"In return, you marry me."
She blinked,
Then took a breath then blinked again.
The words hung in the air, soft yet irrevocable, echoing through the vast room like the last note of a symphony that refused to fade.
It took Seraphina an astonishingly long two minutes to fully register what Alexander had said. In no world had she ever imagined she would be granted a second life after death. And she certainly could not have pictured that Alexander Langford—the man whose name alone commanded boardrooms and headlines—would propose marriage to her in this life.
A wave of tension and unease rippled through her heart, a dry, gnawing worry that this was all some elaborate game, another plot woven in the shadows she had only just escaped. Why woudn't it be?
Yet, buried beneath the suspicion, a small, traitorous fraction of her—the part she wanted desperately to disown—felt like a child unwrapping her favorite gift on Christmas morning- surprised, thrilled, dangerously hopeful.
Alexander waited, showing no hurry, no impatience. He didn't push. He didn't smile. Just, simply watched her, that storm-blue gaze steady and patient, as though he had already seen every outcome possible and was content to let her choose the one she wanted, assured that her choice would be the same as his.
When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet, almost thoughtful.
"Why?"
Alexander's brows lifted the smallest fraction—the first real crack in his composure since she'd walked through the doors.
"Why?" he repeated, as if testing the weight of the question.
"Yes." She leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on her knees now, mirroring his earlier posture. "You are handsome, powerful, brilliant—one of the most eligible men in this city, perhaps the country."
A broad smile spread across his face.
"You could have thousands of women at your feet without lifting a finger," she continued, her voice steady but laced with quiet challenge. "Actresses, models, heiresses, daughters of tycoons—women with flawless reputations and no scandals trailing them like smoke. Yet here you are, offering me three hundred million without taking a single share in return… and asking for marriage."
"Forgive me for being pessimistic," she continued, her eyes challenging him directly, "but you are playing another game, Mr Langford."
A glint appeared in his eyes—sharp, devilish, dangerous—as his body language shifted subtly: shoulders straightened, chin lifting just enough to remind her of the power coiled beneath the calm exterior, a small smile playing on his face.
His smile vanished as quickly as it had come, replaced by an expression of cold, unyielding authority. When he spoke, his voice was low and dominating, laced with the kind of certainty that brooked no argument.
"My family demands a marriage," he said, each word deliberate, cutting through the air like ice. "I may be the sole heir, but there are competitors—distant cousins, board members with old claims—who stand to inherit substantial shares if I remain unmarried past a certain age. If I wed a model or an actress, questions arise. How did I meet them? What I liked about them?"
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his gaze locking onto hers with unrelenting intensity.
"So it is entirely natural that I marry a woman from the same world—a brilliant businesswoman I knew in school, someone respected, accomplished and astonishingly beautiful." He paused "I don't want love. I don't believe in it, and I don't have time for it."
His tone was cold steel now, powerful and absolute, leaving no room for sentiment.
"I'm not offering charity, Seraphina. What I am offering is an alliance. I invest three hundred million in you, and in return, my empire gains sixty billion more in stability and legacy. It's strategy. You are the woman who fits the situation perfectly—independent enough that no one questions my choice, sharp enough that the alliance strengthens both sides."
The room felt smaller now, the air thicker, charged with the raw force of his conviction.
There has got to be more. There was no way this man-a tycoon who had increased the value of his company threefold just two years after arrival- would just want to marry her. There was something else he wasn't telling her.
She stood slowly, walking to the window where the city burned below—indifferent, glittering, full of people lost in their own endless hustle, so much like her own relentless drive.
Seraphina exhaled slowly, her mind even more conflicted than before. He had offered three hundred million dollars. It was a good deal—one that would save everything she had built.
But it was marriage.
And even if in their world, where unions were often arranged contracts more than romances, she had never expected to bind herself to this devil whose intentions she still doubted, whose heart she could not trust—especially with her own so recently shattered.
"You're asking me to trust you," she mumbled, glancing at the high-rise towers at a distance. "With my everything."
She felt him move before she heard him—his presence shifting the air as he rose and approached. He stopped close behind her, not touching, but near enough that his breath brushed her temple, his woody scent completely enveloping her. The heat from his body radiated through the small space between them, raising goosebumps across her skin in silent response.
"I will protect you forever, Seraphina," he murmured, his voice the most sincere she had ever heard from him—deep, unwavering, carrying the weight of a vow. "This marriage may be a contract for us, a business arrangement without love or false affection. But I will care for you. I will shield you. I will be there whenever you need me—always."
The words settled over her like a mantle, heavy with promise. She knew in that moment that once Alexander Langford spoke those words, he would mean them for the entirety of his life. He had always been that way—even as a boy in school, quiet promises kept without fanfare or any heroics.
Seraphina's lip trembled, just slightly, as the weight of his sincerity pressed against the raw edges of her heart. She would never get love from him—he had made that clear—but to hear a man declare he would always care for her, protect her…
The people she had trusted most, the ones she had expected to protect her, had been the very ones to end her life. How could she trust this man, whom she had just seen across corridors, whom she knew nothing about?
She shook her head slowly, stepping sideways to free herself from his towering frame and the cool glass.
"I cannot say yes."
She hesitated, turning to face him.
"But I'm not saying no."
He inclined his head, accepting without pressure.
"Send me the contract," she said. "The real one. Every line. Every clause. I'll read it tonight. And the day after…we talk terms."