The Trap and the Unwanted Fiancée

POV Aitana

Time seemed to stand still inside the boardroom. The air grew so thick and heavy that even drawing breath felt like an almost impossible effort.

There he stood.

Sebastian Belmonte.

Six years had done nothing but sharpen that commanding aura of power and intimidation about him. He was no longer simply the promising heir I remembered from that forbidden night; he had become the living embodiment of corporate triumph, a predator perched undisputed at the very top of the business food chain. He wore a tailored charcoal suit that broadened his powerful shoulders, his tie knotted perfectly, his dark hair combed back in flawless, sharp precision.

But what pierced me like a shard of ice was his gaze. In those dark eyes there remained not the faintest trace of the warmth, passion, or vulnerability I had known that dawn in the hotel suite. They were two bottomless wells of absolute cold, calculating, unreadable.

“Aitana… you are late,” my uncle Magnus’s voice cut through the silence, thick with barely concealed malice. “I see your sense of punctuality remains as dismal as your loyalty to this family.”

I ignored Magnus entirely. My whole attention remained fixed on Sebastian, who tilted his head slightly, watching me as though I were some insect that had wandered uninvited into his office. A faint, almost imperceptible curl of disdain touched the corner of his mouth.

“If Miss Ferrer has quite finished making her dramatic entrance, I suggest we all take our seats and begin,” Sebastian said. His voice, deep and resonant, seemed to vibrate across the glass tabletop. He showed not the slightest flicker of recognition, not a blink that betrayed he knew me at all. To him, I was nothing more than another piece moved upon his negotiating board.

Attorney Morales pulled out a chair for me at the far end of the table, as far from Sebastian as it was possible to sit. I sat, keeping my spine straight and my chin lifted, my hands clasped tight in my lap to still the wild trembling that threatened to give me away. Inside, my mind was in utter chaos. He is here. Selene’s father is standing mere meters from me.

“Very well,” began the lead counsel for the Belmonte Group, unfolding a series of documents across the table. “As is known to all present, following the passing of Mr. Augusto Ferrer and the settlement of matured liabilities, the Belmonte Group has legally acquired seventy percent of the corporate debt and forty-five percent of all preferred shares.”

“This is a brazenly illegal ambush!” my uncle Alexander shouted, slamming his fist hard enough against the table to rattle the glass. “My father would never in a thousand years have let Belmonte trash set foot inside this company!”

“Your father is dead, Mr. Ferrer,” Sebastian replied, his tone so flat and glacial it instantly silenced my uncle’s outburst. “And this company’s financial decisions over the last three years border on criminal negligence. Had the Belmonte Group not stepped in, the Food Industry Group would be facing bankruptcy and foreclosure proceedings this very day. I have saved your family’s business from ruin. I would therefore choose your words with great care in my presence.”

Silence reclaimed the room. My uncles swallowed hard, powerless, cornered.

“Consequently,” Sebastian’s counsel continued, “restructuring is imminent. The Belmonte Group will assume full operational control of the company effective today. However, to consolidate working capital and secure international liquidity, this acquisition aligns with a strategic merger between the Belmonte Group and the Serrano Group.”

The name struck my ears like a warning bell. Serrano?

At that exact moment, the double doors swung open without warning. A woman of aristocratic elegance walked confidently into the room, her heels clicking sharply against the floor. She wore a tailored cream dress, her fair hair falling in perfect styled waves, her smile bright and thoroughly self-assured.

“Forgive the interruption, my dearest,” she said, stepping straight to the head of the table and resting her hand lightly upon Sebastian’s shoulder. “The press is gathered downstairs in the lobby awaiting official confirmation of the alliance. My father wishes to know whether we should announce the wedding alongside the acquisition closing.”

Adela Serrano. Sole heiress to the Serrano pharmaceutical and financial empire.

A sharp, unexpected pain twisted deep within my chest, a bitter burning rush I fought to smother instantly. Wedding?

