{ MY FATHER CHOSE HER }

KARL

The silence inside the elevator was suffocating, broken only by the sound of Natalia's soft, hitching sobs against my chest.

"Is it bleeding?" she whispered, her fingers clutching my lapel. "Karl, it hurts so much. She looked at me with so much hatred before she pushed me..."

"We're almost at the car, darling. Just hold on," I murmured, pressing my hand against her back.

But as I looked down at the top of Natalia's perfectly styled hair, a cold, unfamiliar irritation brushed against my mind. My father's words inside the dining room were still ringing in my ears like a physical alarm. Get her out of here. This is disrespectful, Karl.

I had told Leila to show up tonight to play the doting wife because my father's health was failing, and his will was tied directly to the stability of my marriage. I had explicitly told Natalia to stay away, but she insisted on following me, forcing me to make a reckless executive decision to protect her dignity in front of my mother. And Leila...

My jaw tightened as the elevator doors chimed open at the valet level. Leila hadn't cried. She hadn't begged. She had simply pushed her chair back, looked my father in the eye with a strange, freezing calm, and walked away. She had completely stripped me of my control.

"Mr. Hawthorne," my personal security guard, Kane, stepped forward, opening the door to the armored SUV.

I carefully slid Natalia into the back seat. She looked up at me, her eyes wide and wet with unshed tears. "Aren't you coming with me to the hospital?"

"I need to go back up there and deal with my father, Natalia," I said, my voice tighter than I intended. "Kane will take you to Meridian Private. The chief of surgery is already waiting for you."

A flash of sharp, ugly annoyance crossed Natalia's face, so fast that if I hadn't been looking closely, I would have missed it. In the next split second, her victim mask was back in place. "Okay," she whimpered softly. "Call me the second you're done?"

"I will."

I slammed the SUV door shut and watched the tail lights disappear into the city traffic. I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed my lead corporate counsel.

"Sir?" Graham Ashcroft answered on the first ring.

"The settlement package for Leila," I snapped, turning back toward the hotel lobby. "Did you add the non-disclosure clause?"

"Yes, Mr. Hawthorne. Twenty five million, plus an additional ten million for the mutual public statement. She cannot speak a word about your personal affairs or the Hawthorne Group once she signs."

"Double the number if you have to," I ordered, my boots clicking sharply against the marble floor. "I want those papers signed by Monday morning. I want her completely erased from my life before the board review."

"Understood, sir."

I hung up, my chest tight. Twenty five million was pocket change to get rid of an inconvenient arrangement, but Leila's quiet defiance tonight was making me uneasy.

I stepped back out of the elevator on the eleventh floor and walked into the private dining room. The atmosphere inside was freezing. My mother was sitting back down, smoothing her skirt, while my father stood by the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, his back to the room.

"Natalia is on her way to the hospital," I announced, adjusting my cuffs as I walked toward the table. "Dad, about the divorce…"

Theodore Hawthorne didn't turn around, but when he spoke, his voice was a low, terrifying growl that made the ice in the water pitchers rattle. "You are a fool, Karl."

I stiffened, my pride flaring. "Leila and I were an arrangement, Dad. You know that. I am marrying a woman I actually chose…"

"You brought a mistress into a family dinner to humiliate the daughter of the man who died giving you the right to stand in this room," my father roared, finally turning around. His face was dangerously flushed, his chest heaving with rage. "Leila Stonne has given this company two years of flawless architectural work without ever asking for her name on the masthead. She has more honor in her little finger than you have in your entire body. And you throw her out like trash?"

Panic seized me. I needed to control the damage immediately, even if the lie wouldn't hold for long.

"It's not what you think," I said, my voice dropping into a smooth, calculated corporate tone. "The divorce is completely mutual. Leila wants this just as much as I do. We both agreed that the marriage has run its course, and she is ready to move on."

My father's eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. He stepped closer, staring deeply into my face, searching for the crack in my armor. The room went entirely dead silent.

"Mutual?" Theodore asked, his voice deceptively quiet.

"Yes," I said, holding his gaze. "We've already discussed the settlement. She is perfectly fine with it."

He pointed a heavy, trembling finger straight at my chest. "I am going to speak to Leila myself, and if I discover that you are lying to me, if I find out you forced her hand or used your power to cast her aside, there will be severe consequences. I will freeze your corporate voting shares before the week is out, and I will hand the entire expansion project over to your brother."

George.

The name felt like a physical strike to my gut. My father had always preferred George's calculated brilliance over my aggressive expansion tactics. If George took the site, my position as CEO would be completely compromised.

"I am not lying, Dad," I forced myself to say, though a cold sweat was beginning to break out across the back of my neck.

"We will see," Theodore snapped coldly, turning his back on me once again. "Now get out of my sight."

I turned and walked out, my fist clenching at my side. Theodore would call her by morning. I had hours. Leila hadn't answered my calls since the night I gave her the papers. She hadn't signed them, and she had walked out of the dinner looking like a grieving martyr.

If my father reached her before I did, my entire empire would crumble. I pulled out my phone and pulled up her contact. I couldn't leave this to the lawyers anymore. I had to go to the penthouse myself, tonight, and force her to play along.