POV Audrey
Reed Logistics headquarters rises like a monument to corporate ambition, all glass and steel cutting against Seattle's gray morning sky.
I step through the revolving doors still carrying the weight of Saturday night—tiny hands creating art they might never live to see, and Shane calculating charitable donations like quarterly projections.
What kind of father would he have been if he'd known?
The question haunts me through security, through the elevator's silent ascent, through the conference room doors where executives from both empires wait like generals before battle.
I take my seat across from Shane, whose expression reveals nothing of the man who felt and watched me slap him three nights ago.
The presentations blur together. Revenue projections. Market analysis. Synergy opportunities written by accountants. Then the head of Reed's communications division stands, and the room shifts.
"The press announcement is ready," she declares, sliding folders toward both ends of the table. "The merger. The marriage. We've crafted a narrative that positions this as a strategic union of two legacy companies, with the personal element adding human interest for broader media coverage."
I flip through the folder. Glossy photos of Shane and me that don't exist yet. Timeline for engagement announcements, wedding dates, coordinated social media reveals.
My entire future, packaged for public consumption.
"Is this spectacle truly necessary?" The words escape before I can stop them. "The merger stands on its own business merits. Why manufacture a romance for shareholders who only care about profit margins?"
Silence. A board member—Harrison, I think, old money with older opinions—clears his throat with deliberate weight.
"Ms. Lennox, let's speak plainly about optics. An unmarried heiress with a child of unknown paternity leading a company of this magnitude raises questions. Questions about judgment, about stability, about the kind of leadership shareholders can trust with their investments. The marriage addresses those concerns elegantly."
My face burns. Eight years of proving myself, and I'm still reduced to my reproductive choices in a room full of men who've never had their competence measured against their personal lives.
Shane remains silent across the table. His gray eyes meet mine briefly, then slide away—the same avoidance I remember from a library a decade ago, when defending me would have cost him social capital he wasn't willing to spend.
"My granddaughter's worth to this company is documented in every quarterly report you've received for the past five years."
Grandfather's voice cuts through the room like cold steel.
"Her strategic vision transformed our Pacific operations. Her leadership secured contracts your own analysts called impossible. Whatever personal judgments you're making, Harrison, I suggest you remember who generated the numbers that made this merger attractive in the first place."
The defense should feel like vindication. Instead, it lands like a consolation prize—acknowledgment of my value wrapped in confirmation that my value alone isn't enough.
"The marriage remains essential," another board member adds, softer but no less final. "Stock projections depend on stability. This provides it."
The meeting breaks for lunch, and I'm halfway to the elevator when Shane's voice stops me.
"I'd like to show you something. My office, if you have a moment."
It's not a request. I follow him to the private elevator, through corridors, into a corner office where Seattle sprawls beneath floor-to-ceiling windows like a kingdom awaiting its king.
"You wanted to discuss something, or did you just need an audience for your view?" I keep my voice light, but my hands won't stop trembling.
"I wanted to discuss reality."
He leans against his desk, arms crossed, studying me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle.
"This arrangement is mutually beneficial, Audrey. Your grandfather gets his merger and his legacy secured. My mother stops threatening me. We both get freedom from expectations that have been suffocating us for years. I don't understand why you're still fighting something that solves problems for everyone involved."
"Because I didn't choose it. Because no one asked what I wanted before deciding what I'd become."
I move to the window, putting distance between us.
"You speak about this like it's a business deal with favorable terms, but you're not the one being packaged and sold. You're not the one whose personal life just got dissected by a room full of strangers who think my child makes me a liability."
"Harrison was out of line. I'll address it."
"You'll address it now that it's convenient, you mean. You sat there in silence while he reduced me to an unwed mother with questionable judgment. Just watching from a safe distance while other people do the dirty work of making me feel small."
Something flickers in his expression. Recognition, maybe. Or the ghost of guilt he's never quite managed to bury.
"I'm not asking you to pretend this is a love story," he says quietly. "I'm asking you to accept that we're both trapped by circumstances neither of us created, and that fighting each other only makes the cage smaller. We can make this arrangement tolerable, even comfortable, if you'd stop treating every interaction like warfare."
"You want compliance wrapped in civility. A wife who smiles for cameras and swallows her objections along with her champagne."
I turn to face him, letting him see the fury I've been containing since Saturday night.
"I won't make captivity comfortable for you, Shane. If I'm going to be imprisoned in this marriage, you're going to feel every bar of the cage right alongside me."
His jaw tightens, but before he can respond, his phone buzzes. He glances at the screen, and something shifts in his posture—satisfaction, quickly concealed.
"We should return. There's a final announcement."
The conference room has reassembled, and Grandfather stands at the head of the table with an expression I've learned to dread.
"Given the timeline for the merger approval, we've accelerated certain elements of the public narrative. In two days, Audrey and Shane will fly together to San Francisco for an investor presentation. They'll appear publicly as an engaged couple for the first time, demonstrating unified leadership for both companies."
My stomach drops through the floor.
I turn to Shane, searching for a surprise that doesn't exist. His expression betrays nothing—no shock, no discomfort, no indication that this announcement is anything other than expected.
He knew.
He knew while he was lecturing me about accepting reality. He knew while offering tours of his office like a spider showing flies around his web. He brought me up here to soften me before the blow landed, and I walked right into it.
Once again, I am the last to learn the terms of my own life.
"The jet leaves Monday morning," Grandfather continues. "I trust you'll both be prepared to represent your families appropriately."
Shane's eyes find mine across the table, and in them I see something that might be an apology or might be a triumph.
With him, I can never tell the difference.
Two days. Two days until I stand beside the father of my son and pretend we're building a future together, while the truth burns like acid in my throat.