Page 4 of Single Dad's Fake Bride
Blackwood nodded. "I'll file the necessary paperwork and track compliance with the timeline."
Margot stood abruptly, shoving her legal pad into her briefcase.
"This is ridiculous. I'm calling my partners first thing Monday morning. There has to be a way to challenge this farce."
"You're welcome to try," I said calmly. "But while you're filing motions, I'll be finding a wife."
"A wife." Caroline practically spat the word. "You make it sound like a business transaction."
I met her gaze without flinching.
"Isn't that what marriage has always been in this family?"
The question hung in the air as Margot snapped her briefcase shut and headed for the door.
She paused at the threshold, her hand on the brass handle that had probably been polished by countless students over the decades.
"No court will uphold this circus," she said, her voice carrying across the room with courtroom authority. "You can count on that."
She yanked the door open and stalked into the hallway, her heels clicking against the floor in rapid retreat.
Caroline followed without a word, clutching her handbag against her chest as if it could shield her from the indignity of being cut out of the family legacy.
The remaining board members exchanged glances heavy with meaning.
Dr. Sterling gathered her papers with the same careful precision she probably used to grade examinations.
Marcus Henley finally stopped checking his watch and closed his portfolio.
Caldwell remained seated, his pale eyes fixed on me with undisguised calculation.
"Theodore," he said without breaking eye contact, "get your things. You're no longer welcome here."
Blackwood's face went white, but he nodded and began packing his documents with shaking hands.
In less than an hour, I had gained an inheritance and lost the only advocate who understood my father's true intentions.
As the room emptied around me, I stayed rooted beside my chair, surrounded by the ghosts of my childhood and the weight of an impossible deadline.
Ninety days to find a wife.
Ninety days to save my daughter's future.
Ninety days to prove that the boy who ran away from Hawthorne Academy could return as the man it needed.
The grandfather clock chimed the hour, marking another sixty minutes gone.
I had eighty-nine days left.
2
SADIE
"Marcus, pencil down." I stepped between desks as Marcus wound up for another throw. "We use words, not projectiles."
The boy grinned and lowered his weapon.
Behind me, Jamie Fletcher drew sword battles in his worksheet margins while Eloise Vale sat absorbed in her reading corner.
