Caden Knox walked along the passage to his office and opened the door, he raised his eyebrow at the sight of the two women sitting on a sofa in the room and talking to each other.
One of the women was a middle aged petite blonde with blue eyes and small pretty features while the other woman was a younger version of the older woman.
He did not say a word to acknowledge them but went straight to the desk and sat in the chair before pulling out a folder from his desk and looking through it.
"You are not even going to welcome us?" the younger woman pouted.
Caden looked up from his desk and glanced at her face then back down at the files he had been perusing.
"I don't think that you need my help to make yourselves welcome." He muttered, annoyed at the invasion of his privacy.
The women glanced at each other in exasperation before the older woman stood up and walked towards the desk with cautious steps.
"Honey, there is something important we need to speak to you about." She said.
"You are already speaking." He said without preamble.
The woman sighed and glanced back at the younger girl still on the seat who shrugged.
*knock knock*
They all turned towards the door.
"Right on time. Faye, get the door please." Callie directed.
A little old bald man wearing wire rimmed glasses and a grey suit with a bow tie stepped into the office holding a brown leather briefcase.
Faye returned to her seating position while the man went to Callie and shook her hand before taking a seat opposite Caden while he looked on, his piercing amber eyes expressionless as he waited for an explanation.
"Good morning Mrs Knox, good morning Caden, Faye." Their family lawyer Lance Ben said.
He placed his briefcase on the table and opened it before removing a file and placing the briefcase to the ground.
"What is this about?" Caden asked.
"I have with me a codicil to your father's will."
Matt Knox had been dead for a year and after that his will had been read, the will named Caden the heir to the family holdings while his older sister Faye was given an annual allowance which would let her live the life she was accustomed to since she never bothered about showing an interest in getting involved in the family business.
This had made Faye extremely bitter because she expected that as the first child she should be on the board with the most shares instead of her younger brother. She felt that it had been simply a misogynistic move by her father because she was not the son that he had wished for, if she had been a man she would have been treated better than this.
"What does it say? Faye asked impatiently.
The lawyer pushed his glasses up his nose and began to read.
"If you are reading this then it means it has been a whole year since i have died, I know that you are all doing me proud and I want you to keep taking care of each other. Caden, I know that being in the position you are in you are going to need a lot of help and your mother will not be there forever and your sister has her own family to raise so you are all alone. My solution to this is that you have to get married in a month and you have to get your wife to fall in love with you and you fall in love with her before the date of your first anniversary and you cannot tell her about this. If you are unable to do this the company's holdings will be dissected into small parts and shared among the shareholders and your sister."
The room was silent when the lawyer finished and returned the file to the suitcase then Faye burst into uproarious laughter. Her mother looked at her in irritation and turned to the lawyer.
"Thank you so much for coming Lance."
The lawyer pushed out of the chair and bowed to her before leaving the room.
"I fail to see what is so funny right now." An annoyed Callie pinched the bridge of her nose.
"I.. always.. knew that dad.. had.. a great sense of humor." Faye said between laughter.
Callie sat furiously fuming then she looked at Caden who had not said a word.
"What do you think honey?" She asked.
"Getting married is a big ask and I don't think I want that and how am I supposed to make someone fall in love with me?" Caden said.
Callie looked at him and wished that he was still a little child whose hair she could ruffle, she missed when she had largely been able to protect him from an unforgiving world that worked with a different wavelength than his.
He was an extremely intelligent man who was doing a surprising excellent job as an administrator of the companies but a lot of the time she still felt like he still needed her.
He might look big, strong and handsome and in charge but she knew that most of who he really was was misunderstood and because that lay under this impressive exterior he had suffered from the brunt of expectations that she feared would overwhelm him.
"At this point they should go ahead and cut up the company in pieces and give me the lions share." Faye shrugged with a smirk.
She knew she was never going to be CEO and as far as she was concerned she deserved it more than Caden, if she was not going to have it then neither should he and she knew that would hurt him. The company was his life.
"Yes, I imagine that as long as you get pocket money you don't need to have purpose." He said simply and Faye's face reddened in anger.
