Chapter 14
KATE
Ishowed up to breakfast looking exactly how I felt. Raw, stripped down, and held together by that lovely little flavor of emotional duct tape known as stubbornness. I hadn’t put on any makeup and I’d barely managed to drag my hair into a messy ponytail.
Instead of my professional garb, I wore tights, sneakers, and an old gray sweatshirt that had seen more late nights than most bartenders.
I’d had a whole day to think about it. A whole day to bury my feelings and pull my big girl pants up, but that didn’t stop the inside of my chest from feeling like someone had stuffed it with broken glass.
The diner where they’d asked me to meet them had the distinct scent of burnt coffee and syrup.
When I slid into the booth across from my parents, my beloved mom and dad, I felt like I didn’t know them at all.
Yesterday’s cab driver had shown me more kindness by taking me for ice cream than the two people who had raised me.
These were the people who’d taught me how to work hard, to fight smart, and to never quit. Now we were in some back-alley diner instead of their hotel, like they’d decided to remove me from any place where I might embarrass them if I decided to make a scene.
I stared at both their faces for exactly three seconds before I took a breath and lit into them. The gloves were off. No point in holding back now. “You’re selling me into a marriage contract like I’m a negotiable asset.”
My mother blinked rapidly. My father reached for his coffee like it might save him.
“Kate, honey—” Mom started.
“No,” I cut in, my voice low but sharp enough to slice skin. “Let’s not pretend this is something it isn’t. You ambushed me. You blindsided me and made me look like a fool in that boardroom.”
“We didn’t ambush you,” she whispered fiercely, leaning forward. “We were presented with an opportunity.”
“An opportunity?” I repeated, incredulous. “To marry a man who looks at me like I belong at the bottom of his shoe?”
“That’s not fair,” she said, her cheeks flushing. “The Westwoods are a good family and Nate seems perfectly nice.”
I let out a humorless laugh under my breath. “That’s your argument? Really? He seems nice, so I should marry him? Well, that’s just great.”
Mom pursed her lips at me. “They’re respected. They’re stable. They are—”
“They are using me and you helped them do it,” I snapped.
“Lower your voice,” Mom hissed.
“Why? You didn’t even want to risk meeting me at your hotel and you folded like wet cards when Abram decided my autonomy was retiring with him. Why should I give a flying fuck what you want?”
Dad shifted beside her, attempting to disappear into the vinyl booth.
“You’re treating me like a depreciating asset you need to offload before market value drops.” I narrowed my eyes at them. “I’m allowed be livid about that.”
“Oh, honey,” Mom said gently, still speaking so quietly that she was almost whispering. “It’s not like that, but you can’t deny that you’re almost thirty and you haven’t seriously dated anyone in years.”
There it was, her defensive card slapped onto the table. I should’ve known she was going to play that most insulting of all maternal cards, and yet, I still stared at her, stunned. “That is breathtakingly irrelevant.”
“It’s not irrelevant,” she insisted. “We want you to be settled and secure. Happy.”
“Do you honestly think forced proximity to Nathaniel Westwood is going to equal happiness?”
“Any partnership grows over time,” she said tightly.
“Sure, and resentment metastasizes,” I countered.
“Kate,” she pressed, her whisper trembling with urgency. “You’re looking at this emotionally instead of strategically.”
“Because I’m a person and not a fucking merger.” I nodded at her in challenge. “If there’s no emotion involved here, Mom, why don’t you marry him? Dad won’t mind, apparently.”
Dad exhaled heavily and set his coffee down. “Enough,” he said quietly but firmly.
Mom and I both turned toward him as he folded his hands together and looked each of us in the eye in turn. “I’m going to speak now and you’re going to listen.”
My throat tightened, my heart yowling like a wildcat in my chest, but I didn’t fight the way it wanted me to.
I needed to hear this. Needed to know why he’d do this without even talking to me about it directly.
I’d had to find out from Nate. That was almost worse than actually having to marry the damn guy.
“Our family used to be like the Westwoods,” he said. “Three generations ago, our name meant something. We built industries. We created jobs. We were respected.”
I watched him turn thoughtful and sad, a strange mix of pride and exhaustion braiding through every word.
“My grandfather let the original business rot. A series of bad decisions led to a bunch of terrible investments that carried us into a period of reactive leadership, the worst kind there is. By the time he started trying to dig us out of the hole, it was too late. His desperation only made the situation worse.”
My stomach twisted, but I didn’t interrupt him.
“When my father inherited the company, there was barely anything left but debt and a last name no one trusted anymore. Luck and poor advice,” he said, grimacing.
“That was what they relied on. My grandfather only at the end, but my dad throughout his tenure. I have spent my entire life trying to bring our name back to its former glory.”
He met my gaze. “Every hour. Every risk. Every sleepless night.”
I swallowed. “Dad…”
“This deal isn’t only our way back in,” he said, his voice cracking slightly despite his effort to keep it level. “It’s how we secure our business into the future. The Westwoods have never relied on luck. They don’t even leave who they marry to chance.”
“But—”
“If we lose that account to another company, it ruins us, Kate. Completely. We won’t recover from it. Not during my tenure, anyhow. I suppose you can try. You might even succeed, but for as long as we keep leaving things to chance, there’s always a possibility that even your luck will run out.”
The words sat heavy and immovable between us.
When he put it like that, the Westwoods’ ridiculous tradition sounded responsible.
