Chapter 22 #2
The memory of her face, her simple “I’m in,” flashed before me. My face broke into a grin I couldn’t contain, a stark contrast to his anxiety. “She said yes.”
Liam shook his head, a flicker of a smile breaking through his own tension. “No wonder you look like you just won the lottery.” He glanced back at the door, his expression sobering. “Too bad the mood’s about to get murdered.”
He was wrong.
The feeling in my chest—the solid, warm certainty of Alessia’s yes—wasn’t so fragile. Mr. Hartley could unleash hell in that office, but he couldn’t touch this.
I straightened my shoulders. “Let’s get this over with.”
I pushed the door open and entered.
Mr. Hartley was sitting in my chair. Not in one of the guest chairs facing the desk. In my chair, behind my desk, his fingers steepled on the polished surface as if he’d been holding court for hours. He smiled when he saw me, a cold, satisfied curve of his lips that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Dad, seriously?” Liam’s voice was thick with disgust as he took in the scene.
Mr. Hartley’s smile shifted from me to his son, utterly unperturbed. “This seat is just better for my back. The support is superior. I’m sure Cassian understands.” His eyes slid back to me, cold and testing. “Don’t you, son?”
My teeth ground together at the title—son—a deliberate, venomous claim of paternal authority he had no right to. Then I let a smooth, empty smile settle on my face. “Of course. Make yourself comfortable, Mr. Hartley.”
Liam shook his head, a flush of anger and embarrassment rising on his neck.
“Don’t just keep standing there,” Hartley said, gesturing magnanimously to the two plush guest chairs positioned opposite the desk. His confidence was absolute; this was his boardroom now, and we were merely attendees. “Come. Take a seat.”
We moved. Liam, after a second’s hesitation, dropped into one of the chairs, his posture rigid with suppressed fury.
I remained standing. I placed my hands in my pockets, adopting a casual lean against the side of the bookcase, a few feet from the desk.
It was a small rebellion, a refusal to be fully seated before him.
I was still the host in this room, even if he was temporarily squatting in my chair.
The message was clear: he might have taken the seat, but he didn’t own the ground.
Hartley’s gaze lifted to meet mine, a calculated glint in his eyes. “You’re not going to sit?”
“I prefer to stand. My back is perfectly fine.” I let the statement hang.
One eye twitched, a tiny fissure in the smooth facade, but the smile remained.
“Very well.” He clapped his hands together once, the sound sharp in the quiet room.
“It’s been too long since the three of us were together.
We should get lunch. There’s a new place I’ve been meaning to try. We can discuss business there—”
“I wish we could, Mr. Hartley,” I cut in, my tone politely firm. “But our schedule is packed today.” I made a show of glancing at my watch. “So if you could just state the reason for your visit, we’d appreciate it.”
This time, the smile slipped for a full second before snapping back, tighter and colder. “Such dedication. I admire it. Let’s get straight to it, then.”
He leaned forward, his elbows on my desk.
“I have a proposition that will be immensely beneficial for all of us.” His eyes swept from Liam’s stony face to mine. “We should merge our companies. One unified entity. Stronger together, as they say.”
The room went dead silent. Not a comfortable quiet, but the vacuum after a detonation. The air itself seemed to freeze.
I kept staring at him, my expression giving nothing away.
Even Liam didn’t move, didn’t breathe, his eyes locked on Hartley as if watching a snake coil.
The silence stretched, thick and suffocating, until Hartley’s smile began to strain at the edges.
Then, with no hesitation, no room for negotiation, I said, “No.”
He shook his head, the smile still plastered on his face, now tinged with pity. “Ambition is good, Cassian. But this? This is arrogance. And it was that same arrogance that drove you two to the brink of bankruptcy.” He said it like he was delivering a difficult but necessary truth.
Liam stiffened, his hands curling into tight fists on his knees.
“Almost,” I corrected, my voice devoid of heat. Just a fact. “And we’re still standing.”
“For how long?” Mr. Hartley spread his hands, a gesture of benevolent worry. “You’ve barely survived, Cassian. On grit and luck. Sure, you’re upright right now, but you’re one misstep, one market tremor, one bad hire away from crumbling again. One.”
He leaned forward, his eyes intense.
“I’m here to make sure you survive before you make that mistake. I’m giving you a lifeline before you even need to gasp for air. I’m helping you. You should be grateful.”
