ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY EIGHT

JOCELIA'S POV

The tension in the room could crush a steel pipe, and I could feel the weight of the conversation bearing down on me. My father was sitting behind his massive oak desk, his fingers drumming a slow, deliberate rhythm on the polished surface. The board members had just left, their murmurs of discontent still lingering in the air like a foul stench. I knew better than to speak out of turn, but I couldn’t keep the question bottled up any longer.

"So... Grayson didn’t agree with the proposal about marrying me?" I asked, trying to sound as meek and non-confrontational as possible. I could see the storm brewing in my father’s eyes, and the last thing I wanted was to be the one to set it off.

He didn’t look up from the papers scattered across his desk as he responded. "No, he didn’t."

There was no emotion in his voice, just cold, hard fact. I bit my lip, the words of reassurance I wanted to offer caught in my throat. My father had poured a lot of effort into this arrangement, be