Like the only fiscally sound way any empire could make decisions.
And yet, neither of my parents had had to choose between love and doing the right thing for the sake of a company.
Mom reached across the table, her fingers hovering for a beat before resting lightly over mine. “We’re not marrying you off as if it’s a simple transaction.”
“It feels like that’s exactly what you’re doing.”
“The Westwoods are honorable,” she said gently. “They protect their own.”
“I’m not their own.”
“You would be.”
My chest flipped over on itself. “I don’t think their protection will ever extend to me.”
“It will, Katie.” Dad leaned forward slightly. “We would never force you to do this, of course. It remains your choice and yours alone, and I wish we’d had time to prepare you better, but Nate has known this is coming his whole life. He’s prepared for it and he will take care of you.”
I searched his face, looking for cracks, for hesitation, or for any sign that he might secretly want me to refuse, but I found none. He even smiled at me. “I would lose everything before I forced you, but I’m asking you to consider it. Not as a sacrifice, but as a strategy. One you would control.”
Control.
The word echoed bitterly in my mind, conjuring images of Nate’s rigid posture, the storm he tried to keep leashed behind his eyes, and the way he’d looked almost furious on my behalf.
“I understand the logic from a business point of view,” I said slowly.
Mom squeezed my hand. “Then you understand why we brought it to you.”
I stared at our joined hands, my voice barely audible when I spoke again, my gaze rising back to hers. “You didn’t bring it to me, though. Nate did. Alex did. Not you. You just sat there and told me how old I am and reminded me that I haven’t dated seriously in a long time.”
I turned to my dad. “You told me about the mistakes your grandfather made. They were big ones. Big enough that we’re still paying for them, but they weren’t my mistakes.
All I’ve done, my whole life, was try to help you fix them and I’ve done that.
I’ve brought in clients who might not make us as much as Abram, but your grandfather wasn’t the only one who made mistakes.
You spending your career focusing almost exclusively on him was another gigantic fucking mistake. ”
Watching them both just sit there, justifying themselves and how all this had gone down made me bristle.
Heat crawled up my spine, the words clawing at the back of my throat to tell them they didn’t know anything about my personal life.
About my prospects. About the quiet pieces of myself I kept locked away, but I swallowed it all down.
I didn’t know how Nate did it, always keeping it all in. The restraint burned my tongue and made my throat constrict, but somehow, I managed to bite it back. Because that was mine and mine alone.
Nate was onto something in that sense. The more you gave of yourself, the more people could twist it into talking points and variables to be taken into account.
“I’m not sure I can forgive you for this,” I said finally, my voice steady enough to surprise even me.
Mom’s fingers tightened around mine. Dad’s expression went still in that way that meant he’d taken a direct hit but refused to show it.
“Kate,” Mom whispered. “Please don’t be like that.”
“I’m going to do it. I’ll marry him.” I pulled my hand free and folded my arms across my chest. “I’ll do it for the company. I’ll do it for you, but I hate that you’ve put me in this position.”
Mom flinched. Dad inhaled sharply.
“You have no idea what you’re really asking me to do,” I said, my voice finally cracking. “You have no idea what you expect me to give up.”
“We aren’t asking you to give up anything,” Mom said quickly.
“Yes, you are.”
“Kate, listen—”
“No, I’ve already done that,” I said quietly.
“You can listen now. You’re asking me to legally bind myself to a man who barely tolerates me.
To merge my life with a family whose expectations of their own leaves zero space for personal desires and to surrender every choice about my future to protect a company’s balance sheet. ”
Dad leaned forward, his elbows on the table and his voice low. “You wouldn’t be surrendering anything. You would be heading the account. Once it’s set in stone, Hinds would be yours to run. Fully yours.”
I blinked hard, thrown by the shift, but he kept talking. “You’ve earned that. You’ve already proven you can handle it. Obviously, you would need to remain in Chicago with your husband, though.”
I curled inward, but not because of Nate or Chicago.
Something else folded in on itself deep inside, like paper burning from the outside edges in.
A quiet, private panic sped through me, but I couldn’t show it.
I couldn’t even acknowledge it without unraveling completely, so I forced my shoulders back.
“Of course,” I said evenly.
Mom studied my face, her eyes searching. “Honey—”
“I said I’ll do it,” I repeated, sliding out of the booth before either of them could stop me.
The vinyl squeaked sharply, the sound echoing loud in my ears. I grabbed my phone, my bag, and every piece of myself I could gather before the cracks showed. Then I stopped to look back at them.
They were both watching me like they were afraid if they blinked, I’d change my mind. I held myself upright through sheer power of will, pressing my lips together to trap the tears threatening to spill.
“You know, it would have been nice if you asked me before you went ahead and traded me like livestock.”
Mom’s lip trembled, her hand flying to her mouth as her eyes glassed over. Dad’s shoulders fell, the weight of my words settling visibly across his frame. I blinked hard in an attempt to keep containing my emotions, but one tear escaped anyway, sliding hot and traitorous down my cheek.
I wiped it away impatiently, lifting my chin before I turned and marched out.
I had to go home, shower, fix my hair, put on some makeup, and button myself into the version of Kate Vanderhaul the world was allowed to see.
Because in just a couple hours, I’d be walking into the office and pretending my entire life hadn’t just been signed into a contract I hadn’t even been allowed to read yet.