Chapter 3

The next morning I arranged to meet Minnie in the hotel executive lounge.

Floor-to-ceiling glass.

The garden was visible outside, and inside it was quiet and private.

A place like this was best.

It wouldn't let her feel I was interrogating her from on high in my own house.

And it wouldn't give her the chance later to spin it into some story about me cornering her in a dark little room to threaten and bribe her.

What I wanted was for everything to be aboveboard, so that when she lost, she'd have no argument left.

She was right on time.

Ripped jeans, a T-shirt with a garish skull printed across the front, her expression light and pleased with itself.

As if she'd already made a clean break from the old world and was about to set off toward some bright future.

The way she looked, you'd think it was I who'd signed off on breaking the engagement yesterday, not her.

I didn't waste words. I pushed a schedule across the table to her.

"This is the final confirmation timeline for the James family's engagement party."

"Before noon today, you can submit your request to the James family to withdraw your refusal of the match."

"Once the request is approved, the engagement party proceeds as originally planned."

I paused, lifted my eyes to her, and said each word clearly:

"After noon, the backup plan goes into effect automatically. The James family will no longer be able to wait for you."

Minnie didn't even glance at the paper. Instead, she laughed.

"See, sister-in-law? You still won't give up. You still want me to go back."

"I want you to stop being foolish."

Her smile widened, touched with a kind of pity, as if she were looking at some stubborn holdout who refused to see reason.

"Foolish? You still think my choice is immature? You still look down on me."

"Maturity isn't what you say with your mouth. It's what the consequences hand you."

I nudged the paper a little closer to her, my finger tapping the line that read "noon."

"You don't want to marry into the James family. Fine."

"This match isn't a contract of indenture. Marry in, and the James family won't do anything to you."

"If you want to keep studying, go further with your education, or start your own business, the family can support that. All of it we can take to the James family and discuss."

"But I don't want to be tied down!" Her voice rose suddenly.

"Who's tying you down?"

She stared hard at me, her eyes full of accusation.

"This match, isn't it the biggest tie of all?"

"You paid all this for me, so I have to be endlessly grateful."

"I have to be the good, uncomplaining little sister, and spend my whole life serving the interests of the Gilberts and the Jameses!"

"This isn't grooming me. It's a transaction. A transaction that was priced out and labeled long ago!"

I nearly laughed from anger.

"Minnie, are you living in a fairy tale?"

"Marriage, especially marriage in families like ours, is a transaction to some degree by its very nature!"

"The James family gives you a platform, connections, and resources, and we Gilberts lend them our strength."

"What you put in is your youth and your intelligence, to build that relationship and turn it into a win for both sides!"

"You want pure love? Fine!"

"But the reality is, your true love can't even sell tickets to a decent solo concert, and he still has to rely on you using my supplementary card to rent him a venue!"

Her little face flushed in an instant, as if someone had stripped her bare.

"There you go, tallying up accounts again! You're always like this!"

"Yes, I do have to tally up the accounts." I flipped open a notebook on the table, my face without expression.

"Over the past five years, you spent three point two million on image management, one point six million on courses, and over five million on social wardrobe."

"The sports car you drive, the apartment you live in, your boyfriend's studio, which of them wasn't the Gilbert family holding you up?"

"Now you say this is exploitation. Fine. Then tell me, what did the exploitation squeeze out of you?"

Battered by my string of numbers, she was struck dumb, her lips trembling, unable to get a single word out for a long moment.

After a moment, as if to save face, she slammed her iced latte down on the table, the cheap plastic cup letting out a dull thud.

"You know, doing this is really like emotional manipulation. First you list out how much you've given, then you make me feel guilty."

"Guilt is your own affair. I'm only stating facts."

"And the fact is, I don't want to live the life you arranged for me."

"Who told you this was a life I arranged for you?" My gaze sharpened, and something dawned on me.

"Was it that boyfriend of yours, Geoffrey Delgado, who taught you to talk like this?"

The lounge went terribly quiet.

Minnie's grip clenched hard around the iced latte, her knuckles going white.

"This has nothing to do with him! Stop assuming that whenever girls make a decision, we're being influenced by our boyfriends! I have my own mind!"

"I didn't say that."

"That's exactly what you meant!" She shot to her feet and looked down at me.

"You know, sister-in-law, I always thought you'd be the one in the family who understood me best."

"I never imagined you'd be no different from those old-fashioned parents! Open-minded on the surface, but nothing but a need for control underneath!"

Old-fashioned.

I was thirty-five, in the prime of my life.

And I'd been retired early into the antiques cabinet by a twenty-year-old girl still wet behind the ears.

I drew the schedule back and folded it up unhurriedly.

"Fine. Until noon, the decision is still in your hands."

"Once you walk out that door, think whatever you like. But remember, don't dump every consequence you can't carry onto someone else's head."

She grabbed her canvas bag like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

"There's no need to wait for noon. I'll tell you right now, I will absolutely not withdraw!"

"Fine."

The moment she turned away, I pressed stop on my phone's recording and saved the file safely.

"Good luck, Minnie."

She walked off fast, her heels making no sound on the carpet, but her back looked like it was fleeing.

I checked the time.

Ten forty-two in the morning.

An hour and eighteen minutes left.