Chapter 9

Arthur Young slapped his thigh in frustration. "Isabella Young! How did I raise such a fool!"

"Your usual antics? I could overlook them! But today, you had to defy me!"

"The connection I begged for... destroyed by your own hand!"

His anger mounted. If I were truly ruthless, I could dismantle Young Enterprises too.

After Arthur's desperate plea, Isabella finally seemed to grasp the situation.

"Dad, I... I didn't know the Shaws were..." She trailed off, looking at me with new eyes.

Not the eyes of a woman who'd just discovered I was wealthy. That would have been insufferable.

No—these were the eyes of someone recalculating. Realizing that every assumption she'd made was wrong. That the "freeloading loser" she'd dismissed was the person her father had spent months courting.

"Sebastian." She said my name without contempt for the first time. "I owe you an apology."

"You owe me several."

She flinched, but didn't argue. "You're right. The agreement, the insults, bringing Preston in—"

"Those weren't all your doing," I conceded. "Wesley played you. But you let him. Because it was easier to look down on me than to question the people around you."

She nodded, the fight finally leaving her body. She sat heavily in a chair, the gown billowing around her like a deflated parachute.

"I want to make this right," Arthur interjected. "Sebastian, name your terms."

"I don't have terms, Mr. Young. This isn't a negotiation. The Shaw-Young partnership can proceed on business merits alone—my grandfather and your board can work that out."

"As for the marriage..." I paused.

Both Youngs held their breath.

"Off the table. For now."

Arthur's shoulders sagged with relief. "For now" wasn't "never." It was an opening—and for a man staring down insolvency, an opening was everything.

Isabella stood, smoothing her gown with shaking hands. "Then at least let me do one thing."

She walked to the door, opened it, and addressed the three hundred guests still milling in the grand hall.

"I'm sorry, everyone. The wedding is cancelled. It was my fault. Sebastian Shaw was—is—a good man, and I was too blind to see it."

The murmurs were thunderous. Camera flashes exploded. Publicists scrambled.

But Isabella stood there and took it. Every whisper, every shocked gasp, every judgmental stare.

When she turned back to me, there was something different in her expression.

Not love. Not even like. But respect—hard-won and fragile.

"Sebastian, when you're ready to talk... really talk... I'll be here."

I nodded once. Then I walked through the crowd, out the front doors, and into the evening air.

My phone buzzed. Grandfather again.

"Saw the whole thing. The girl's got more spine than I expected."

"She does," I admitted.

"Don't marry her yet. Make her earn it."

I laughed—a real laugh, the first one all day.

"That's the plan, Grandfather. That's the plan."