Chapter Twenty-Five: A Convenient Solution
The summons did not come as a call.
It came as inevitability.
A black car waited outside my dorm like a verdict already passed. The driver stepped out, crisp and faceless in his dark suit, and opened the door with mechanical courtesy.
"Your father requests your presence, Miss Grace."
Not asks. Requests were for equals. This was an extraction.
I didn't argue. I didn't ask why. A strange calm had settled over me in recent days—a numb obedience born from exhaustion. I got into the car, the door closing with a soft, final click that sounded too much like a coffin lid.
---
The Grace house had always been cold, but tonight it felt embalmed.
The marble floors gleamed with sterile perfection. The portraits of ancestors stared down with oil-painted judgment. Everything was preserved, untouched by mess or emotion—a monument to control. I realized, distantly, that this was how they preferred people too.
Contained. Managed. Silent.
I was led not to the sitting room where guests were entertained, but deeper. Into my father's study. The inner sanctum. Where decisions were made and lives were rearranged.
Marcus Grace stood by the fireplace, his back to me, one hand wrapped around a crystal glass of amber liquid. He wasn't watching the flames. He was staring into nothing. Calculating.
Lucas sat opposite him, relaxed in a high-backed leather chair, tablet in hand. He looked up as I entered, eyes flicking over me with clinical assessment. I wondered what he saw. A daughter? A sister? Or just a failed asset returned for repair?
"Sit, Aira," my father said.
I didn't.
"Why am I here?" My voice sounded steady, which surprised me.
Lucas smiled faintly. "To discuss your future. Since you seem intent on making such a spectacle of your present."
The words landed like a slap.
My humiliation. My heartbreak. Reduced to a spectacle.
"The… entanglement with the Royce boy is over," Marcus said, finally turning. His face showed no relief, no sympathy—only the detached satisfaction of a problem resolved. "It was a liability. It is now a contained one."
The Royce boy.
Not Rowan. Not the man I loved. Not the man who broke me. Just a surname. A faction. A risk factor.
I felt something twist in my chest but said nothing. Silence had become my armor.
"However," Lucas continued smoothly, setting the tablet aside, "the aftermath requires management. Your emotional state has rendered you unpredictable. A loose end."
A loose end.
Not a grieving daughter. Not a wounded human being.
A procedural inconvenience.
A cold awareness slid into place. This wasn't about concern. This was damage control.
My stomach tightened. "What does that mean?"
"Julian Thorne."
The name dropped into the room like a chess piece placed with deliberate finality.
"A respectable man," Marcus said. "From an old, stable family. No political entanglements. No vendettas. Significant private wealth. Clean."
Clean.
"He has expressed a sincere interest in you."
The words didn't compute.
"Interest?" I echoed faintly.
"A courtship," Lucas clarified. "With a clear path to marriage. He finds you… refreshingly genuine."
I stared at them.
The absurdity of it all—the timing, the phrasing, the transactional tone—was almost too much. A hysterical laugh clawed its way up my throat, but I swallowed it down.
Refreshingly genuine.
After being used as a revenge instrument. After being dissected emotionally and discarded.
"You can't be serious," I whispered.
"We are perfectly serious," Marcus replied. "It is an elegant solution. It removes you from the Royces' sphere of influence. It stabilizes your position. It aligns you with a controllable ally. And it puts an end to this unfortunate chapter of childish infatuation."
Each sentence was delivered like a nail being hammered into place.
"I am not a pawn," I said suddenly, the words burning their way out of me. "I am not something you move around to clean up your messes!"
Lucas's expression hardened instantly.
"You have proven you cannot be trusted to make your own choices," he said coldly. "You chose a Royce. You chose a man who used you to punish this family. Your judgment is compromised. This is not a negotiation."
The room tilted.
They were blaming me.
Not Rowan. Not the man who had admitted—without remorse—to orchestrating my suffering.
Me.
The truth of it hit harder than any insult. Because in their world, logic was king—and logic had no room for broken hearts.
"Julian is a good man," my father added, almost kindly. "You will be safe. Provided for. Protected. This is the best possible outcome given the mess you've created."
The mess you've created.
My pain neatly filed under user error.
I looked at them then—really looked.
My father, composed and distant, already mentally closing the file labeled Aira.
My brother, sharp-eyed and triumphant, pleased with the efficiency of his solution.
There was no space here for grief. No acknowledgment of what had been taken from me. I was not a daughter mourning her first love. I was a liability being secured.
Julian Thorne was not a husband.
He was a lock.
The fight drained out of me all at once. Not in surrender—but in understanding.
I had no power here.
Rowan had used me as an experiment.
My family was using me as insulation.
Different methods. Same result.
"I see," I said quietly.
Lucas nodded, satisfied. "Julian will call tomorrow. Be civil. Be grateful. This is a second chance you do not deserve."
I didn't argue. I didn't plead. I simply turned and walked out.
---
The car door closed again with that same soft, terminal sound.
As the city lights blurred past the window, something inside me finally went still.
Not broke.
Died.
The girl who believed love could be a refuge.
The girl who thought her family would protect her.
The girl who thought pain might at least be seen.
Gone.
Rowan had destroyed my heart.
My family was now burying the remains.
And Julian Thorne—the kind, polite man—was to be the headstone.
Marriage.
Not for love.
Not even for alliance.
But for containment.
A convenient solution to the mess of me.
And as the car carried me away, one final, dangerous thought bloomed quietly in the hollow space where my hope used to live:
If everyone insists on treating me like a piece on the board…
Perhaps it's time I learned how the game is played.