secure our position for the next generation.”

“Merger.” I let out a guttural laugh. “That’s what you’re calling an arranged marriage now? Very modern of you, Dad.”

“Don’t be childish, Liam. This is how our world works. You think your grandfather married your grandmother for love? Or that I chose your mother because of some romantic notion?”

“Well, legacy can go fck itself.” I stand, pushing my chair back hard enough that it scrapes the floor. “I’m not marrying some girl I don’t love.”

“Sit down.” His command cuts through the air, the same one drilled into me since I could walk. “We’re not finished.”

“Yeah, we are.” I grab my leather jacket from the back of the chair. “I have got better sht to do than listen to you plan my life like I’m some fcking chess piece.”

“You publicly refuse this marriage, Liam, and there will be consequences.” His tone rises just slightly. “I have tolerated enough of your tantrums.”

I pause at the doorway, looking back at him. He is composed, like we’re not discussing my entire future. “Then I guess we’re gonna have a problem.”

I leave without another word. The air hits me as I step outside, and I breathe deeply, trying to shake off the depressing atmosphere of that house.

My bike is parked in the circular driveway, black and chrome gleaming in the sunlight the one thing I bought with money I earned myself, working nights at Jackson’s custom shop during summer.

My father hated it. “Harrington men don’t work with their hands like common laborers.”

Well, this Harrington man does.

I kick the engine to life, and the rumble beneath me drowns out everything else. When I’m on this bike, I’m not Liam Harrington, heir to a billion dollar empire. I’m just reckless Liam.

I speed through the city streets, weaving between cars. The wind tears at my jacket, and I feel alive in a way I never do anywhere else.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I ignore it, because its probably my father’s assistant with some passive aggressive reminder about staying in line.

I pull up to the party my friends are already posting about on TikTok. Carter and Blake are there, leaning against Carter’s Lamborghini Urus.

“All hail King Liam!” Carter calls out, grinning in his varsity jacket. “We were close to thinking you had chickened out.”

“Chickened out? Of what?” I kill the engine and pull off my helmet.

Blake pushes off the car, his smirk annoyingly smug. “The challenge, man. We were all talking last night after you left, and we found something we think you can’t win.”

I laugh, already mentally checking out. “Try me.”

“Seduce the one girl who won’t melt when Liam Harrington looks at her.” Blake crosses his arms, clearly pleased with himself.

“She doesn’t exist.” I pull out a cigarette, lighting it and taking a long drag. “Every girl has got a type, and I’m most of them.”

“That’s what makes this really fun,” Carter adds, his grin widening. “Because this girl is immune to your bullsht.”

I blow smoke into the air, intrigued despite myself. “Fine, I will humor you idiots. Who is the target?”

“Skylar McKee,” Blake says, like the name is supposed to mean something.

I freeze with the cigarette halfway to my lips, a frown creasing my forehead. “The hell is that supposed to be?”

“A nobody, who turned down four guys from the hockey team last semester without even blinking.”

I run a hand through my hair, letting arrogance settle over me like a second skin. “And you think I can’t get her to go out with me?”

The challenge stirs something different in me than the usual suffocating weight of being a Harrington.

“We know you can’t,” Carter says. “She doesn’t care about status, and from what we have heard, she thinks guys like us are a waste of oxygen.”

“Sounds delightful.” I flick ash onto the pavement. “What are the terms?”

Blake pulls out his phone. “Get her to go on a date with you. A real date, not just some bullshit coffee meetup. And you have got three weeks.”

“Three weeks?” I scoff, pulling the cigarette from my lips and grinding it out beneath my boot. “That’s insulting. Give me one.”

“Confident bastard.” Carter slings his arm around me. “Fine, one week. If you pull it off, we each owe you fifty grand. If you fail, you owe us.”

This isn’t about the money. It’s an opportunity to focus on something that isn’t my father’s voice in my head or the engagement ring waiting in some velvet box with my name on it.

“Skylar McKee,” I repeat, letting the name roll off my tongue. “Fine. Challenge accepted.” I say it with the same empty smile I have perfected over years of pretending, sliding easily into place.

Blake grins, slapping me on the shoulder. “That’s my boy, this is gonna be legendary.”

“Where can I find this mysterious Skylar McKee?”

Carter points straight ahead to a brunette in a sexy backless dress.