CHAPTER 76: I APOLOGIZE

Wincing in pain, she dropped her hand to her mouth and massaged it, glaring at him. Who would have thought the once cold and withdrawn CEO had a playful side? Yet here he was, seizing every chance to tease her like a child discovering something new.

"You can leave now," he instructed, and she walked out without another word.

Once outside, she leaned against the door and exhaled, willing her heartbeat to settle. This was the third time he had successfully diverted her from the reason she came. She had intended to confront him, but the encounter left her forgetting entirely why she was there in the first place.

Making her way back to her department, she went straight to her desk, sank into her chair, and drew in a deep breath.

...

Inside Roman’s office, thirty minutes after Patricia left, Kay came in with news.

"Miss Evelyn will be getting married next week. Here is your invitation," Kay said, handing him a blue card.

Roman’s expression turned cold, his gaze fixed on the envelope in Kay’s hand. He took it, opened the card, and his expression darkened further at the words within. He should have known something was wrong the moment they came to take her from the yacht. But, assuming it was about Syres as always, he hadn’t thought much of it. If only he had gone against her wishes and intervened, this wretched invitation would never have existed.

His father’s family had no right to decide who she married. These were the same people who had abandoned them after their mother’s death, using the excuse of caring for Eve to claim half the inheritance their mother had left behind for her. But he was done letting them dictate their lives. He would not allow them to ruin Eve’s future out of greed. Painful as it was to admit, he knew the Eve he remembered could never love anyone but Syres. Which meant this wedding was not her choice.

"Get a plane ready for takeoff," he ordered, tossing the invitation aside and slipping on his suit jacket.

"What should I tell Miss Patricia?" Kay asked.

"Tell her nothing until I call," Roman replied without hesitation.

Kay nodded, and Roman strode out of the office. He went to the garage, got into his car, and drove straight to the airport.

...

The City of Manama

"Welcome back home, Mr. Roman," a young man about Kay’s age greeted, bowing slightly.

"This was never home. Drive as fast as you can," Roman replied, not sparing the man a glance.

This might have been where his father grew up, but to him and his siblings, it was nothing but hell. His father’s family had never approved of their mother’s marriage to him. Each time they visited, they were treated like outsiders, forced to watch as their cousins were lavished with affection while they were ignored.

But their father, desperate for his family’s approval, never listened to their mother’s pleas to stop visiting. Poor man, it took losing his sanity to finally see that they never cared for him, only for his wealth.

He might have been a good father to them, but he was not a good husband to their mother. In that, he reaped exactly what he had sown.

As they drove, the young man in the front seat kept sneaking glances at Roman through the rearview mirror. After a while, Roman could no longer ignore it.

"Speak," he ordered, irritation sharpening his tone as he stared out the window, clearly uninterested in whatever the man had to say.

"Wouldn’t you visit your father in the nursing home first? He asks for you often," the young man suggested, the words landing like a strike against raw nerves.

Roman slowly turned his head, fixing him with a stare that made the driver swallow hard. "How well are you paid by his family?" He asked, voice cold and deliberate.

The man’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. Meeting Roman’s eyes through the mirror, he replied cautiously, "Enough to start my own company in ten years." He tried a weak smile to diffuse the tension.

"Imagine losing that job," Roman said evenly. "All it would take is one word from me...and you would vanish."

The threat hung heavy in the air. The young man’s face was drained of color. Roman’s relationship with his father’s family might be strained, but his influence over them was undeniable. If he wanted the man gone, it would be done without hesitation.

"I...I am sorry, Mr. Roman," the driver stammered, instantly falling in line. The rest of the ride passed in tense silence.

When they arrived at his father’s family home, Roman didn’t wait for an escort, he strode straight inside toward the main lounge. As if on cue, the entire family was gathered there, chatting and laughing like they had just won a great prize.

No doubt that loose-tongued driver had already informed them of his arrival. They knew he would come running, and they arranged to have him picked up so they could sit and wait like spiders in their web.

"Oh, you are finally here. Have a seat," a middle-aged woman, around the age his mother would have been, called out once she spotted him. And the room fell silent.

From the way they were arranged, the hierarchy was obvious. The sight made his jaw tighten. They still clung to their outdated traditions, ranking one another like pieces on a chessboard, even when it came to offering help.

The seat reserved for him was beside two of his cousins: one a manager, the other a vice president at the city’s largest company. He scoffed inwardly. To them, that outranked him, despite running his own company that outweighed their city’s largest company.

"I will stand," he replied flatly, his rejection wiping the polite mask from the woman’s face.

"Suit yourself. I assume you are here about your sister’s marriage," she said, her voice dripping with smug authority. "If you have come to oppose it, I would suggest you turn around and go back home now."

He remembered that tone all too well, it belonged to the most poisonous of his father’s step-siblings.

"Where is she?" Roman asked, ignoring her words. His voice was calm, but there was no mistaking the steel beneath it. "I want to speak to her. Now."

"She doesn’t want to see you, and I am sure you already know why," the middle-aged woman replied coolly.

"Do I look like I care what she wants?" Roman shot back without hesitation. "I didn’t come this far to trade words. I came to take her back and end this wedding. In our family, the mother’s side decides the children’s marriages. We decide who and when she marries, Vendetta."

The last word landed like a blow. His hands slid into his pockets as the room collectively froze. Gasps rippled through the air. For years, Roman had kept a certain distance in how he addressed them, a boundary they believed unshakable. But that restraint had always been for Eve’s sake. If she hadn’t insisted on staying with them after their father lost his mind, they all knew Roman would never have set foot in this city again, let alone in their house.

"I see you have finally torn away the last shred of respect you had left," Vendetta said, smiling. But it wasn’t the kind of smile that warmed a room, it was the kind that promised knives in the dark.

"I apologize if I ever gave the impression I respected you," Roman said flatly. "Now get me my sister."

"Your mother is dead. Now that no one is left to take care of you, that responsibility falls to me. I have every right to decide who Eve marries," Vendetta declared.

Roman sighed, his patience thinning. "That might be true if you had ever approved of our mother’s marriage to your brother. Eve doesn’t need you. She was fine before our mother died, and she will keep being fine without you."

That jab struck deep, and for the first time, Vendetta’s composure cracked.

"Says the man who killed the person she needed most," she spat, and the tension in the room spiked to a suffocating pitch. Everyone leaned forward slightly, hungry for what would come next. Vendetta wasn’t one for verbal sparring; she preferred actions. For her to be trading barbs meant she was well and truly provoked.

"I have learned to live with that," Roman said coldly. "But have you learned to live with the fact that you are doing this for money? Your father chose our mother over his own children and left you all broke. Does Eve even know why you are forcing this marriage?"

Vendetta’s mouth opened, but no words came. Fury flickered in her eyes, yet she couldn’t summon a retort.

"Mother, I will take it from here."

The voice came from the stairs. Roman’s gaze dropped to find Eve standing there, his brows drawing together at the sight of her.