25. Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Five
I Choose Him
Simone
If this is some kind of joke, Dad has catastrophically misunderstood the concept of humor.
It isn’t a joke.
My father has just announced my engagement to Adrien Belcourt in front of three hundred guests, several political donors, and enough strategically invited members of the press to turn the lie into breaking news before I can reach the nearest door.
I’m not surprised.
Surprise requires believing Francis Rochefort possesses limits.
What I feel is fury.
Humiliation.
The suffocating rage of watching someone take my life, package it into a press release, and hand it to a room full of strangers without asking whether I want it.
Planning my engagement without my knowledge is the most Francis Rochefort thing Dad has ever done.
The ballroom remains loud behind me as I march down the corridor toward his study.
Guests call my name.
Some congratulate me.
Others raise phones, desperate to capture the radiant bride-to-be fleeing her own announcement.
Adrien looked as shocked as I felt.
His parents apparently knew.
Mine certainly did.
Whether anyone thought to involve the two people supposedly getting married remains unclear.
I push through the study doors.
Dad follows several seconds later with Bran beside him.
The applause from the ballroom becomes muffled when Bran closes the doors.
“Simone,” Dad says.
His voice carries the controlled patience he uses when he believes I’m the unreasonable person in the room.
“You can’t walk away while people are congratulating you.”
I spin toward him.
“Congratulating me for what?”
Dad’s eyebrows draw together.
“For an engagement I learned about approximately thirty seconds before they did?”
“You’re angry.”
“Furious.”
I point toward Bran.
“And you knew?”
Bran’s expression tightens.
“I knew Dad and the Belcourts were discussing it.”
“And you didn’t think to mention that?”
“I was told you and Adrien had agreed.”
“Did you ask me?”
“No.”
“At least you’re honest.”
“I should have.”
“Yes, you should have.”
Dad moves farther into the room.
“This reaction is unnecessary.”
I laugh.
The sound is sharp enough to cut.
“You announced my engagement to a man who looked like he was about to faint, and my reaction is unnecessary?”
“The Belcourts assured me Adrien understood the plan.”
“Then his parents lied to you too.”
Dad’s jaw flexes.
“This isn’t a marriage ceremony, Simone. It is an engagement announcement.”
“Oh, excellent. I was worried you’d already selected my wedding dress.”
“We needed to change the public narrative.”
There it is.
Not love.
Not my future.
The narrative.
“The press has been consumed with the attacks, the crash, and the investigation,” Dad continues. “Every headline reinforces instability.”
“And your solution is to use my personal life as a distraction.”
“Your relationship with Adrien is already public.”
“A fake relationship.”
Bran’s head turns sharply.
Dad becomes still.
I press my lips together.
I shouldn’t have said that.
Not because either of them needs to know the details of Adrien’s private life, but because exposing the arrangement without speaking to him crosses another line.
I choose my next words carefully.
“Adrien and I care about each other. But we are not in love, and neither of us agreed to get married.”
Dad’s expression remains unreadable.
“You’ve allowed the public to believe you’re a couple for months.”
“That doesn’t give you the right to promote us to engaged without asking.”
“It provides stability.”
“For whom?”
“The family.”
“The campaign,” I correct.
His silence answers.
My anger becomes colder.
“You nearly lost me twice, and the first thing you do when I come home is turn my survival into a political strategy.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“No?”
“I am trying to protect everything we have built.”
“What have I built?”
Dad frowns.
“This family—”
“I asked what I built.”
My voice shakes, but I don’t lower it.
“My music? My career? My life? Or are those simply other assets you manage when they become inconvenient?”
“Everything I do is intended to protect you.”
“Protection isn’t the same as control.”
“You were shot.”
“Grazed.”
“Your aircraft was sabotaged.”
“I remember.”
“You were stranded with an armed conspirator somewhere on the island.”
“And I survived.”
“Barely.”
His voice rises for the first time.
“You think returning alive means the danger disappears? You think the public won’t question whether our family is vulnerable?”
There it is again.
Not whether I’m frightened.
Whether we look weak.
Dad draws a breath and forces his tone under control.
“People need to see continuity. Stability. A future.”
“So you selected one for me.”
“I selected an option that benefits everyone.”
“Except the people being forced into it.”
“No one is forcing you to marry tomorrow.”
“Just announcing that I will.”
Bran shifts beside us.
“Dad, she’s right.”
Dad turns toward him.
“You agreed the media needed another story.”
“I agreed we needed to redirect attention from the investigation. I did not agree you should announce an engagement without confirming she consented.”
“You believed she had.”
“I assumed.”
Bran looks at me.
“That was my mistake.”
The apology doesn’t erase the betrayal, but it matters.
Dad looks between us as though we’ve both become disappointments.
