Chapter 12

       Senatha choked on her milk, sputtering it across the table the moment the names left her eldest sister’s lips. The room fell into stunned silence as everyone turned to stare at her. Keeran sat frozen, his mouth hanging open, caught between shock and speechlessness. Katherine, their mother, pushed back her chair and stood abruptly, eyes wide with disbelief. Even Samuel, usually hidden behind his morning paper, slowly lowered it—his expression unreadable, though a flicker of anger sparked in his eyes.

       The tone in her mother’s voice made Seranna arch an eyebrow. She set down her Chanel bag with deliberate calm, her gaze lifting to meet her mother’s—steady, unflinching, and laced with something unreadable. Defiance, perhaps.

       “Yes, Mom,” she said coolly. “Dating. And yes—Lorcan Millesernan,”

       “How dare you, Seranna?” Katherine’s voice rang out, sharp and trembling with disbelief.

       Seranna blinked. “Excuse me?” Hell. That was not the reaction she had expected. She had braced for surprise, maybe confusion. But this?

       Why did they all look… angry?

       “Why so sudden, Seranna?” her father asked, setting down his newspaper and removing his glasses. He placed both carefully on the table before him, his expression unreadable, his tone grave.

       The weight of his gaze compelled Seranna to move. Without a word, she pulled out a chair and sat down across from her parents. The gesture, calm and composed, seemed to ground the room—enough that Katherine finally returned to her seat, her anger dimming into wary restraint.

       “It’s not sudden, Father,” Seranna said firmly. “I’ve been seeing him in secret—even before the court finalized anything about Isaak and me,”

       She exhaled, steadying her voice. “I know it’s shocking. But I wouldn’t walk into something unless I was sure I could handle it. You both know me. You raised me,”

       She paused, letting her words settle, then met her mother’s gaze, then her father’s—direct, unwavering.

       Their expressions began to soften, just slightly. The tension in the room eased, the storm shifting into something quieter, more contemplative.

       “He’s Lorcan Millesernan. Millesernan,” she repeated with weight, letting the name settle between them. “There’s no one in this country who doesn’t know the legacy of the Millesernan and Geraski families,”

       She leaned forward slightly, voice steady and deliberate. “Lorcan already told his parents. And now I’m telling you,”

       She drew a breath, her eyes sharp with conviction. “What we have—it’s built on love. But it’s also more than that. This relationship… it brings mutual benefit. For our businesses. For his. For the future,”

       Katherine snapped, her voice rising, “What will people say, Seranna? For God’s sake, your divorce with Isaak was finalized just a week ago! That alone was enough—it’s taken a toll on me, your father, your siblings. People keep asking why, how—throwing endless questions at us!”

       She shook her head, frustration and worry lacing every word. “Can you stop being so selfish for once?”

       Seranna didn’t flinch. She held her mother’s gaze, unblinking, steady—stern.

       At the edge of the growing storm, Samuel gently reached out, lacing his fingers with Katherine’s. His thumb brushed over her knuckles in a soothing rhythm, trying to anchor her before she spiraled further.

       “It’s not selfish, Mom,” Seranna said firmly, her voice unwavering. “I entered this relationship with Lorcan not just for love, but for the strategic value it brings—to our businesses, to our name, to everything we’ve built,”

       She took a breath, steadying herself, refusing to let her thinning patience erupt into something harsher.

       “And as for what people say,” she continued, her gaze locked onto Katherine’s, “They’ve been talking since the day I married Isaak. Whispering about his ex-girlfriend, about the coldness between us. They knew it was a business arrangement—a formality, nothing more. And still, I endured it,”

       Her voice faltered just slightly—more from tiredness than emotion—but she held her ground.

       “This with Lorcan… it’s different. I’m not walking into this blind,”

       “I don’t understand you!” Katherine’s voice rose, sharp and cracking at the edges. “Which part of ‘stop being selfish’ don’t you get, Seranna Geraski? Which part? Tell me! Which part?!”

       The fury in her voice echoed through the room, slicing through whatever calm had been trying to settle.

       Samuel sighed heavily and gestured silently to Keeran and Senatha. “Go,” he said quietly, his eyes not leaving his wife.

       The younger siblings exchanged a brief, worried glance before nodding and slipping upstairs without a word—ghosts fleeing a storm they’d seen too many times.

       “I don’t understand why you keep calling me selfish,” Seranna said, her voice steady, though tight with restrained emotion. She shook her head slowly, her brows drawn. “I don’t understand any part of it. What exactly is selfish in your eyes, Mom? Wanting to choose my own path? Building something real after years of pretending? I don’t understand—I really don’t,”

       “Is standing here, breathing the same air as you, considered egoistic too?” Seranna’s voice cracked slightly, though she forced herself to hold steady. “Tell me, Mom. What is egoist, exactly? Remind me—have I ever gone against what you wanted? What you told me to do?” She stepped forward, eyes burning.

       “You arranged my schedule from the moment I could walk. You picked my classes, chose my hobbies. Piano lessons, martial arts—fine, I did it. You wanted me to paint, to be the perfect little prodigy, multi-talented and impressive. And I was. I painted those canvases you now stuff in the basement like they never meant anything.” Her voice trembled with the effort of keeping her anger contained. “I did everything you asked, and now—now—you call me selfish?”

