My Fiancé's Uncle is Obsessed With Me!

Emily

I finished college on a Tuesday.

On Thursday, I became someone's fiancée.

No one asked how I felt about either.

The email confirming my graduation sat unopened on my phone while my stepmother stood across the kitchen island, smoothing imaginary creases from her blouse, already talking about dates and guest lists and what the Carter family would expect from us.

"They want something small," she said. "Family only. At their home."

Of course it would be at their home.

The Carters didn't come to people. People went to them.

I stared into my bowl of cereal, watching the flakes soften and sink. Milk always turned first, like it had given up. I felt a strange kinship with it.

"You should at least look excited," my stepmother added lightly, from where she leaned against the counter. "You've just finished college and you're getting married. Some girls would kill for that."

I didn't look up.

Some girls weren't me.

"Emily," my father said gently. "Did you hear your mother?"

"I heard," I said. My voice sounded calm. Detached. It always did.

What I didn't say was that this engagement had been decided long before I learned how to fake enthusiasm. Long before college. Long before Nathan Carter ever looked at me with polite disinterest and called it courtesy.

This wasn't romance.

It was inheritance management.

Everyone knew it, even if no one said it out loud.

The only real surprise was that I was the one chosen.

Not Lily.

Lily, with her perfect smiles and careful laughter.

Lily, who knew how to touch Nathan's arm just long enough to suggest something without saying it. Lily, who had been raised by my stepmother to understand exactly what beauty was meant to do.

But Lily wasn't Robert Brown's biological daughter.

I was.

And to families like the Carters, blood mattered more than charm. Paper mattered more than desire. Emily Brown was the correct choice, even if she wasn't the preferred one.

That was why the engagement had to be with me.

Not my stepsister.

Not the girl Nathan actually looked at when he thought no one noticed.

Nathan and I didn't fight the decision. There was nothing to fight for. He tolerated me. I tolerated him. We understood the assignment.

So when my father cleared his throat later that afternoon and said the Carters had also suggested I spend the night after the engagement dinner, I wasn't shocked.

I was tired.

"It's improper," I said, because someone had to say it.

My stepmother gave a thin smile. "It's generous. And refusing would look ungrateful."

My father avoided my eyes. "They insist, Emily. They don't want you traveling late. Especially now."

Now that I belonged to them.

I nodded once. "Fine."

If I was going to be handed over like a sealed package, I might as well stop pretending I had fragile edges.

The Carter mansion looked exactly like I expected it to-large enough to intimidate, expensive enough to remind you you didn't belong.