CHAPTER 3❤️

CHAPTER 3: DEBTS TO PAY

HENRY'S POV

The hum of the elevator was barely audible over the low jazz music playing from his phone.

Henry leaned against the cool metal paneling of the lift, his broad shoulders sagging under the weight of the day.

The numbers blinked overhead, 36, 37, 38, as the elevator climbed toward his penthouse apartment.

His coat hung loosely from one arm, briefcase in hand, and his thoughts flickered between the tension of the last board meeting and the quiet that awaited him behind his front door.

When the elevator finally pinged and slid open, he stepped into a wide, marble-floored hallway.

The scent of eucalyptus and leather welcomed me, indulgent touch from my interior designer that

I had initially found pretentious, but now, strangely comforting.

He keyed into his apartment, greeted by silence and the slow dimming of automatic lights that responded to his presence.

I dropped my briefcase by the console table and slipped out of my shoes, eyes scanning the sprawling space with its floor-to ceiling windows, abstract art pieces, and meticulously arranged furniture.

Everything in its place. Everything perfect. Everything… sterile.

My apartment had a life of its own,

almost as if it had been designed to impress someone I wasn't sure would ever visit.

For all its grandeur, it lacked warmth, just like everything else in my life lately.

As I poured myself a scotch, just two fingers, no ice, I felt that familiar bitterness bubbling in my chest.

I am tired. Not just physically, but down to the marrow.

Tired of the expectations, the polished image, the weight of the family name.

Tired of playing the role of the "ideal son," the "visionary CEO," the man who seemingly had it all, but in reality, had begun to feel like an actor on a stage I never auditioned for.

I sipped the scotch and allowed myself to close my eyes.

The warmth spread across his chest, and for a moment, I didn't think. I just was.

But the reprieve didn't last long.

A sudden memory returned like a paper cut to the mind, small, quick, sharp. My father's voice from at the office earlier.

"She's lovely, Henry. Comes from a good family. Not the usual gold diggers you avoid like the plague. Just dinner. That's all I ask."

I had tried to laugh it off then, have even rolled my eyes like a petulant teenager caught off guard.

But when my father said "just dinner," it wasn't a suggestion. It never was.

And now, the weight of that simple phrase settled in my chest like a stone.

I wouldn't have agreed immediately. He resisted, as always.

But that resistance had been paper-thin, worn down by years of subtle pressure, family dinners filled with carefully phrased disappointments, and an unspoken ledger of debts between father and son.

After all, what was one dinner? A small price to pay to keep the peace.

To show that I havn't forgotten everything my father has done for me, raising me alone after my mother's death, grooming me to take over the family's business, giving me the tools to build a life most men would kill for.

But even as I stood now, looking out at the skyline from the vast windows of my apartment, that decision gnawed at him.

It wasn't the dinner itself. It was what it represented. Compliance, submission.

The acceptance of a life laid out by someone else, of dreams inherited rather than earned.

I swirled the scotch in my glass, watching the amber liquid catch the light, and let my thoughts unravel.

The city twinkled beneath me, cars zipping like fireflies through the veins of downtown.

From this height, everything looked miniature, insignificant, even.

But I felt none of that lightness. Instead, the weight of my name, Henry, pressed down on me like gravity had doubled.

My father had never outright demanded anything from me.

That was never his style.

Expectations came packaged in elegance and wrapped in civility.

But the message was always clear: You owe me. This is how you show it.

And so I have agreed.

I took another sip of my drink and paced slowly to the grand piano that sat untouched in the corner.

It was a gift from my mother, or so I'd been told.

I barely remembered her anymore. She died when he was six.

All that remained of her were photos, a few home videos, and this hulking instrument that no one in the house ever played.

Sometimes I considered selling it, donating it, or moving it into storage.

But each time I nearly did, I heard my father's voice again, soft, distant, tinged with grief.

"She loved music, Henry. That piano is a piece of her."

And so it stayed, like everything else in my life that no longer fit but could not be discarded.

I set the scotch glass on its lid and rubbed my temples.

 It wasn't just the date, it was everything it symbolized.

It was another reminder that I was never fully in control, that every decision was filtered through the invisible lens of legacy.

The company bore my name. My apartment was paid for, with dividends from my father's empire.

Even my tailored suits, my connections, my clout, they all traced back to the man who had built an empire from concrete and steel.

People envied me. Envied the money, the status, the lifestyle.

But no one envied the price.

No one envied the invisible cage built from expectation and duty.

I sat down on the edge of the couch, leaning forward, elbows on my knees.

My phone buzzed beside me on the marble coffee table, a reminder, no doubt, for the date.

The name of the restaurant popped up in the notification.

Five stars. Private dining room.

The kind of place my father would approve of.

I stared at the glowing screen like it had insulted him.

I wanted to cancel. I wanted to text my father and say, "This is absurd. I'm not a child. Stop meddling in my life". I said to myself.

But I didn't. Because beneath the anger, beneath the irritation and resistance, lay something more complicated.

Something closer to guilt. Or perhaps, longing.

I wanted to be the man my father believed I was.

Not the polished version paraded at fundraisers or mentioned in Forbes blurbs, but the real one.

A man of substance. A man with direction, purpose, maybe even love.

But the truth is, I am sure of who I am without my father's blueprint.

All of my life had not been about following the path, hitting the milestones, keeping the machine running.

Somewhere along the way, I own my desires, my true wants, I have not become a mystery to myself.

I exhaled sharply and sank back into the couch. The leather creaked under my weight.

There was something humiliating about agreeing to a blind date at thirty-two.

It felt like a silent admission that I didn't know how to connect with people on my own anymore.

He haven't dated anyone, yes. Models, lawyers, socialites, women who smiled too quickly or talked like they were trying to outwit everyone in the room. But none of it had stuck. None of it had mattered.

This date, though, this favor, it broke something in that quiet resolve.

Not because I thought it would lead anywhere, but because it reminded him of how often he deferred his own voice in favor of others'.

I rose again, feeling so energetic. I walked to the bookshelf, fingers brushing the spines of unread biographies and classic novels.

Some I had bought for decoration, others with good intentions of someday reading them.

But lately, my life left no room for fiction. No room for imagination. Only strategy, planning, and control.

I paused at a framed photo tucked beside the books.

It was from my college graduation, I and my father standing in front of the university seal.

My father's hand was firm on my shoulder, his smile proud but controlled.

Expressions were harder to read, eyes squinting against the sun, mouths caught somewhere between a smile and uncertainty.

I stared at it for a long time.

That moment had felt like a victory then.

The culmination of years of pushing, striving, becoming.

But now, it looked like the beginning of a script I never agreed to write.

I couldn't remember what I'd been thinking that day, what dreams I held, what hopes I had.

They had all blurred into the years, ground into dust beneath the machine of success.

And yet…, I couldn't walk away. I wouldn't.

Not because I was afraid of disappointing my father, but because, deep down, I didn't want to be a man who cut ties out of spite.

My father had his flaws, more than a few, but he had also built everything with purpose, with grit, with love expressed in the only way he knew how.

That meant something, it had to.

I returned to the window, my reflection staring back at me in the glass. Sharp jaw, storm-gray eyes, expression unreadable.

I set my scotch down and rolled my sleeves to the elbow. The watch on my wrist ticked rhythmically.

Another gift from my father, engraved with a phrase he had heard a thousand times: "Build, don't borrow". Said my father.

He had taken that phrase to heart. Built his company division from the ground up. Hired the best, kept his hands clean, made the tough calls when others hesitated.

Immediately I remembered, I have a date to attend. So I quickly went in to dress up.