Chapter 2 - TEN MINUTES
Mireille did not move.
The room seemed to wait with her.
Mr. Solvay glanced at his watch again.
“Nine minutes.”
That did it.
She stood.
Her father immediately reached for her elbow.
“Mireille, upstairs. Now.”
She pulled away.
For most of her life, Edmund Voss had treated her silence as consent. If she did not protest, he assumed agreement. If she left a room, he called it obedience. If she cried where he could not see her, he counted the day as peaceful.
Not this time.
She looked directly at Solvay.
“What exactly did you just buy?”
Margaux inhaled sharply.
Edmund whispered, “For God’s sake.”
Solvay’s expression barely changed.
“Nothing.”
“My father owes you four million dollars.”
“Yes.”
“He offered you his daughter.”
“He did.”
“And you accepted.”
“I accepted a proposal.”
“That sounds remarkably like buying something.”
For the first time, the corner of his mouth moved.
Not a smile.
Something more dangerous.
Interest.
“What’s your name?” Mireille asked.
Her father looked horrified.
Solvay answered without hesitation.
“Lucian.”
“Lucian what?”
“Solvay.”
“I know your last name.”
“Then why ask?”
“Because if you expect me to leave my home with you, I would prefer to know what to call you while planning my escape.”
Margaux made a tiny choking sound.
Lucian looked at Mireille for several seconds.
Then he reached inside his coat.
Edmund flinched.
Lucian removed a folded document.
He placed it on the table.
“The debt agreement.”
Mireille approached carefully.
Across the top was her father’s signature.
Beneath it were numbers.
Four million dollars.
Then another page.
Properties.
Companies.
Collateral.
And something else.
Lucian tapped the bottom paragraph.
“I didn’t come here for a wife.”
Edmund went pale.
Mireille looked at him.
“Then why did he offer one?”
Lucian’s gaze remained on Edmund.
“That is an excellent question.”
Her father said nothing.
Mireille felt something cold move through her.
Lucian continued.
“Your father requested an alternative settlement. Marriage would consolidate certain business interests and prevent the immediate liquidation of Voss assets.”
Margaux stood.
“So this was business?”
Lucian glanced at her.
“What did you imagine it was?”
Her face reddened.
Mireille almost laughed.
Almost.
Instead, she studied the agreement.
“Why me?”
“Because you were watching.”
“So was everyone.”
“No. They were watching me.”
He pointed at her abandoned sketchbook.
“You were drawing the chair.”
Mireille frowned.
“That makes me marriage material?”
“It makes you the only person in this room who wasn’t performing.”
Her father stepped forward.
“Mr. Solvay, Mireille is difficult. She’s reclusive. She has no experience with society. Margaux has been educated for—”
“For what?”
Edmund stopped.
Lucian’s voice hardened.
“Being traded?”
Silence.
Margaux stared at her father.
Mireille did too.
Edmund looked away first.
Something inside Mireille shifted.
She had always known.
But knowing a thing privately was different from hearing a stranger name it aloud.
Lucian turned to Mireille.
“You have a choice.”
Edmund laughed nervously.
“Of course, naturally, but considering the debt—”
Lucian looked at him.
Edmund stopped speaking.
“A real choice,” Lucian said.
Mireille crossed her arms.
“If I say no?”
“I leave.”
“And him?”
“Tomorrow morning my attorneys begin collection.”
Edmund’s face collapsed.
“The house?”
“Probably.”
“The company?”
“If necessary.”
Margaux whispered, “Daddy?”
Mireille watched her father.
He did not look at Margaux.
He looked at Mireille.
And there it was.
The expectation.
The same expectation that had followed her since childhood.
Be easy.
Be quiet.
Take less.
Need nothing.
Fix this.
Mireille felt suddenly, profoundly tired.
“What happens if I say yes?”
“Thirty days.”
“To what?”
“To determine whether an arrangement between us is workable.”
“You mean marriage.”
“Eventually.”
“You make romance sound like a corporate merger.”
“I’m not romantic.”
“I had noticed.”
That almost-smile returned.
“If after thirty days you refuse, I cancel the personal portion of your father’s debt.”
Edmund stared.
“You would?”
Lucian ignored him.
Mireille narrowed her eyes.
“And what do you get?”
“You.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting tonight.”
She should have refused.
Every sensible instinct told her to.
But then she noticed something.
The document.
One line had been circled in pencil.
A property listed as collateral.
Voss Industrial Storage, Building Seven.
Mireille’s fingers went cold.
Building Seven had burned fourteen years ago.
The fire that had scarred her face.
She looked at Lucian.
He was watching her.
He knew.
Not everything.
But something.
“You circled this.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Pack your things.”
“Tell me.”
“Not here.”
That answer frightened her more than anything else he had said.
Mireille turned toward her father.
He would not meet her eyes.
That decided it.
“I need fifteen minutes.”
Lucian checked his watch.
“Ten.”
“Twelve.”
“Eleven.”
She stared at him.
“Do you negotiate everything?”
“Only things worth having.”
Mireille hated the warmth that unexpectedly touched her cheeks.
She turned and walked upstairs.
Nine minutes later, she returned carrying one suitcase, her sketchbook, three pencils, and a small metal box she had kept hidden beneath her bed since she was fourteen.
Lucian noticed the box.
He said nothing.
Outside, rain struck the windows.
A black car waited at the curb.
Margaux stood near the staircase, strangely quiet now.
As Mireille passed, her sister caught her wrist.
For a moment, Mireille expected jealousy.
Instead Margaux whispered, “Don’t trust Dad.”
Mireille stopped.
Margaux’s fingers tightened.
“The night of the fire,” she whispered, “he lied.”
Mireille’s heartbeat stumbled.
“About what?”
Footsteps approached behind them.
Margaux released her.
Edmund appeared.
Lucian opened the front door.
Cold rain-scented air entered the house.
Mireille looked once more at her sister.
Margaux’s face had gone white.
“What did he lie about?”
Margaux swallowed.
Then Edmund said sharply, “Mireille.”
Lucian’s eyes moved between them.
He had heard enough to understand something had changed.
Mireille stepped outside.
The car door opened.
She climbed in beside the most feared man she had ever met.
Lucian entered after her.
The door closed.
Only when the Voss house disappeared behind rain-streaked glass did he speak.
“Building Seven.”
Mireille slowly turned toward him.
May you like
Lucian’s face was expressionless.
“I know who started the fire.”
