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CHAPTER 86
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2026-07-14 15:29:37
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Anna and Jonathan: The Arranged Marriage CHAPTER 87
ANNA'S POV We brought him into the living room rather than the study, some instinct in me wanting to keep whatever this turned into away from the one room in the house that already carried too much weight from the past few days. My father settled into the armchair by the window with the easy confidence of a man who had never once doubted his welcome anywhere, setting his suitcase down beside him as though the matter of how long he intended to stay had already been decided. I watched him take in the room, the way he always did in any space he entered, cataloguing details, the quality of the furniture, the view from the window, the particular kind of quiet wealth this house had always projected without trying. He had done the same thing at every house we'd ever visited when I was a girl, and I remembered, watching him now, how long it had taken me to understand that this habit wasn't curiosity. It was appraisal. "I'll get straight to it," he said, once Jonathan had taken a seat besid
Anna and Jonathan: The Arranged Marriage CHAPTER 86
ANNA'S POV "I appreciate you thinking of him," I said carefully, "but Jonathan has people handling the board situation already. Lawyers, advisors, people who've known the company for decades." "Of course, of course," my father said, quick to agree in the particular way that always meant he had no intention of actually letting the subject go. "I'm not suggesting he needs rescuing, Anna. I simply thought, given everything I went through with my own company, the lawsuits, the board revolt, all of it, that I might have a perspective worth ten minutes of his time. Sometimes an outside voice sees things the people too close to it can't." I gripped the phone a little tighter, remembering the version of this conversation I'd had with him a dozen times before, always dressed up in language about family and generosity, always somehow ending with him closer to something he wanted than he'd started. I told myself this time might be different. I didn't fully believe it, but I told myself anyway
Anna and Jonathan: The Arranged Marriage CHAPTER 85
ANNA'S POV Jonathan didn't say much on the drive home, and I didn't push him to. I had learned, over the past several months, the difference between a silence that needed filling and a silence that simply needed company, and this one, I could tell, was the second kind. He went straight to the study when we got in, not to work, I realized when I followed him a few minutes later, but simply to sit, staring at nothing in particular, a man trying to hold the pieces of his own history in some kind of order that made sense. A year ago, I might have given him the space I assumed he wanted. I would have gone upstairs, told myself I was respecting his need to process alone, and quietly resented, underneath that respect, how far apart it always seemed to leave us. I thought, standing in the doorway watching him, of the night after Lucas's funeral, when I had done exactly that, retreated to our bedroom and left him alone downstairs for hours, both of us convinced at the time that we were simp
Anna and Jonathan: The Arranged Marriage CHAPTER 84
JONATHAN'S POVMy father poured himself another measure of scotch before he spoke again, and I understood, watching his hand tremble slightly around the glass, that he needed the small ritual of it more than he needed the drink itself."Eighteen months ago, when Whitmore's firm extended that loan, there were conditions attached beyond the interest rate," he said. "I told myself at the time they were minor. Standard protections a lender builds into an agreement of that size. I didn't examine them as closely as I should have, because I was desperate, and desperate men read contracts the way they want to read them rather than the way they're actually written.""What conditions," I said, my voice flat, giving him nothing to soften against."A proxy agreement," he said. "Buried in the fine print, structured to activate only under specific circumstances. If the company ever faced what the document called a material governance crisis, and Jonathan, a murder investigation touching the family,
Anna and Jonathan: The Arranged Marriage CHAPTER 83
JONATHAN'S POV "Jonathan," my father said, before I'd even gotten a word out, "I need you and Anna to come to the house tonight. Now, if you can manage it. I'd rather explain this in person than let you sit with half a story until morning." Something in his voice had changed since the office that afternoon, the careful composure worn thin enough that I could hear the strain underneath it clearly for the first time in longer than I could remember. "We're already on our way," I said, and meant it, keys already in hand. Anna sat beside me on the drive over, quiet, watching the streets pass in the dark, and I was grateful, not for the first time this week, that she'd refused to be left behind for this. Whatever waited at my parents' house, I didn't want to face it without her. My father was waiting in the study when we arrived, alone, a decanter of scotch on the table beside him that looked considerably lower than it should have been for this early in the evening. My mother's absence
Anna and Jonathan: The Arranged Marriage CHAPTER 82
ANNA'S POV "I need a day," Jonathan's father said, before he could finish whatever he'd started to say a moment earlier, some of the composure sliding back over his face like a door quietly closing. "There are people I need to speak with, documents I need in front of me before I explain this properly. I don't want to give you half a story and let you build the wrong conclusions out of it." Jonathan's jaw tightened, and I could see how badly he wanted to press further, to demand the whole truth right there in that office rather than wait another twenty four hours for a version his father had time to shape into something more manageable. But he nodded, tightly, and I understood, watching him, that some part of this restraint was for my benefit as much as his own, a promise he was actively practicing now instead of merely making. We didn't speak much on the drive home. I could feel Jonathan running through a hundred possibilities, none of them good, and I let him have the silence for
Anna and Jonathan: The Arranged Marriage CHAPTER 24
LUCAS POV. I grinned like a child heading out of Jonathan's study room. Not entirely because of my joke to get Anna to hear my voice but because of the location of their honeymoon. I typed on my phone, taking slow steps along the passages that led to Jonathan's bedroom. I clicked send and smiled bro
Anna and Jonathan: The Arranged Marriage CHAPTER 13
"Is that all you want?" Mr Theo asked to be sure if there was anything else to be included. "Nope, that is all" I answered. "Okay, I'll get it done before the day, no need to worry Mr. Clarkson" He assured me. "Thank you" I replied"I'd like to take my leave," He said picking up his briefcase. We sho
Anna and Jonathan: The Arranged Marriage CHAPTER 11
She looked at me up in the eyes without a blink "I wish you knew how much your presence disgusts me right now" she uttered straight to my face and walked away leaving me to deliberate on those words. What the fuck! Her words hit me like an arrow, piercing straight into my heart. Never in my entire l
Anna and Jonathan: The Arranged Marriage CHAPTER 8
JONATHAN'S POVWalking beside her I could feel how tense she was. I know she must be very nervous and it only amused me. When I got to her house earlier, I was expecting to see her instantly but it took long before she showed up.I was so engrossed in my phone that I didn't notice when she came to the
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