CHAPTER SEVEN — Paper Trails

Sofia called an emergency meeting the next morning. By nine a.m. I was watching Damien pace while Griffith spread printouts across the table like a crime scene.

"Vaughn filed a records request yesterday," Griffith said. "Marriage license application, six days after you two allegedly met. He's flagged it as 'irregular' to two board members already."

"It's not illegal to move quickly," Damien said.

"It's not illegal. It's exactly the kind of detail that makes a trust committee start asking whether the marriage satisfies the spirit of the clause." Griffith glanced at me, apologetic. "Vaughn only needs enough doubt to delay the vote past the deadline. He doesn't need proof. He needs friction."

Damien stopped pacing, jaw tight. "Then we remove the friction. Move the wedding up. Two weeks. Small ceremony, immediate family, press access controlled by us instead of leaked through his version."

"Two weeks," I repeated, the number landing strangely — not fear exactly, but the sudden compression of a year I'd thought I had to prepare for.

Damien looked at me, composure cracking slightly. "Only if you're comfortable with that timeline. I won't move it without your agreement."

"You're asking me."

"I told you I would. Every term, every change. You don't lose your voice just because the stakes went up."

Griffith and Sofia both found something urgent to review in the papers, giving us the smallest illusion of privacy.

"Two weeks," I said finally. "Let's take away his friction."

Relief eased his shoulders. "Sofia, clear my calendar starting this afternoon. Griffith, I want every filing airtight before Vaughn requests another document." He turned back to me, voice dropping, meant only for me. "Thank you. I know this isn't what you signed up for — the speed of it."

"I signed up for whatever gets my father his treatment and keeps this company out of your cousin's hands," I said. "Two weeks or twelve months, the terms haven't changed."

But even as I said it, I wasn't sure that was true anymore. Somewhere between the two a.m. conversation and this urgent conference room, the terms had started shifting underneath me — and I was beginning to suspect that in two weeks, I wasn't only going to be signing a marriage certificate. I was going to be choosing, eyes open, a man I'd told myself I was only pretending to want.

Griffith walked me out after the meeting broke up, and at the elevator he hesitated, the careful neutrality of a lawyer slipping for just a moment. "For what it's worth, Ms Bennett, I've known Damien since he was twenty-four years old, burying his father and trying to hold a company together with both hands. I've never seen him move this fast for anything. Not once."

"Is that meant to reassure me, or warn me?"

"Both, I think," Griffith said. "He doesn't do anything without calculating the cost first. If he's willing to move the wedding up two weeks to protect you, it's because he's already decided you're worth more to him than the timeline he'd planned to keep you at arm's length with."

I thought about that the whole ride home, turning it over like a stone in my pocket, uncertain whether it frightened me or steadied me more. My phone buzzed halfway there — a text from Priya, three words long: How did it go? I stared at it for a long time before I answered, unsure how to explain that the wedding I'd once described to her as a business arrangement now felt like something I was terrified of losing, two weeks earlier than either of us had planned for.

It's happening fast, I finally wrote back. I'll explain everything. I think I'm okay with it.

Her reply came instantly. Are you okay with it, or are you falling for him?

I didn't answer that one at all.