“You’re allowing emotion to distort a practical decision.”
“Of course I’m emotional.”
I spread my arms.
“It’s my life.”
“You are not always in the best position to know what you need.”
“What I need is for you to stop treating me like a campaign problem.”
“I am your father.”
“And I’m your daughter. Not your property.”
The study doors open.
Luca steps inside.
His presence consumes the doorway.
The first two buttons of his shirt have come undone, and his tie is gone. His dark hair remains mostly neat, but several strands have fallen across his forehead.
His gaze moves over the room.
Dad.
Bran.
Then me.
He reads the tension instantly.
“I’ll leave you to it.”
His hand returns to the door.
“No,” Dad says.
Luca stops.
“You may as well stay.”
The words are calm, but something loaded passes between them.
Dad knows Luca loves me.
Luca told him.
I wonder whether tonight’s announcement was designed for more than the press.
Maybe it was also a warning.
A reminder that Dad believes he still decides who belongs in this family.
“This concerns you too,” Dad adds.
Luca releases the door.
His expression becomes hard.
I face my father again.
“The engagement isn’t happening.”
“You’re upset.”
“I’m certain.”
“Take the night to calm down.”
“No.”
“Simone.”
“I said no.”
My hands are shaking, but my voice isn’t.
“I’m not marrying Adrien.”
Dad’s gaze flicks toward Luca before returning to me.
“Because you suddenly object to a relationship you created?”
“Because I’m in love with someone else.”
Silence fills the room.
Bran exhales through his nose.
Not surprised.
Resigned.
Dad’s eyes remain on mine.
“What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
I turn toward Luca.
He stands near the door, perfectly still.
Only the intensity in his green eyes reveals what my declaration does to him.
“I’m in love with Luca.”
Saying it in front of them feels different from saying it on the island.
Bigger.
Riskier.
Real.
Dad’s face hardens.
“Simone.”
“No.”
I refuse to let him turn my love into another negotiation.
“I choose him.”
Luca’s jaw flexes.
My eyes burn, but I continue.
“I chose him on the island. I chose him after we came home. And I’m choosing him now.”
Dad looks at Luca.
“You told me she chose you.”
“I did.”
Luca’s voice is quiet.
Steady.
“You knew about this?” Bran asks Dad.
“He told me when he resigned.”
Bran stares at Luca.
“We are going to have a very long conversation.”
“I expected that.”
Dad returns his attention to me.
“You are confusing trauma with attachment.”
Anger flashes across Luca’s face.
I answer before he can.
“Don’t.”
“You were isolated and dependent on the man assigned to keep you alive.”
“I was sober. I was capable of making my own decisions. And he was no longer just my bodyguard.”
“You almost died.”
“So did he.”
I step toward Dad.
“We didn’t fall in love because the plane crashed.”
My gaze finds Luca again.
“We stopped lying about it because the plane crashed.”
Something in his expression breaks open.
Dad sees it.
So does Bran.
“I have loved him since I was eighteen,” I say. “Probably longer than I understood. The island didn’t create that.”
I face my father fully.
“It only made me brave enough to stop allowing other people to decide what I should do with it.”
Dad’s mouth becomes a hard line.
“You have no idea what this relationship will cost.”
“Then let me pay it.”
“You say that now.”
“I’ll say it tomorrow too.”
Bran rubs one hand over his face.
“This is going well.”
“Stay out of it,” Dad and I say simultaneously.
Bran lifts both hands.
“Gladly.”
Dad looks toward the ballroom doors.
“The announcement has already been made.”
“Then correct it.”
“You want me to return to that room and tell everyone my daughter rejected an engagement ten minutes after I announced it?”
“Yes.”
His expression turns incredulous.
“Blame a misunderstanding. Blame negotiations. Blame yourself.”
“Simone.”
“Or I can go back out there and explain it personally.”
Dad knows I will.
Worse, he knows the press will love every second.
I move toward the door.
“All right.”
The words stop me.
Dad’s face appears carved from stone.
“I’ll handle it.”
Relief mixes with suspicion.
“How?”
“Discreetly.”
“No statements implying Adrien did something wrong.”
“I know how to manage the press.”
“That’s what frightens me.”
His eyes flash.
“Go upstairs.”
The old command almost makes me laugh.
“I’m not twelve.”
“No, but you’re angry, and there are hundreds of people outside waiting to watch you make this worse.”
“I didn’t create this.”
“I know.”
For the first time, he sounds tired.
He looks older than he did an hour ago.
“Go,” he says more quietly. “I’ll speak with the Belcourts.”
I turn toward Luca.
Dad notices.
“Alone, Simone.”
“No.”
The word comes from Luca.
Everyone looks at him.
He steps away from the door.
“She doesn’t need to be alone.”
Dad’s expression becomes dangerous.