My father threw a slew of newspapers on to the table, towards me, with a frown on his face. All of them had articles of me with different women.

I leaned back in my chair with a smirk.

"Aiden, this is not the way a Carlisle behaves," my father told me, sternly.

I laughed. "I'm just having some good fun, Dad," I said.

"Well, it all ends today, Aiden. Today, you get engaged."

*

When my father told me that he had a proposal for me, I expected it to be of the business variety. He and I have been doing business together ever since I bought over a share of his company and started running it.

When he said proposal, I didn't think it meant an actual marriage proposal.

"Caroline Baxter is a desirable woman," he told me, passing me headshot after headshot of the pageant Queen. Her hair always perfectly styled, her outfits always straight off the runway and her blue eyes held almost no emotion, even though her mouth was pulled into a smile.

Caroline and I had been at enough events together for me to know her well enough and to know that she and I weren't a good fit.

"I know, Dad," I said, rolling my eyes and passing the headshots back to him.

"This engagement, this marriage is good for our companies and for our families," he said, leaning forward, over his desk.

"What's wrong with how our company is doing?" I asked, aggravated at being forced into this match.

"Would you rather be married to a well know and widely loved woman who comes has her own wealth or be married to a gold-digger?" my father asked, banging his hand on the desk.

I wasn't shaken. He had done that enough in my life to know he just wanted to get my attention. I raised my eyes to look at him. "Caroline's enough of a gold-digger with her money, Dad," I informed him.

He gave me a disapproving look.

"Aiden," my father sighed, "The family is here, right outside that door." He pointed to the study door. "Go out there and smile and at least pretend to be happy about this engagement. We will announce it to the public soon."

I opened my mouth to argue, but he raised his hand to stop me.

"I have had enough of this discussion, Aiden. We've been over this. I know what's best for the company and the family," he said in a tired voice.

I got up from my chair, buttoning my suit jacket. I nodded to him and walked out, not wanting to face Caroline and my family when I was so angry, but knowing I had to do it anyway.

As soon as I got to the hall, Caroline got up from her chair, her bored expression turning into an angered one and stomped her way over to me. "Why did you leave me alone for so long?" she asked, clearly annoyed.

"My father and I had some business to discuss," I told her with a shrug.

She huffed. Handing me her empty glass of champagne, she fixed my tie, even though I was perfectly sure that it was immaculate. Nothing was really ever good enough for Caroline.

"When we are engaged and then married, Aiden," she warned me, "You will make sure we keep up perfect appearances."

She stalked away to get another glass and I sighed at the thought of my future with her.

It was already six-thirty by the time I got to Ian's apartment. I had promised to be there by five-thirty or six at the latest, but the business of wedding planning always included the loss of time.

I opened the door to his apartment and the sound of the latest football game on TV greeted me. Ian shouted something at the screen.

He was lounging on the couch, a beer in his hand, looking slightly frustrated.

"Hey," I said, softly.

He barely registered that I was there. "Oh, hey, Rosalie," he said, not taking his eyes off the screen.

I stood there at the edge of the living room, looking at him. "Where are we going to have dinner?"

"The game's on, so I ordered a pizza," he told me, still not looking at me, "I figured you would be late, anyway, so I guessed you wouldn't mind."

I felt my heart drop to my stomach. "You said you wanted to get dinner. You've been telling me for days that you wanted a night with me," I could hear myself sounding like a desperate teenager.

"We're still having dinner," he sipped his beer.

"Pizza," I repeated, "On your couch. It's not the date we planned."

He sighed and turned to look at me. "Look, I had a long day, too, okay?" he said, "And the game's on and it's really good so let's just sit here and eat pizza and watch this okay?"

I bit down on the inside of my lip and forced a smile. Taking off my shoes, I went over to sit next to him. He put his arm around me and I snuggled into him.

"Sorry I was late," I told him, quietly.

He shrugged. "Yeah, no problem."

"How was your day?" I asked him.

He shook his head. "Hold on, not now. This game might go into overtime," he said, silencing me.

I closed my eyes and sighed, wondering if we would have been out if I had just come off work at the right time. I got up from the couch to get myself a drink.

"Hey, could you grab me a beer?" Ian asked, shaking his empty bottle.

"Sure," I breathed.

"Thanks, Ro," his eyes were fixed on the screen, "Love you."

The characters in this story are human. They will make mistakes, they will take decisions that you think are stupid and they will anger you.

After publishing, I have edited out some parts and changed small things that I felt were mostly annoying everyone. If you are returning to this story, you might find some parts are different than you first read them.

People are not perfect and neither are these characters. If I wrote a story about perfect people, it would be entirely boring.

Things happen in life and different people deal with them differently.

My writing is not perfect, I am not a professional. I, too, am learning how to build better characters and better plotlines.

I appreciate the constructive feedback I get and have taken them to mind when writing my next story.

Further, understand that family is a complex matter. The characters in the story will deal with family different to how you might.

If you don't like it, please feel free to move on without leaving mean comments.

With that being said, I hope you enjoy my book. :)