Chapter 172 Marry Me
Chapter 172 Marry Me
Three days later.
The Percy Group's annual gala .
InterContinental Hotel Ballroom.
Nora had been invited, seated at the main table. She scanned the room as she sat down — Todd to her right, Storm standing by the side entrance. Three Percy Group executives sat across the main table, and the external partners were at the next table over.
Julian was at table three. He glanced at Nora when he walked in. She glanced back. Neither of them made any move to say hello.
Then Chase arrived.
This was the second time Nora had seen his face — the first was a security camera screenshot, not the sharpest quality. This time it was the real thing. He was seated at a corner table at six o'clock, wearing a navy suit, no hat this time. His features were decent enough, but the lines around his eyes ran deeper than his age, like someone who hadn't slept well in years.
He didn't look toward Nora when he came in. But she noticed — the angle of his seat meant he could cover the main table with his peripheral vision without turning his head.
Crafty old fox.
The dinner followed the standard program. Opening remarks, video presentation, a toast. After the third course came the moment everyone had been waiting for — the head of the family takes the stage.
Oliver straightened his cufflinks as he rose from the main table.
He was wearing a black bespoke suit. Nora glanced at him instinctively — shirt buttoned all the way to the top, tie in dark grey, everything pulled tight and proper. Nothing like the usual looseness of him, where he'd leave the top two buttons undone.
Tonight he had dressed himself up. Formally. Almost unusually so.
The stage lights came up. Oliver took the microphone.
The first ten minutes of his address were standard — The Percy Group's new positioning in Valeria Shipping, adjustments to the North American real estate portfolio, annual revenue figures. Polite applause from the audience at the right moments. Nora listened, her peripheral vision fixed on Chase the entire time.
Chase didn't move. Didn't even raise his glass.
Ten minutes done.
The applause faded. By convention, Oliver should have said "thank you" and stepped off.
He didn't.
He paused for a beat.
The lighting shifted — the main house lights dimmed together, the spotlight on stage narrowed, until there was only one beam left, falling directly on him.
The murmuring in the room died with the lights.
Oliver's gaze moved across more than a hundred guests.
And landed precisely on Nora's face.
"One last thing. It's personal."
The room went quiet.
A chill started at the base of Nora's spine and crept upward.
She watched Oliver reach into his inner breast pocket and take something out.
Small. Resting on his fingertips, wrapped in his palm, impossible to make out from the stage.
He stepped down from the stage.
One step at a time. Moving through the aisles between the tables. Not fast, not slow, each stride nearly the same length.
Every head in the room turned to follow him.
Nora's hands started trembling under the table.
Because as he got closer, what was in his palm came into view.
A copper coin.
Oliver did something Nora had never once imagined she would see in her lifetime.
He got down on one knee.
Right knee to the floor.
Oliver Percy. Head of The Percy Group. The man at the very top of this city's hierarchy. In front of over a hundred guests, a dozen cameras, and Nora's entire family —
He knelt beside her chair.
The air in the ballroom seemed to vanish.
No applause. No voices. No one dared make a sound.
Chase rose from his seat. His mouth opened, like he was about to say something —
Julian grabbed his arm and pulled him back down.
Oliver placed the copper coin in Nora's hand.
"Nora, marry me."
Four words.
Nora looked down at what she was holding. Her vision blurred for a second — not tears, just the dizzying rush of blood to her head.
She looked at the man now standing in front of her, one knee's worth of dust brushed onto his suit trousers.
"You can answer now," Oliver said quietly.
"Okay."
She watched him smile.
In all the time she'd known him, this was the first time she'd ever seen him smile like that.
Meredith sat in the front row, expression unchanged throughout.
Talia pinched him from the side.
"Could you at least smile?"
"Smile at what?" Meredith kept his voice low. "He's proposing to my daughter, not to me."
"That's still no reason to sit there with that face."
"I don't have a face."
"Your mouth hasn't moved once."
Meredith was quiet for two seconds, then forced the corners of his mouth upward.
Talia rolled her eyes.
Dennis was sitting behind them, unable to hold back a laugh.
Herman adjusted his glasses. "Dad, she's getting engaged, not going to the gallows."
Casey muttered under his breath, "Feels about the same to me."
Meredith gave them all a long, quiet look.
The dinner ended.
Guests filtered out in small groups, stopping to offer congratulations as they passed Nora and Oliver. A few of The Percy Group's old guard came over to shake Oliver's hand, grinning ear to ear, making rounds of "Mr. Percy certainly kept that close to his chest" and similar remarks.
Oliver handled it for about ten minutes. Nora stood beside him and didn't say much.
Chase left. He didn't come over before he went — Julian followed behind him, and the two of them slipped out through the side door. Ryder was watching from outside.
Calla didn't come.