Callie ignored their bickering and instead concentrated on reassuring Caden. "Oh honey, I know that you are doing your best and you are doing so well but the world just does not know how to deal with people like you."
"Yes, being detail oriented and seeing the world differently must be such a threat to everyone." He commented mirthlessly.
"Big deal, you are autistic. That is not the point Caden, you need a wife who will fall in love with you which is impossible." Fate taunted and rolled her eyes.
"Faye, could you not do this right now?" Callie said crossly.
"You coddle him too much mother." She bit out in reply.
"Enough! I will do it." Adrien raised his hand to stop their squabbling.
Callie beamed in gratitude, Caden had never seemed agreeable to the idea of a partner and had not seemed to have met any nice young lady that he found attractive, he had never even had a girlfriend and she had even worried that he might be asexual and have no interest in males or females.
"Does he even know what to do with a woman talk more make her fall in love?" Faye teased meanly and Callie narrowed her eyes and turned to her.
"You know what? Just give me the files and leave." Callie said angrily and reached out a hand.
Faye could tell on the look on her mother's face that she had gone too far and there was no point trying to apologize so she handed over the folder and left, berating herself for getting kicked out of the room before Caden chose his pick of the women whose information was in the files.
After she closed the door behind her Caden stared at the folder his mother held.
"When Lance discussed the codicil with me I took the liberty of getting the data of all unwed women from suitable families for you, all you need to do is look through it and choose the one you like best, if you want I can stay and we can look at your choices together." She offered hopefully.
Caden took the files from her then counted the seventh one and handed the rest back to her and dropped the file by the side on his desk while his mother looked on in confusion.
He looked up and seemed surprised to still see her standing there.
"Is there anything more mother? Later I will look through her file and pen a letter to her family indicating my interest in her" he asked.
"I thought we were going to pick your bride together."
"I already did. In fact, how about you reach out to her family on my behalf instead?" He took the file off his desk and glanced at the name written boldly on the cover before handing it to her.
"What?" Callie said looking aghast and looking at the file he had handed to her.
"You can't choose the mother of your children that way."
"The jury is still out on that." He said.
"What does that mean?" she asked, afraid of the answer.
"That this is strictly for the good of the family, I am content being alone but if that is going to cause problems to the company then I am willing to be a good leader by making the sacrifice, however I will not be having children it's already bad enough that I have to force some girl to fall in love with me. Now if you will excuse me I am behind on some work."
He turned back to the files on his desk, dismissing her without a word.
Callie knew to leave things as they were, considering how much worse things could have gone she counted it a victory that not only had Caden accepted to get a wife but had even chosen one even if he had chosen her in the most unorthodox manner.
She missed Matt in times like this, he always knew what to say to soothe her frayed nerves and he had been the perfect partner to raise a special child like Caden, he had unfortunately passed away and Caden had to become CEO of such a big company before he was supposed to but with her support he had surpassed everyone's expectations.
She was more than a little sad that Caden had decided that he did not want children, the thought that her son might never enjoy the love and support of someone who loved him broke her heart because if there was anyone who needed love it was Caden.
Callie thought to herself that a lot of preparations would have to be made and there was not a lot of time. She would have to tell Faye the good news and send a letter to Nova Addison's family.
***
Faye sat on a swivel chair, looking out of the window in a darkened room with only a group of candles at the far side of the room illuminating her silhouette. A man came into the room and stood watching her silently, she showed no signs of knowledge that anyone was in the room even though she was aware of him.
"How did it go?" he asked.
"My temper got the best of me, he has chosen his bride without my input and just as I expected he has chosen the worst possible candidate, with some luck maybe she will reject his proposition." She said.
"So you know who he has chosen"
"Nova Addison."
She turned towards him, the shadows from the flickering flames dancing on her face.
"All that I want is what I deserve, what was wrongly taken away from me." She whispered viciously.
"And I know that Faye, your father has made things easy for you. Caden will never let anyone close enough to fall in love with him." He assured her with confidence.