(Don't read! Still editing)
Then no marriage."
The words hit the air like a blade cutting through steel, clean and final. Fiona's heart thudded painfully in her chest, anger rising sharp and fast. For a moment, she thought she hadn't heard him right. But the cold look in his eyes—steady, unflinching—told her otherwise.
He wasn't bluffing.
She could see it in the way he leaned back in his chair, his calm so deliberate it mocked her. Fervor wasn't the kind of man who barked and stormed about when he didn't get what he wanted. He simply withdrew—and that, somehow, was worse. It meant he had already decided she wasn't worth the trouble.
"You're serious," she said, her voice trembling, though she forced herself to sound composed. "You'd throw away a deal this important because of that one condition?"