Sebastian did not flinch, yet the rigid line of his jaw grew more pronounced. Slowly, he lifted her hand from his shoulder, his courtesy so frigid and distant it verged on humiliation.

“Adela, this is a private board meeting. I asked you to wait in the executive office,” he said, refusing to meet her gaze directly. There was not a flicker of warmth or affection in his tone.

“Oh really, Sebastian, do not be so terribly stiff,” she replied with a practiced little laugh, though his reception made her take one involuntary step back. “Everything has already been agreed between our families for next month. It is simply a matter of time before we are married. I only came to ensure these… people were not wasting your valuable time.”

Adela’s gaze swept the table with open condescension before settling fully upon me. She looked me up and down with undisguised disdain, taking in my modest suit and the absence of ostentatious jewelry. To her, I was nothing more than a clerk or some impoverished distant relative.

Sebastian rose slowly from his chair. His presence seemed to expand until it filled the entire room, overshadowing everyone else there.

“The engagement between the Serrano and Belmonte families is a purely financial arrangement which I have not yet signed, Adela,” he stated, with a blunt finality that froze the woman’s smile completely. “And my business decisions are not announced or debated before the press. Wait outside. Now.”

Adela pressed her lips tight, stinging from the public rebuke, yet she dared not utter a word in reply. Holding her head high in a futile attempt to salvage dignity, she turned on her heel and walked out, letting the doors fall shut firmly behind her.

Beneath the tension, one crucial truth became unmistakable: Sebastian did not want Adela. That engagement was nothing but a gilded cage imposed upon him by family to consolidate power, a transaction he wore with visible, profound weariness. Yet that truth changed nothing for me. He remained the enemy, and the danger he posed to my life and to Selene was more real than it had ever been.

“Let us proceed,” Sebastian said, turning his dark gaze directly back to mine. The contrast between the glacial indifference he had shown his fiancée and the piercing, unbroken intensity with which he now looked at me was overwhelming. “Attorney Morales, please read the clauses from Augusto Ferrer’s will that concern Miss Aitana.”

Morales cleared his throat and opened the gilt-edged folder.

“Mr. Augusto Ferrer stipulated that fifteen percent of the company’s ordinary shares pass directly and irrevocably to his granddaughter, Aitana Cortés Ferrer. However, for those shares to retain voting rights and avoid being absorbed into restructuring, Miss Ferrer must accept an appointed position as Liaison Director for the full duration of the transition period alongside the Belmonte Group.”

“What?!” I cried, surging abruptly to my feet. My chair scraped loudly and harshly across the marble floor. “No! I will not work inside this company, and certainly not under Belmonte authority!”

“You have no choice, Aitana,” Magnus cut in, a malicious smirk spreading across his face. “Reject the post, and your shares are nullified and transferred directly to treasury, which is now controlled by Mr. Belmonte. You will lose every last penny.”

I looked toward Sebastian, expecting triumph written plainly upon his face. Instead his expression remained an impenetrable marble mask. He leaned forward, resting both hands flat upon the glass table, his gaze steady and unyielding as it bore down upon me.

“The transition agreement requires your signature today, Miss Ferrer,” Sebastian said, his deep voice sending a shiver tearing through every nerve in my body. “Accept the post, and work beside me to preserve the legacy your grandfather intended for you… or walk out of this building with nothing, and never return to claim anything.”

My breath caught hard in my throat. Working at his side meant risking my secret every single day. It meant living within arm’s reach of the man I had never been able to forget, constantly close enough that he might demand answers I could never give. Yet to walk away meant condemning Selene, surrendering the inheritance that should by right have secured her future.

Sebastian held my gaze with relentless, unwavering focus, as though he could read each and every one of my deepest fears laid bare before him.

“What is your decision, Aitana?” he asked, his voice dropping to a whisper heavy with dangerous, thrumming tension, closing the distance between us with nothing more than the sheer weight of his presence.