Chapter 214

Chapter 214
Nathaniel’s POV

Walking into the living room felt like walking into a history book that everyone else had already read and underlined. The mayor—Mr. Hawk—sat in the big leather chair like a man who owned the sky, his posture all smooth charm and practiced smiles. Beside him: Britney Hawk, the mayor’s daughter, who looked like she’d been sculpted in a boardroom to be the perfect political accessory. Perfect hair, perfect laugh, perfect teeth—perfectly hungry.

My chest tightened in a way that had nothing to do with the heat. This was the talk I’d been dreading. Everyone in town knew the ledger between the Hawks and the Lisbons: favors, loans, old deals stamped in ink and arrogance. Marriages had been the glue of peace here for generations. Mr. Hawk’s interest in strengthening that glue was… predictable. Old-school. Surgical.

“You’re Nathaniel Lisbon,” the mayor began, voice polished. “Your family and mine have a long history of keeping this town together. We’d like to discuss—practically and fairly—how we can continue that legacy.” He smiled at my mother like he was offering pie and honey, then turned toward me as if I were Exhibit A.

Britney gave me that practice smile and a wink—one of those social-media winks that meant nothing and everything—and I felt a cold little bullet of irritation ricochet through me. I’d known her in passing: a hand-shake at parades, a wave from the mayoral float. I’d never wanted more than I wanted to shake her off like a bad habit.

“I’m honored, Mayor Hawk,” my mother said, voice syrupy. She’d been raised with this dance; she could pirouette through negotiations without breaking sweat. But I heard the faint tremor: she knew my tilt toward a different set of trouble. She asked a question that sounded like stewardship: “How do you envision this union, exactly?”

Mayor Hawk laid out numbers—debts, “strategic partnerships,” land that bluntly translated to influence. Sweet talked, then direct: “A union between our families would be stabilizing, Nathaniel. It would make things simpler for both our enterprises.”

Simple. For them.

My jaw tightened. The Lisbons held half the town in name; the Hawks held the other half in favors. The ledger didn’t care about feelings. It cared about continuity. My ancestors had probably signed their souls away with a glass of whiskey and the wrong kind of pride. I knew that. I carried that knowledge like a coal in my chest.

Britney flashed a dangerous, rehearsed laugh and stepped forward. “Nate, I’ve heard so much about you. It’d be nice to catch up—over dinner, later. Just the two of us.” She batted her lashes like this was a rom-com and not a boardroom.

There it was. The soft sell. The assumption that I was a trophy waiting on a pedestal.

I wasn’t interested in playing their game. But you don’t just say that in Hawk’s parlor; you carve it out and make sure no one mistakes your bluntness for rudeness.

I stood up. The room—already thick with polite air—went thin and pinched around my ribs. I didn’t want a fight. I didn’t want to burn bridges. I did want to be clear. So I leaned into the thing that always helped: clear, controlled words and a look that left no opening for misunderstanding.

“Mayor Hawk,” I began, my voice even, “I appreciate the consideration. I respect what your family has built here. But I make my choices for my life.” I let the words sit there, deliberate. “That includes who I bring into my family.”

Britney’s smile flickered. My mother’s jaw tightened at my tone, but I kept on, steady.

“If what you’re asking is an arranged match purely to settle financial matters,” I said, “I won’t trade my life for a ledger entry. I won’t be a currency.”

A tiny, theatrical gasp—my mother covered a hand—and Mayor Hawk’s face held a polite, slow smile that didn’t reach his eyes. But then something happened that steadied the room like a hand on the tiller: I didn’t say it for them. I said it for the person I couldn’t stop picturing when I closed my eyes.

I turned, and Aya met my stare across the room. The lighting caught the ghost of the witch-queen makeup from the festival—smoky eyes, plum lips—and something fierce and ridiculous warmed my chest. She was more than the rumors, more than the show. She’d been in my bed three nights running, and I wouldn’t bristle at that if it were only lust; but there was more and I couldn’t not show it.

“This—” I said, and I kept my voice low, the kind of low that only the people you want to hear you really mean it get to hear. “—is not a negotiation to be made without my say. I will not be arranged into something for convenience.”

Mayor Hawk’s brows twitched—politely, like a man recalculating. He was used to getting what he wanted by asking the right way.

“You’re a young man, Nathaniel,” the mayor said, cool as a courtroom. “Family considerations—”