Crown of the Empire

Chapter 20

Chapter 20

I hadn't even peeled off my blazer when the scent of leather and ink hit me. Nikolai's estate library—if you could even call a hall the size of a boutique hotel lobby just a library—was lit up like a war room. Papers, laptops, men and women in trim suits tapping at screens. My fiancé—God, it still felt strange thinking of him that way—stood at the center of it all like some dark pillar of inevitability.

The room buzzed around him, but he was still. That was the unsettling part. Everyone else moved, shuffled, murmured. Nikolai didn't. He just read, absorbed, decided. Like a hawk circling over frantic prey.

"Tell me you didn't summon the IMF in my absence," I muttered, kicking off my heels and walking in. My toes screamed in relief against the cool marble. "Because I really need at least one evening without some middle-aged man telling me I'm unfit to exist."

A couple of the suits froze, like startled deer. Nikolai didn't look up, but I swore I saw the flicker of a smirk.

"Relax," I said to the suits, tossing my bag onto a chair worth more than some people's cars. "I'm the princess. He's the executioner. Know your archetypes."

Finally, Nikolai looked up. And yes, there it was—the smirk. Barely there, but alive. "You survived."

"Please," I said, dropping into a velvet seat across from him. "I didn't just survive. I eviscerated. Social media is calling me Banking Barbie of Fire. My father probably swallowed his cigar whole. It was a productive day."

"Productive days," he said slowly, "are only useful if you build on them."

I groaned, dragging a hand over my face. "God, Nikolai, could you at least start with 'well done' before catapulting me into the next apocalypse?"

"Fine," he said. "Well done."

My eyes widened. "Wow. Historic. A first."

He ignored me, of course, and motioned to one of the assistants, who slid a file across the table. Charts, figures, bleeding red lines. Vergara Banking's guts spilled out in ink.

I skimmed, eyebrows climbing. "So much for 'minor fluctuations.' This is systemic."

"Which is why," Nikolai said, calm as ever, "we don't just pull your shares and let them rot. We pivot. We build."

And then it hit me. Hard, heavy, inevitable.

The proposal. The key he'd handed me instead of a ring. The way he'd said marriage was strategy as much as love.

"You meant this," I whispered, staring at him.

He didn't answer. He didn't need to.

"You weren't just proposing," I said, sharper now, piecing it together. "You were setting the stage. You want us to merge. To found a bank."

His gaze held mine, unblinking. "Not want. Plan."

I let out a laugh—half hysterical, half furious. "Unbelievable. Most men propose with roses and candlelight. You proposed with a merger agreement disguised as romance."

"Romance," he said evenly, "wasn't disguised. But marriage without empire is wasteful."

I pressed my palms to my temples, but I couldn't stop the grin creeping in. "You're insane. And the worst part? So am I."

He leaned forward, voice low, certain. "ME Bank. Mariya Elena. Your name. Your crown. From the beginning, this was always about you."

"Explain."

The word snapped out of me before I could stop it. My hands were on the file, but my eyes were on him—dark, unreadable, as if he'd been expecting this interrogation.