Alexandros Drakos did not look up from his tablet when his father spoke. "You're getting married."
The words landed quietly, but they carried the weight of a verdict. Alexandros's fingers paused mid-scroll. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Drakos penthouse, the city burned with lights and ambition. Everything he owned was visible from here. Everything except his freedom. "I don't have time for jokes," Alexandros said coolly.
His father coughed a deep, rattling sound he tried, unsuccessfully, to hide behind a handkerchief.
"This is not a joke," Nikolaos Drakos replied. "It's a decision."
Alexandros finally lifted his gaze. His father looked smaller than he remembered. Weaker. The illness had carved shadows beneath his eyes and hollowed his cheeks, but his authority remained intact.
"I built an empire," Alexandros said. "I don't need a wife to protect it."
Nikolaos's lips curved into something between a smile and a grimace. "You need an anchor. And you need continuity."
Alexandros leaned back slowly. "Who is she?"
"Aurelia Cross's daughter."
The name stirred something distant and unwanted.
Family friends. Old dinners. Polite conversations from a childhood he had long buried.
"I haven't seen her since we were barely old enough to remember each other," Alexandros said.
"That's why this works," Nikolaos replied. "No past. No attachments. No complications."
Alexandros laughed once, humorless. "You want me to marry a stranger."
Nikolaos met his gaze steadily. "I want you to marry a woman who can stand beside you. And one I trust with this family."
Silence stretched between them, thick and dangerous.
"You've already decided," Alexandros said.
Nikolaos did not deny it.
Cross Mansion
Seraphina Cross had barely stepped into her childhood home when her mother took her hands into a bare huge and kissing the both cheek, she says "Welcome home my darling" she looks into her eye and announced
"The wedding date has been fixed."
Seraphina froze. "What?" she whispered.
Her luggage still sat unopened near the door. Jet lag clung to her bones. She had flown in thinking this was an emergency, something urgent, but this was worse.
"You're marrying Alexandros Drakos," her mother continued gently. "In three months."
Seraphina pulled her hands away. "I have a life. A career. A laboratory waiting for me."
Her father's voice was calm but firm. "You have built everything we hoped you would. Now it's time to get married." "Marriage"
A word that felt like a cage.
"I don't even know him," Seraphina said.
"You used to," her mother replied softly. "When you were children."
"Children."
Seraphina turned away, pressing her fingers against her temples. She had spent years fighting to be taken seriously in rooms full of men who dismissed her intelligence. She had earned her independence molecule by molecule.
Marriage felt like surrender.
"Why him?" she asked.
Her father's expression darkened. "Because the Drakos family is powerful. And because Alexandros needs someone who won't disappear when his world turns ugly."
Seraphina swallowed. "And what if I don't want this?"
Her mother reached for her again. "Sometimes love isn't chosen. Sometimes it grows."
Seraphina said nothing, but she did not say no.
Introduction Dinner.
The dinner was held a week later.
Two families. One long table. Polished silverware and conversations sharpened by expectation.
Alexandros arrived late, his presence commanding immediate silence. Seraphina looked up just as he took his seat across from her.
Their eyes met.
Recognition flickered, distant, impersonal.
So this is him. So this is her.
Conversation flowed around them, politics, business, pleasantries, but an unspoken tension crackled between their glances.
When dinner ended, Alexandros stood. "Walk with me." It wasn't a request.
Seraphina hesitated, then rose.
They stepped onto the terrace, the city spread beneath them like a promise and a threat.
"You don't look thrilled," Alexandros said, breaking the silence.
She met his gaze evenly. "Neither do you."
A corner of his mouth lifted. "Honest."
"I don't believe in marrying strangers," she continued.
"Neither do I," he replied. "But belief rarely matters in families like ours."
She studied him. "Then why agree?"
His eyes darkened. "Because some arrangements are easier than wars."
Seraphina felt something shift, unease, curiosity, something dangerous.
"And if I walk away?" she asked.
Alexandros held her gaze. "Then I won't stop you."
The silence stretched.
Neither of them moved.
Inside, their parents laughed, already celebrating a wedding not yet agreed upon.
Outside, two strangers stood on the edge of a decision that would change everything.
And neither of them knew yet…
that walking away would soon become impossible.