C4 Chapter 4

The day Kayla first met Adrian, she had almost laughed out loud at the sight of the Fitzroy heir.

She had been just a kid back then, Adrian even younger than she was about a year or a few months depending on how you see it but they had both been old enough to know the seriousness of the sudden meeting between the two families and the years of decorum and discretion ingrained into her head had been enough to keep the practiced smile on her face regardless of her emotions, but despite all that Kayla hadn't been able to wipe away the look of shock from her face at the sight of the her future husband to be.

Kayla had heard of Adrian Fitzroy long before she had the chance to actually meet him, and even today Mikayla knows more about her ex- fiance through the words of others than from his own mouth.

At seventeen, despite how brave Kayla had pretending to be, the stories surrounding Adrian and the Fitzroy's had been bad enough that she had been expecting something far different from the then sixteen year almost seventeen wide eyed boy who had greeted her with one of the deepest bows Kayla had ever received.

Kayla hadn't expected the infamous Fitzroy heir to be so small, or pale, or even look at her the way he had that day.

Adrian had been somber and quiet as usual, Kayla doesn't ever remember him not being so, not even in the happiest of memories they shared, but at sixteen and thin boned, he was still to perfect the current aura around him that made people take a second glance at him out of fear or admiration, at sixteen Adrian had been just as much as a kid as she was and Kayla had been relieved for the first time since she was informed of her new engagement a week prior to their meeting.

Adrian is still a bit taller than she is , still looks thin boned but his suits fit him a lot better now, and the somber aura around him is stronger than ever and he had perfected into something else more repellent and sharper than his grandfather's harsh insults, but he is not that sixteen year old wide eyed boy anymore and that unnerves Kayla, especially in the middle of an attempt at an apology to the younger man.

It had been hard to get Adrian alone, even harder to get the man to stay and listen to what she had to say.

Just as Kayla assumed Adrian's grandfather seemed to despise the very idea of her now, in fact, Kayla is surprised that he has settled for her no longer being part of any business with the Fitzroys instead of insisting that She be disinherited from the Sinclair line entirely.

There is no love lost there, Kayla hates the rest of the Fitzroys anyway, Adrian had always been different, too evasive and too secretive for her to even form a firm opinion about him.

Kayla is half way through her well-practiced apology when she notices that Adrian is barely listening, and it's not even in a way that would come off as rude, but rather seeming genuinely tired and disinterested that it bites at the parts of Kayla built over a ten-year long contract between them.

"Adrain," Kayla decides to forgo her practiced speech, she owes him at least the truth, "It wasn't because of you. I just-" Kayla is not someone who falls at a loss for words often, but all of a sudden under Adrain's betrayed gaze nothing seems to be actually enough.

"I wish I could have loved you, I honestly do," she says instead, and she means it, things would have been a lot easier had that been the case.

But there had always been too long of a distance between them, one Adrain seemingly never wanted to walk down despite all his stolen glances at her, all of her own attempts seemed to have failed to decrease the distance and when she met Jace a few years ago it had all seemed to come crashing down on her.

Adrian seemed to stiffen up at that, his eyes getting a hue darker.

He could say something back, something cutting like her father would, mentioning how there are seemingly more than enough Sinclair siblings to go around, but Adrian chooses to ignore her words entirely.

"Adrian-"

"Mikayla," he stops her with a single word before she can even start, the way he said it is somehow even worse than Adrian using her given name especially when it comes in that impersonal tone.

"It's Skyla- You remember her, right? The loud mouthed little kid that used to follow you around, you and I both know she isn't fit for this life, that she has been away for so long that-" Kayla tries anyway, because she has to, because Adrian is her last option to stop this before the situation gets even worse.

"Grandfather agreed to Mr. Sinclair's proposition,"

Adrian interrupts again, she would be surprised at the action if the situation wasn't so dire. "I am marrying your Sister in two weeks," the words are almost robotic, but Kayla wants to believe there is something else there.

"You can't do this, Please- Adrain!" Kayla pleads. She understands why the elders wouldn't want a long drawn out engagement again, but two weeks is hardly enough time when Adrian hasn't even seen Skyla in years.

"It's not up to me,you know this" for a second something else washes over his face but it leaves as quick as it came. Adrain pries off her finger from his hands that she hadn't even noticed clutching onto the man.

Adrain takes a second to straighten his tie before he walks out without a second glance.

Kayla curses out loud. The sound of cheers from the room Adrian had just exited grating at her nerves.

They hadn't even waited for Sky to get there before finalizing the new agreement, her stepmother had gotten a hold of a couple if pictures Jaylani took of Sky from when the youngest visited her a few months ago, that along with a series of documents proving that Skyla was being reinstated into the Sinclair family.

It was apparently enough to convince the Fitzroy's , enough for them to forget that her father had refused to even consider Skyla as his daughter till a day ago.

Mikayla knows well enough that none of it would matter to the Fitzroy's , it had never been about what mattered to Adrain and her, and would be even less about what Skyla would want.

Skyla would not say no, not when the alternative was Jaylani in her place.

Kayla just wonders if they bothered to ask her at all.