Hey Pretty Stranger

・❥・ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ-3 The strange girl

Max's pov

I placed down the fork and knife on the table and took the napkin to clean the sides of my mouth.

"Max, you know why I called you here right?" The lady sitting across the table said.

I sighed placing down the napkin. "Yes, mother."

My mother was a stunning beauty with her dark blonde almost brownish hair tied up in a tight bun and porcelain white skin with breathtaking emerald eyes, just like my own.

"Then what have you thought about it? Any choices?" She asked excitedly.

"Mom, you know I don't want to be married. Even the word marriage makes me nauseous. And not to mention I'm just twenty years old for God's sake," I told her honestly.

"Honey," she looked at me with empathetic eyes, "I know how you're feeling. But you know our family's tradition. Your father won't even consider passing down the business to you if you don't agree with it. Besides, it's just an engagement not marriage. You don't have to marry right away."

I threw my head back and let out an exasperated sigh. "But I would have to marry when I come of age at twenty one, wouldn't I?"

"Max, you have to marry at some point anyways-"

"That's the point, mom. I don't want to get married! And I don't even want the family business. At. All." I slammed my fists on the table and stood up ready to walk out of the dining room.

"I thought my son had learnt some etiquettes now that he's been living away and living his life freely like he always wanted. But once again, you proved me wrong, Maximilian Everett Collins."

Easton George Collins, the man I despise so much entered the hall and said in his usual emotionless voice. He wore a bleak grey vest and suit over a white shirt and pants of the same colour. His jet black hair trimmed short and styled formally, and his eyes carrying a dark grey, almost black colour. He strided across the hall with confident steps towards the table.

"You don't have to worry about it, Emily. I've already decided," he said to my mother and took his seat at the head of the table.

"Decided? About what?" she asked, confused just like me.

He half-smiled and said, "The girl he's going to marry."

"The what?!" I yelled.

He rose his brow warningly and god why do I hate him so much and still I have the same identical expressions as him.

"I don't like repeating myself, son," he said and nodded to the servants who came to serve his dinner.

My mother, who couldn't hold back her curiosity, asked, "Who is it?"

"Katherine Liv Campbell," he studied my face with blank dark grey eyes as he said that.

"Katherine? Seriously, that's the best decision you can make?" I asked him, not caring to mask the disgust on my face.

While I don't have any special preferences under whose feet my life gets fucked up, but Katherine? Katherine?! It's not like I have anything against that girl but I can't marry her because, well, I can't possibly marry the girlfriend of my best friend.

Tsk. Can't I just tell him why I can't marry her?

No. Her father is my father's business partner and according to what Ben, my friend, keeps saying, her father doesn't know about his daughter's relationship with Ben. And if I tell him this, Ben's really gonna get screwed up, for real.