“No,” he said sharply. “I promised my son would honor the life that saved mine.”
I got to my feet. “Dad, that is not how marriage works. This isn’t a debt instrument.”
My mother stood too. “Gregory—”
“No. Seriously? You made a life-altering decision for me when I was eight?”
My father didn’t flinch. “A good man died because he saved me. His family paid the price for my survival. I never forgot that.”
“That doesn’t mean you get to assign me a wife.”
“She’s not a stranger to us,” my mother said gently. “I knew Daniel’s daughter. Patricia. He and his wife adopted her before they had children of their own. She was little then. Sweet. Quiet. Daniel adored her.”
“Adopted,” I repeated, trying to ground myself in facts instead of emotion. “So where is she now?”
“In Missouri,” my father said. “Ash Hollow. Daniel’s widow still lives there.”
“And you want me to show up and say what exactly? Hi, I’m a billionaire heir and twenty years ago my father made a promise over a chest wound?”
“I want you to look,” my father said. “Meet her. Decide with your own eyes what kind of woman she is.”
My mother stepped closer. “Your father is sick, Greg.”
That landed harder than the promise.
“How sick?”
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