JULIAN GRANT'S POV
If money solved everything, I would wire my mother ten million dollars just to stop her from talking about marriage.
Unfortunately, she is immune to bribery and emotional exhaustion.
"Let us not start with ultimatums, Mother. You know I don't take well to being cornered."
I check my watch — five minutes into this conversation, and my sanity is already evaporating.
If I had known marriage was the reason she summoned me to the family house, I would have flown straight back to my penthouse. Hell, I would have stayed in New York and drowned in another week of panels and corporate bullshit rather than sit here being lectured like a misbehaving prince.
Four weeks in that city left a permanent migraine lodged behind my eyes. Endless meetings, strategy roundtables, and back-to-back conferences where everyone wanted a piece of the Grant name. And then the paparazzi — cameras flashing like goddamn lightning every time I stepped out of the hotel. My exact location leaked twice. I am still suing someone for it. Maybe I should start charging appearance fees. At least then the harassment would be profitable.
"You turn thirty in a fortnight," my mother says, as if she is revealing a criminal charge. "Are you not old enough to settle down? A man without stability is a liability."
There it is. The gospel of Elysia Grant: image over blood, duty over desire, legacy over sanity.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. "I need a shower, Mother. And food. And silence. Pick any two."
She ignores that completely. Adjusts her pearl cuff instead. Classic Elysia Grant — elegance weaponized.
"If I send you the file again," she says, "will you at least pretend to look at it this time?"
Ah.
The file.
The CIA-level dossier she curated on 'suitable candidates.' Family pedigrees, bank statements, fertility notes — I would not be surprised if she includes dental records in this updated version.
"Send it," I say, standing. "I will frame it beside my trophies."
"Julian—"
"Rain check." I am already walking toward the door. "We will revisit this when my soul returns from New York."
"You can run, darling," she calls after me, "but responsibility is not a country you can escape with your jet."
I shut the door behind me with the same grace I use in board meetings — polite, firm, final. People think power is about saying yes. It's not. It is about ending the conversation before they can argue.
But the truth is, she is right about one thing.
This marriage talk is closing in.
The last time I entertained one of her curated matches, it nearly ended in scandal. One Ivy League alumna who looked like she had been taxidermied. One woman who sent a nude before our first meeting. Another who suggested IVF to 'maintain the Grant bloodline.' The bold one who called me 'Daddy' before dessert — unforgettable, but for all the wrong reasons. She made for a good fuck, though.
An entire month of staged dinners, fake smiles, superficial conversations, and one near PR disaster.
And then the Latina beauty at the end of the list — breathtaking face, breathtaking lies. Two days after our second date, she was caught in an embezzlement scheme. I ended it with one phone call.
Three years later, I still feel a headache every time my mother says 'candidate.'
And then there was the last one — the mistake that ended two weeks before my business trip. Beautiful. Vicious. The kind of woman who thinks men are pawns and manipulation is sport. My parents adored her. They did not hear the full story. I made sure of that. She is gone, and I don't plan to revisit the topic.
But maybe that mess did something to me — pushed me somewhere I didn't expect.
Maybe it is time I stop dodging.
If they want a wife so desperately, I will give them one.
On my terms.
I am not delusional. I don't care for soulmates or fate or any romantic ideology. I care about efficiency and control. Optics. Clean lines. Clean endings. Romance is a language I never learned. My parents didn't speak it, my childhood didn't show it, and my adulthood does not require it.
People fall in love like it is gravity. I fall into strategy. Into logic. Love is unpredictable, and unpredictability has no place anywhere near my life, my empire, or my name.
I need someone who checks the right boxes — quiet, agreeable. Not stupid, but not dangerous. Soft enough to mold into the role, desperate enough to accept the terms, naive enough to believe that affection from me is possible.
Pretty? Ideal.
Harmless? Non-negotiable.
She will get the luxury, the reputation, and the spotlight.
I will get stability, silence, and absolute control.
And when the arrangement dissolves, she will walk away with money but no leverage — confused, hurt, maybe. But powerless. That is the key. No loose ends. No scandals. Nothing messy.
People say I am cold. Unfeeling. That I don't know how to love.
They are wrong. I know exactly how to love — with distance, with strategy, with a firewall installed in my chest.
Growing up in this house taught me that. Affection was currency. Approval was the only reward. Everything else? Liabilities.
I walk through the foyer, marble reflecting the light like polished ice. The Grant estate always looks like a magazine spread — perfection lacquered over emptiness.
I dial.
"Matthew," I say when he picks up. "Bring the car around."
"As you wish, sir."
My gaze lifts to the massive portrait of my parents above the staircase — painted decades ago, flawless, posed, smiling like they actually liked each other.
Illusions. All of it.
But illusions run this family. They built an empire on the right lies and the right image.
And maybe I finally understand what it takes to keep that legacy alive.
"We are going to fix this marriage problem," I mutter, slipping my phone into my pocket, "once and for all."
I take one last look at the portrait.
Two perfect smiles.
Perfect lies.
I can play that game too.
And this time, the board, the press, and my parents will believe the illusion I build — even if it eats me alive.