The Heir's Midnight Deal

Callan Voss had exactly one rule about his phone after ten p.m that he never defiled no matter what…he simply did not answer it.

There was something strenuous about managing a double life for two years. It wasn’t so easy being the broke student in room 114 of Calloway Hall, and the heir to a dynasty whose net worth would make most governments uncomfortable. The only way he had actually survived both without cracking was the wall he built between his nights and the world that wanted things from him was by playing it safe and dumb.

Tonight though, he broke that rule.

His phone vibrated on the desk, snapping out the silence of his room. The screen displayed one name: VIVIENNE. She had called four times already in six minutes. That level of persistence usually signaled one of two things: a genuine crisis or her usual fit of dramatic boredom. Both were entirely possibile with Vivienne Lacroix.

Callan stood, abandoning his economics paper, and answered. "Viv?"

"I need to see you, Callan."

Her voice wasn't the bright, melodic sweetness he was accustomed to. It was strained, brittle, and terrifyingly precise.

"It’s eleven-oh-seven," Callan drawled.

"I know what time it is, Callan," she snapped, "And I still need to see you."

A cold sensation pooled in his stomach, he could easily sense that something was wrong. He frowned and held his phone tightly. "Where are you?"

"The south courtyard. Please," she whispered, a rare flicker of something like remorse in her tone. "Don't make me say it on the phone."

And the line went dead.

The south courtyard of Vantage University was like a ghost town. The old stone benches were slick with late-spring dew, and the ornamental fountain, usually the heart of the campus, sat dormant and dry.

Callan found Vivienne standing beneath an iron lamppost, her coat pulled tight, as if trying to shrink away from a coming storm. She looked at him once and blew a frantic breath at her cheeks. Callan stopped three feet away, his heart hammering against his ribs.

Vivienne Lacroix was, of the old-money world and a perfect choice for his condition. She was the daughter of a banking dynasty, the kind of girl his grandmother, Maris Voss, had actually deemed acceptable. Coming from Maris, that was the highest honor a person could receive.

"You wanted me here, Vivienne," Callan said, his voice steady despite the adrenaline rush. "What is it?"

Her jaw tightened. She stared at the empty fountain, avoiding his eyes. "I've been seeing someone else for four months, Callan. I’m done playing both sides."

The silence that followed was suffocating. "Four months?" he repeated, his pulse slowing into a heavy, dull ache. "That’s half the time we’ve been together."

"I know." She finally looked at him. There was no apology in her eyes, only the cold, hard finality of someone who had already calculated the fallout. "I’m sorry, I really am. But you know what tomorrow is. I couldn't let you walk into that dinner thinking we were… anything."

"Who is it?" Callan asked, his voice deathly quiet.

She hesitated, weighing the cost, before sighing. "Dorian Chase."

He scoffed in disbelief, his stomach curling inwards when the realization hit him. Dorian Chase—the heir to the second-greatest dynasty in Milbur City. The Chases were the Voss family’s blood enemies, an empire built that had tried to wreck Callan's family constantly over the years. Dorian was the man who had sat in his lecture hall four days ago, smiling at him like a brother.

The realization was a splash of icy water on his face. He now understood that Dorain had been smiling at him while secretly fucking his girlfriend. He'd been mocking him!

Vivienne threw her head back, surprised by that question. She sighed and looked away. "Since the beginning. He approached me first though. By the time I understood what he was doing… Ugh, I wasn't asking you to forgive me, Callan."

"Good," he said, his face hardening coldly. "That makes this simple."

He pulled out his phone and glanced at the time. 11:04 p.m.

Fifty-six minutes until midnight and fifty-six minutes until his twentieth birthday.

The conditions of his inheritance had been made clear two years ago: On the night you turn twenty, you will bring a woman of standing to the estate dinner, someone this family can receive. Do that, and the keys to the kingdom are yours. Fail, and we will revisit the question of succession.

"Revisit." It was practically a death sentence. Callan had watched his uncle go from heir-apparent to a desk jockey in Brussels in less than a year after failing a similar test. Callan was not going to Brussels for any bloody reason.

"I’ll remove the Lacroix name from the guest list," Callan mumbled to himself and looked at. "You can go home, Vivienne. I hope Chase was worth the price of your reputation."

He turned and walked back toward Calloway Hall, his hostel. His mind was racing frantically. He had fifty-four minutes to find a replacement for her. And not just any girl, but someone from a family his grandmother would recognize and that someone on this campus, and be someone he could drag into a car in under half an hour.

The list of candidates was practically nonexistent. His strategy of deliberate remaining invisible throughout his university years had left him with no social network and a reputation as a strange, solitary loner. He was going to pay dearly for that solitude tonight.

Felix, his roommate, was sitting on the floor eating a bowl of cold cereal when Callan burst in. Felix was the only person who knew the truth about Callan’s lineage and chose to treat him like a human being instead of a walking bank account.

"You look like you just watched your soul leave your body," Felix remarked without looking up.

"Vivienne broke up with me," Callan said, dropping onto his bed.

Felix choked on his spoon. "The fuck? On tonight of all nights?"

"Fifty-two fucking minutes, Felix and with Dorian Chase"

Felix's face lost its color and he gasped in shock. "That’s not bad luck! That’s seems like a targeted strike to me. Vivienne and Dorian Chase?"

Callan nodded. "He’s been playing me for four months, but fuck that, I need a name, Felix. Someone on this campus from a noble bloodline who my grandmother wouldn't immediately discard. And I need it in forty-nine minutes."

Felix stood up, pacing the small room. "Callan, the only girls here with the right pedigree are—" He stopped dead, his eyes widening. "Wait."

"Who?" Callan asked desperately

"Room 209, Meridian Hall. She’s a journalism major. She transferred here fourteen months ago under the name Seren Ashby." Felix tapped his screen rapidly. "But her mother’s maiden name is Crestwood."

Callan’s breath hitched. "As in the Crestwood family? My grandmother went to school with Edith Crestwood!"

"She’s the one," Felix said, looking up with a grimace. "But Callan, she hates you."

Callan froze. "What?!"

"You corrected her article in the campus paper eight months ago and left an anonymous comment. She tracked it back to you and she’s practically been looking for a reason to ruin you ever since."

Callan shut his eyes and exhaled, a ragged, desperate sound. "Forty-eight minutes left and I’m not charming enough to convince a vengeful girl, Felix."

"Then don't be charming," Felix said, pointing at the door. "Go be honest. Women like that better anyway. Go, love. Try not to lose your inheritance while you're at it."