Dara, Page, and the Secrets of the Multiverse

▷ 17.1

Page squirmed in her seat, checking her time on her phone before glancing out of the cafe's window. Her fingers twiddled each other, and her heels hadn't stopped tapping against the vinyl tiles, the fake wood not giving her the satisfaction of hearing hollow thuds. She grabbed the half-consumed cup from the table, downing the remaining drink in one gulp. The paper towel crunched against her lips, smudging her lipstick as she wiped the foam off her mouth. With a quick nod to the waiter assigned to her table, the cup flitted out of her view. It would be replaced later with a new one in case the owner of the seat opposite her showed up.

He was running late—that much Page was sure. And she understood if he didn't want to be here. She didn't want to either. She would have found an appropriate reason to shirk out of this date...or the hundred others her grandfather arranged for her. Not that she hated the old man, but he was probably growing too old and gaining too much time on his hands. After relegating most of the entrepreneurial and decision-making work to his two sons—one of which was Page's father—Grandpa has been frequenting golf courses and playing with the other younger grandchildren. Just to placate the aging man, her parents suggested he try another hobby—finding eligible partners for all his grandchildren. And with Page being the oldest of the bunch, she had been the first blood drawn.

She could have made excuses or said she wasn't really interested in marrying or dating. Her degree enabled her to run a subsidiary or serve in the board of directors of the conglomerate, not engage snotty heirs of other conglomerate families in conversations about their summer activities which included wasting money they didn't work for. But her parents pulled her aside and stressed the importance of establishing partnerships with other powerful conglomerates, and they could only do it by making them part of the registry. "Just one," her mother clearly said before the arranged dates started. "After that, you can do whatever you want."

Of course, Page knew what that "one" meant, and she couldn't say it to her mother's face that that was the last thing she wanted to do with her life. Having a partner was hard enough. Starting a family would be even harder. It would interfere with her goals and dreams. She couldn't let that happen. There was more to life than having children.

Not that having children was bad. She wasn't just built for it. And with how horrible her previous dates have been, perhaps she wasn't built for a partner either.

"Just humor your grandfather," her father told her after the first date that went badly. "We needed to give him a new job that still indirectly involved the group and something that wasn't tiring."

At Page's expense, of course. She understood the motivation, but she couldn't see why she was dragged into the adults' shenanigans with her time, energy, and resources in tow. Not only was she taking a cut on her supposed day-offs, sometimes, she had to move her schedule around just to fit the set hours into it. The number of high-priority meetings she had to pass up this week alone was bordering on unacceptable.

By the third date, she was more than pissed off and wanted to have nothing to do with this madness. Her father put his foot down and claimed he'd cut off her inheritance if she made her grandfather unhappy. What a petty move, but once her father made up his mind, he'd set it in motion. She didn't want to lose a large sum of money or cost her relationship with both her father and grandfather, so onwards the dates went.