The Inheritance Game

❃5❃

"This dinner is awkward as hell," Zayn muttered to himself, prompting a chuckle from me.

"So, Zayn?" My Dad began, taking a sip from his red wine. "What is it that you do for a living?"

"I run a little cafe and bakery," Zayn responded in a slightly uneasy tone as he set down his cutlery. "The same cafe Liam is the founder and CEO of."

"Liam, you own your own business?" Lawrence cast us a sceptical gaze.

"Since when?" Leah joined.

I absentmindedly scratched my eyebrow, trying to avoid their questioning eyes. "Well, for a while now? I told you about it before."

"But you hardly leave the house," Louis scoffed, an infuriating smirk on his face that tempted me to give him a good slap.

"That's because he runs it from home," Zayn jumped in to save my ass. "He handles all the boring paperwork, and legal stuff, so that I can focus on customer satisfaction."

"Impressive." Mum gave me an approving look that made me smile broadly.

"So where did you two meet?" Harry shifted the conversation. "I love me a good meet-cute story."

Thankfully, we were prepared for this question.

"A local bookstore," I replied while chewing on a piece of steak that felt tasteless because of how nervous I was.

"We were reaching up for the same book and everything," Zayn chuckled.

Harry's eyes lit up with enthusiasm. "A meet-cute straight out of a movie. Tell me more!"

"We both went for the same book, and as we reached for it, Liam accidentally knocked over a stack of romance novels," Zayn said, giving me a sly grin as he managed to pull out a few chuckles from the ones around the table. "He was buried under a pile of cheesy love stories, blushing like a tomato. Turns out, he was just pretending to be interested to strike up a conversation with me."

My eyes widened at Zayn's unexpected twist. That was definitely not how we had agreed on telling the story. But I wasn't one to back down.

"Well," I retorted, recovering quickly, "Zayn might have been a bit too eager to 'help' me out from under that pile, and we ended up in a compromising position right there in the bookstore."

My family erupted in laughter at that. To solidify the charade, I cupped Zayn's face with a cheeky grin and placed a quick, playful kiss on his nose, hearing Harry and Faith's 'aww's.

Zayn, caught off guard, shot me a surprised look. He retaliated by giving me a forced smile and whispering something about getting back at me that I couldn't hear because I, obviously, wasn't paying attention to what he was saying. Why would I?

We exchanged covert glances, smiles painted on our faces for the family, while beneath the table, our feet waged a secret war. I tried to step on Zayn's toes, and he responded with a well-aimed kick to my shin. I hissed in pain as quietly as I could before trying to kick him back when my Dad's voice cut through the loud conversations circling around the table, making us stop immediately.

"Zayn. Why don't you and I have a little chat in my study?" he suggested, causing my hands to shake with anxiety under the table. What did he want to talk about with Zayn?

"By myself?" Zayn questioned.

"It's a family tradition for me to get to know the people marrying into my family."

Niall chuckled as he pointed the tip of his knife at Zayn. "Yeah, mate, be prepared. It's no joke."

Zayn offered him a tight-lipped smile before leaning in and whispering into my ear, "Is he gonna drink my blood or some other rich cult thing?"