       “You had Dr. Lilian check on me every single week—every week—just to make sure I was fertile enough to give you the heirs you so desperately wanted,” Seranna continued, her voice sharp, but no longer trembling. “You wanted legacy, prestige, perfection. And when I didn’t move fast enough, you turned to Savana. You forced her to marry a man nearly twice her age, just because he owned half the textile market,” Her breath hitched, but she didn’t stop. “And you know what? That man—that old man—at least he knows how to treat Savana like a wife. Not a pawn,”

       The air was heavy—so thick with tension and unspoken pain it felt like it might crack. The silence that followed Seranna’s words wasn’t quiet; it was deafening. Samuel sat frozen, his hands still intertwined with Katherine’s, though her grip had gone rigid. He looked from his wife to his daughter, both of them fierce, both of them wounded in ways that words couldn’t begin to mend.

       And for the first time in years, Samuel—calm, composed Samuel—found himself speechless. Because right now, the two strongest women he had ever known were standing on opposite sides of a war neither of them had wanted but both had been pulled into.

       “You arranged a marriage for me with Isaak, knowing he loved someone else. You knew it wasn’t a marriage based on love, but on business—just business. And I accepted it. I agreed with you, thinking it would make you happy, thinking it would make you proud. But then, Mom, you stayed silent when you knew Isaak was meeting his ex again behind my back. Why, Mom? What was the point? You saw how shattered I was when I found out, and yet you never once came to check on me. Not once did you step into my mansion to see how I was doing. Did you even care?” Her voice trembled with a mixture of sarcasm and aching sadness.

       “Because I know what’s best for you, Seranna,” Katherine’s voice quivered with emotion, her words laced with an urgency she couldn’t conceal. “I hid every single piece of evidence of Isaak’s betrayal because I didn’t want to break you. It’s always better not to know everything. Life is built on the things we don’t see, the things that are hidden. I said what I needed to say, gave the right answers to the questions. I did it to protect you, to keep your name pristine. I wanted everyone to know how perfect my eldest daughter is!” Katherine’s tears fell freely, streaking down her face as she struggled to maintain control.

       “What, Mom?” Seranna’s voice was sharp, tinged with disbelief. “If walking on my own, making my own choices, leads me to become an egoist, then what word would you use to describe something worse than that? For someone who doesn’t want her daughter to have any happiness, to live her own life the way she wants?” She shook her head, a low, sarcastic chuckle escaping her lips as she tried to process the weight of her mother’s words.

       “You don’t know what’s best for me, Mom. I do,” she hissed.

       “Mom... Looks like I’d prefer to be an egoistic daughter now. Really, Mom...” Seranna’s hand moved to her flat belly, her fingers brushing over it lightly. “You can hate this relationship, but no one could refuse a grandchild. Since you’ve been wanting this so badly, expected it from me and Isaak. Well,.. God's will. You’llget it from me and Lorcan,” The words slipped from her lips so easily, and she was taken aback by how effortless the lie came out. It was a big lie. A bad one. But somehow, it felt like the only thing that might help her in this moment.

       Samuel, who had remained silent up until now, widened his eyes in shock. Grandchild?! What was she talking about?!

       Katherine, unable to contain her emotions any longer, shouted, “What are you—?!”

       But Seranna didn’t hear it. The words seemed to fade away as the world around her spun. Her vision blurred, her legs wobbled beneath her, and for a moment, she felt as if she might collapse right there. The weight of her own words, the lies she had just spoken, suddenly felt like an unbearable burden.

       Her phone rang.

       “He arrives...” she muttered under her breath, glancing briefly at her parents before picking up her handbag. “See you, Mom. And I came here today not to seek your permission, Mom, Father. I came to tell,” she said firmly, her voice steady despite the chaos swirling in her chest.

       With that, she took a step forward, walking away from the scene she’d never imagined unfolding this way.

       This wasn’t what she had planned.

       But as the door closed behind her, she realized it was better. Much better, actually. She had taken control. She had spoken her truth, in a way she never thought she could.

***

       Lorcan pulled her closer by the waist, his touch warm and commanding. He gave her a quick peck on the lips, mindful of the presence of her family’s bodyguards standing nearby. They stood there, perfectly composed, the image of a couple who had it all together — or at least, that’s how it appeared to the outside world.

       “How was it going?” he whispered, his voice low and a bit teasing, his breath brushing against her ear.

       Seranna couldn’t help but feel a strange comfort in his arms, despite everything that had just happened.

       “It was a bad reaction, but I think it’s much better,” Seranna said, slipping into the passenger seat with effortless grace.

       Lorcan raised an eyebrow, half-amused, half-curious. “Bad but better?” he repeated, then rounded the car and opened the driver’s side door.

       Once inside, with the doors shut and the world muted beyond the tinted glass, the warmth in his features shifted — the affectionate mask dropping into something far more focused.

       “What do you mean bad but better?” he asked again, voice low, his gaze now sharp and unreadable.

       “They didn’t agree. They hated the idea, actually. But I stood my ground—I told them it wasn’t just about ‘love,’ that there were mutual benefits, things that could help both our families. But when the argument with my mother got too intense… I snapped. I said something I shouldn’t have,”

       “What had you said?”

       “You can hate this relationship, but no one can refuse a grandchild. Since you’ve been wanting this so badly, expected it from me and Isaak. Well,.. God’s will. You’ll get it from me and Lorcan,” she said—almost a murmur, but clear enough for Lorcan to hear.

       To her surprise, he didn’t flinch. Didn’t even blink. He just gave a slight nod, lips curling with the ghost of a smirk.

       “A bold card to play,” he said quietly. “A dangerous one... but effective. Let’shope they never call your bluff,”

       “How did your parents react?” she asked.

        Lorcan paused for a moment, eyes fixed ahead. “They seemed... pleased, surprisingly. I think they’re just relieved I’m finally dating someone,”

       Good.

***