The hotel room was still heavy with the scent of perfume and last night’s indulgence. Nathaniel swung his legs over the edge of the bed, expression unreadable as he glanced at the woman still asleep under the covers. A soft sigh escaped him — not from satisfaction, but the dull, familiar emptiness that followed nights like this. He didn’t linger—he never did. Once it was over, it was over.

The shower was brisk, more ritual than necessity, water sliding over his toned, muscular frame, tracing every hard line of his body as if washing away the night. By the time he dressed and left, his mind was already elsewhere.

When Nathaniel reached the Valencia residence, dawn had already slipped across the sky, pale light spilling through the trees. The house stood in silence—serene, its quiet carrying a peace so different from the loud, lingering echoes of the night he’d just left behind. His parents were still asleep, of course. They always were at this hour.

He went straight to his room. As his gaze flicked to the clock on the wall, it read 5:00 a.m. Yet, sleep was far from him.

Setting his sling bag down at the edge of the bed, he sank into the black leather chair beside it and opened his laptop. The quiet hum of his laptop filled the silence as he powered it on. Within moments, the email glared back at him on the screen—an invitation he had already read countless times since last night.

Nathaniel leaned back in his chair, the leather faintly creaking beneath him. A low hum slipped from his throat as he considered Fidel’s proposal of a business alliance.

What exactly would he offer me?

He wondered, curiosity threading through his thoughts.

A memory flickered—last night, his friend’s words echoed:

“Her dad’s looking for a new fiancé for her.”

Victoria.

More than a decade had passed, yet her name still carried weight.

Nathaniel paused, tapping a finger against the armrest.

Isn’t this timely?

The timing was almost too clean. Fidel extending a business proposal… and simultaneously searching for a new fiancé for his daughter?

Business alliance.

Was it truly just that? A project partnership? A merger of influence? Or would Fidel attempt something deeper—something binding?

Would he use his daughter as leverage? As his bargaining chip?

He began mapping the possibilities with precision like a load-bearing calculation—the kind that determined whether a structure stood firm or collapsed under hidden weight.

With Fidel, the equation was obvious: any alliance he proposed would be engineered to benefit himself first. And Nathaniel had no intention of playing the subordinate. He began to mentally construct the likely offers: joint ventures in government infrastructure, exclusive access to global networks, political insulation—valuable, yes, but not irreplaceable. He could build all of those himself, if he chose to. He didn’t need Fidel’s shadow to grow Valencia Infratech.

But if Fidel brought Victoria into the equation?

That was different. Marriage would forge a bond far deeper than a contract. It would tie him to Fidel’s bloodline, giving the older man a permanent hold on him. A leash dressed as alliance.

Nathaniel exhaled slowly.

If that was Fidel’s angle, he needed to confirm it before reacting. But more importantly, he needed to be prepared. Once he stepped into Fidel’s office, the man wouldn’t let him leave without an answer. Fidel never opened a negotiation he didn’t intend to close.

Nathaniel’s gaze sharpened.

Whatever this alliance truly was, he would walk into that room ready—calculated, unshaken, and impossible to corner.