"I am sorry, Lilly, but you have to marry my friend's son!"
She looked at her father being so overly dramatic and exhaled an exasperated sigh. She had no time for this and she needed her beauty sleep. "Oh, please!" She rolled her eyes at her father but at the back of her mind lodged a small fear with how his father looked at her.
His usual hair combed into perfection was unkempt—like he raked his fingers through them so many times and now looked like a bird's nest. It's already midday and he's supposed to be in the office, wearing his Italian breast-pocket suit to perfection but right now, he's still in his pajamas, pacing inside her room that looks like a pigsty. An unexplainable dread crept at the back of her neck as she chewed on her lower lip.
"Dad, what's happening? I don't like this kind of joke." Her voice croaked as she put her thumb into her mouth to nibble but she caught herself and put down her hand, clasping them together above her abdomen. Nail-biting was a terrible habit that she developed when she was a kid because of anxiety. It took her a long time to correct such a habit but now with her father, staring at her as if the world had ended, she wanted to bite her nails so badly!
"Lilly, sweetheart, you listen to me." He grabbed her shoulders and stared at her daughter's panicking eyes or maybe it was his panic that mirrored her eyes. "Daddy doesn't want to put you in a terrible situation but I don't have a choice!" His voice raised an octave higher. His voice was trembling in fear. "We are about to lose our company! I am going to lose my company!" He let go of his daughter's shoulder and stepped back only to fall into his butt for he lost his balance when stepped on a book, carelessly lying on the floor. His eyes blazed in anger, picked up the book, and hurled it across the room.
Lilly who was still hoping that what was happening right now was just a freaking nightmare or a kind of punishment for making out at the bathroom stall with the vocalist of her favorite band—After Sex, last night at her party, or this could be just a stupid prank from her friends.
"Dad?" Her voice was shaking as she watched her father, cradling his face in the palm of his hands after he angrily threw the copy of the latest book from her favorite author, personally signed for her.
Her father didn't reply but slowly pushed himself up from the floor. "Clean your room, sweetheart, and be ready at 6." He said in a small voice as if he had already surrendered to a fight that he could not ever win.
"Dad, my friends—uhm, they will give me a dinner party later," she told her father as she followed her out of her room.
"Sweetheart," he faced her and in a small voice said. "If we don't do this, there will be no more parties in the future. No one will give us or invite us to a party if we become dirt poor." He dropped a kiss on her forehead before pulling the door close.
"Dirt poor," she thought to herself as she jumped in surprise for her phone rang from the pocket of her hoodie. "Please, not now, Reagan." She checked the caller and it was one of her best friends—Tiffany. She sighed and dropped her phone on the floor, kicking some clothes strewn on the floor to hide it from her sight. She can't talk to anyone right now. She doesn't know what to do! She sniffed a little before grabbing the phone on her side table, dialing the extension number to the employees' quarter at the back of their mansion.
"Hello, Pete! Have you heard…" She blabbered the moment she heard the phone was picked up. Pete is her driver, bodyguard, butler, and sometimes private confidant. She trusts him with things that she can't tell anyone. He is her mother's distant cousin that got hired by her father when she was about five years old and needed a personal driver.
"I heard…" he replied in a careful tone of voice.
"My father…" she broke down and cried.
"Little Rosé." He called her his personal pet name for her. She hates her second name Rose for it was from her mother—Rosa. She can't blame Lilly for her mother has been absent all her life. She was too busy socializing and grazing magazines and society pages. "Your father is a good businessman. The best I know. We don't know what will happen, yet, so pull yourself together and do what you are being asked."
"I don't want to be poor!" She said with indignation. She had no idea how to be one.
"You won't be," he assured her.
"Thanks, Pete. You're the best."
He laughed. He honestly doesn't have an idea yet on what's happening inside the mansion. He just heard while waiting for Lilly last night at her debut party that the Morgan's is in the red. He just shook it off as just a rumor that people who were jealous of the Morgans, besides, he had no idea about the business world. He's just Lilly's personal driver.
Lilly felt better after talking to Pete. She just needed someone to tell her that it was going to be okay. Something that she won't get from her friends because if they find out that she's going to be poor and no longer one of them, her father is right, she won't be invited into their little circle anymore.
With a heavy heart, she went inside her walk-in closet and looked for something to wear to meet her future husband. She chuckled wryly when she realized that she didn't even know his name or what he looks like. Her father just said, a son of his friend. What if he's ugly? She shuddered with the thought. She blew a deep sigh. "Your father won't put you in a bad situation, Lilly. Just believed him. He can find some solution later and you won't have to marry so early." She pep talked her own reflection as she prepared for the dreaded meeting.
-5:45 p.m.-
"Tie your hair in a low bun, sweetheart." He said after giving her daughter a slow look-over before getting in the backseat of the Escalade.
Lilly pursed her lips in annoyance but did what her father said. Using the window of the Escalade as her mirror, she put her purse on the roof of the car, after taking out a black ponytail to tie her hair.
She was wearing a black satin dress with a square neckline, showcasing her collarbone which she thinks is one of her best features. She wore a diamond choker to emphasize her long neck and she paired her dress with two inches shoes from Chanel. She was going with a sophisticated and fresh look that's why she let her hair down. Apparently, it wasn't a good look to meet her future husband. Rolling her eyes inside, she followed her father into the backseat. She wondered if they were really going poor because no one was opening the car door for her.
When she looked at the rearview mirror, a relieved smile adorned her face. Pete is the one sitting behind the wheel. His presence was enough to pacify her worries.
The drive to the restaurant was painfully awkward. She couldn't ask her father anything because his expression was grim as if someone died and he kept on clicking his tongue as if he was going to snap at any moment.
When they arrived at the restaurant, Pete offered her another encouraging smile before she followed her father to the restaurant where staff ushered to a private room where a familiar man was waiting for them.
"Robert."
"Lucas."
She exhaled a deep sigh of relief, watching her father shake hands with Lucas Grayson. He's a happily married man—according to the society pages, his wife is active in charities and he has two handsome sons which is the cause of her relieved sigh.
"Is this your daughter?"
She gave the old man a polite smile. Everyone in high society knows that she's the only daughter of Robert Morgan Jr., asking if she is her father's daughter is just a conversation starter.
"Good evening, sir," she greeted Mister Grayson after seeing her father's sharp look from the corner of her eyes.
"Oh, dear, don't be so formal. We are going to be a family soon," he said, pulling her into a quick hug then looking at her from head to foot as if he was checking the merchandise that he was going to buy for his son.
She glanced over his shoulder and saw that he was alone.
"My son won't be coming tonight." He said when he noticed her looking. "Lucas," he called her father, leaving her on the side. "My son is busy with the turnover of responsibility in the company. As you know, he is now the CEO."
Lilly stood straight in the side, waiting for them to talk to her or invite her to the table as they were already sitting down. The waiter was about to pull a chair for her but then her father said, "You may go now to your friend's party."