He was wrong. Fundamentally, completely wrong. We didn’t need his help, and we certainly didn’t need his lifeline. I knew from bitter experience that Hartley’s lifelines always came with strings attached—and those strings could strangle.
When I had finally returned to work full-time, Liam had laid it all out for me.
Real investors—not vultures, not manipulators, but firms who believed in the technology and the restructured vision—had quietly come on board.
I’d been so singularly focused on the Aethelstan deal that I’d instructed Rohan to shield me from all other updates.
I hadn’t known the foundation was already being rebuilt beneath my feet.
And now we had the Garcias too. A public, prestigious collaboration. We had a name that represented quality and integrity, the antithesis of Hartley’s cutthroat consolidation.
We didn’t need him at all.
“When someone doesn’t need or want help and you force it on them anyway,” I said, my voice low, “it’s called abuse.” I turned my head slightly toward Liam, my gaze still locked on Hartley. “Or does it stop being abuse if you disguise it as ‘help’?”
Liam kept his eyes locked on Hartley, his expression cold. “No. I’m pretty sure it’s still abuse.”
Mr. Hartley threw his head back and laughed, a rich, patronizing sound that filled the office.
“You two. You really do make me laugh. They call anything abuse these days.” He shook his head at us as though we were foolish children who had wandered into a conversation far beyond our understanding.
“Call it whatever pretty, modern word you like. We all know the truth. You’ve stabilized the patient, Cassian, but it’s still in recovery.
You need something big. A massive infusion of credibility, capital, security—something to make sure you never end up back in that ICU. ”
He tapped a finger against his chest.
“And I,” he said, smiling, “am offering you the cure. On a silver platter.”
My gaze didn’t waver.
When I’d pulled out of his deal, I’d expected retaliation—undercutting, poaching clients, the usual corporate warfare. I hadn’t anticipated this: a bald-faced attempt at a hostile takeover, dressed up as a favor and wrapped in a bow.
My eyes narrowed. “Cut the act. You didn’t travel across the city out of paternal concern to ‘save’ us. What’s the real move?” I took a step closer to the desk. “What do you actually want?”
He shook his head, a slow, approving smile spreading across his face.
“This is why I’ve always liked you, Cassian.
You don’t waste time on sentiment. Straight to the heart of the matter.
” He leaned back in my chair, steepling his fingers.
“But you’re right. I do want something. And it benefits you, as well. ”
His eyes locked onto mine, the friendly facade dissolving into pure, chilling calculation.
“I want you to marry Cassandra.”
The room wasn’t silent this time.
Liam erupted from his chair so fast it scraped backward with a shriek. “What the fuck?!” He stared between me and Hartley, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated horror. “What the actual fuck?!”
My eyes never left Hartley’s. A cold, seething disgust settled in my gut, heavy as lead. I let him see all of it—the revulsion, the contempt, the absolute rejection—in the flat, unwavering stare I gave him.
Then I said the only word that mattered.
“No.”
He sighed, a theatrically weary sound.
“I’m trying to help you, Cassian. Your company is on shaky ground.
The very public, very messy divorce on top of it?
Your professional image is in tatters. Your board must be anxious.
If you were to marry, to settle down with a respectable woman from a good family, it would stabilize everything.
They’d see you as a man of substance, of legacy—”
“Why would I get married,” I interrupted, my voice cutting through his polished monologue like glass, “when I already have a wife?”
He halted, then shook his head with a patronizing, almost pitying motion. “Oh, Cassian. This is exactly why we need to get you settled quickly. Cassandra would look after you. Because clearly, you’re losing touch with reality.” He looked at me with fabricated sorrow. “You’re divorced, son.”
“Stop calling me son,” I gritted out, the words carrying all the venom I could barely keep out of my voice.
“I know I’m divorced. But that doesn’t make me available.
Alessia became my wife long before any judge made it legal, and no piece of paper can undo that.
So, yes, Mr. Hartley. I have a wife. I’m not marrying anyone else. ”
He wasn’t smiling anymore. The facade of concern hardened into impatience.
“You need to move on, Cassian. Alessia. Left. You.” He spaced the words out, as if speaking to a child.
“So?” I countered, my voice flat.
He blinked, momentarily thrown by the simplicity of the rebuttal. Then his jaw clenched. “So, you need to stop wasting your life dwelling on the past and look to the future. To Cassandra.”
Every time he uttered her name in the same breath as my future, a fresh wave of disgust rolled through me. I didn’t bother hiding it.
Liam muttered a harsh curse under his breath. “Dad, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Just stop.”