The Ascent Between

The first time Kiara Steele had ever imagined her wedding day, she thought of pastel flowers, laughter ringing in the air, and a man she loved waiting for her at the end of the aisle. She had been young then. Believing in naïve, spinning stories out of fairy tales and late-night romance dramas.

Nonetheless, when her wedding day finally arrived, some part of those dreams came true. She was marrying her teenage crush. Undeniably handsome man, yet very older than her. Not just a year or two, this man is eighteen years older than Kiara.

Moreover, she barely knew him personally. She met him at some parties in her childhood. But in her teenage years, she used to fantasise about him from a distance. Obviously, after he became a widower. Then, for some critical reason related to him, she stopped going to those parties. And, now she found herself standing in front of this very man, while the weight of her parents’ expectations and her father’s trembling hands signed away her future.

It’s a deal between families and the empires. Her father’s company is being merged with Stone Inc. This company was a name that carried power, wealth, and prestige. Everyone in the business world respected Samuel Stone, a man who had built an empire with sharp instincts and cold precision. Billionaire. Untouchable. Widower.

Meanwhile, Steele Enterprises, the company her father had once been proud of, was crumbling like a sandcastle against the tide. Mismanagement, bad investments, and ruthless competitors had left it on the edge of bankruptcy. Every night, Kiara heard her parents arguing behind closed doors, her mother’s voice sharp with panic, her father’s heavy with defeat.

Then Samuel Stone appeared in their lives again. He had been her father’s old friend, much younger than Kiara’s father, Andrew Steele. Samuel was about ten years younger than Andrew, yet they had a very good relationship due to their fathers’ friendship. In other words, Kiara’s grandfather and Samuel’s father were friends. Not just any friend, but like best friends and brothers.

Samuel was someone Kiara remembered from childhood and teenage dinners, always dignified, tall, with a quiet authority that filled the room. Until nine years ago, he used to attend parties with a beautiful blonde lady named Claire Stone, who was his wife. This woman was very fascinating and soft, she used to call her “Mrs Stone”. Mr. and Mrs. Stone were the ideal couple in her eyes, just like anyone can dream of, loving fires and loyalty. However, she died of some disease, as far as she heard.

Samuel has various investments in universities and schools. He had attended her school functions once or twice, sitting beside her father, then during her teenage years. However, Kiara had been too young to understand the gravity of the man’s presence. Yet, she used to like his face; his presence used to make her blush. Because she had a secret crush on him, as he became technically a single man again.

After years, when he came to their house one evening, Kiara was already twenty-four, going to be twenty-five in months, still working at her father’s firm in the finance department for five years, starting from the clerical work during her graduation studies. She knew the gravity of the financial situation in Steele Enterprises, as she had been working there for these years.

Also, Kiara has already graduated from the most prestigious Ivy League business school, majoring in finance and economics, which made her more skilled and knowledgeable in the area. She also made suggestions to her father regarding the state, but some corrupt investors made him ignore her. In the end, the company fell into bankruptcy.

And, now she was wondering why her parents were suddenly fussing over her appearance at the dinner with Samuel Stone. She used to crush on him years ago. Not Now! She had grown up too much for those fussy teenage crush things. Still, she didn’t want to face him.

“Kia,” her mother had said, smoothing the wrinkles out of her dress, “be polite tonight. Mr. Stone is... important.”

Important, Kiara would later realise, was an understatement.

That night, the two families discussed more than dinner. They discussed contracts. Debt. Salvage. And then, to Kiara’s utter shock, Marriage.

The man, who used to be her crush, made an arranged marriage proposal. And, it wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t even asked. The great Samuel Stone didn’t kneel. He didn’t bring flowers. Instead, he laid out terms with the same composure he might have used when negotiating a multimillion-dollar deal.

“I will acquire the Steele debts,” he said simply, his deep voice steady, “on one condition. Kiara marries me.”

Kiara had felt the air leave her lungs. Her father looked down at his hands, embarrassment etched into every wrinkle of his face. Her mother stayed silent, her lips pressed tightly together. No one looked at Kiara. Because they had already discussed this matter and had several arguments.

This marriage proposal was as if her choice didn’t matter. And Samuel? He was calm, detached, his sharp grey eyes unreadable.

“Why me?” Kiara had whispered, her voice trembling.

Yes, she used to have a huge crush on him enough to kiss him senselessly. But she had moved on five years ago, while she had seen this widower making out with his secretary in the corner of the hotel dinner party. She was very disgusted after seeing that scene and had heartbreak from her crush. Then, her crush on him ended then and there. After that, she never appeared before him as far as she could. She avoided the parties. However, today’s dinner was just an understatement. She was threatened by her mother to attend it.

Samuel’s gaze had flickered to her at dinner. And for the first time, she noticed something softer behind the steel of his expression. Perhaps a trace of loneliness. Or guilt.

“You are young and smart,” he replied. “I believe you’ll adapt well to the life that comes with being my wife. But this will not be a marriage of romance or obligation. It will be an arrangement. You will have freedom. I will not ask of you what you cannot give. You’ll just have to act the Trophy Wife.”

Her parents remained silent in guilt. This man, Samuel, had no shame in saying things like this before her parents, she thought. Kiara felt more disgusted for some reason, but showed no emotion on her face. Tears are threatening to roll down her face. Because her own parents were selling her to this man to save the company.

It sounded merciful that Samuel was clearing the debt and merging the company while still keeping Andrew Steele as the CEO. But in truth, this arranged marriage was another kind of prison. Still, with her father’s company hanging by a thread and her mother’s desperate eyes silently pleading, Kiara knew her answer had already been decided for her.

She agreed.

******

The Wedding came. It was just after two weeks of the proposal at that dinner party. The ceremony was small and private. No lavish celebration, no media frenzy. Samuel insisted on it, valuing his privacy above all else.

Kiara wore white, but the gown felt heavy on her shoulders. She sees her twinkling Russian style diamond tiara and white veil, as if it’s a heavy crown. She smiled at her reflection, but her lips trembled with sadness. None of her friends came, because she had told no one. How could she explain that her marriage was not born from love, but necessity?

Her father, then, gave a proud yet sad smile while taking her to the aisle. Her mother complimented her with a crystal white smile; however, she couldn’t hug her to say goodbye. And that churned her stomach. She didn’t look at the man she was getting married to. Her father gave her hand to Samuel, who took it firmly. They exchanged the “I do” declaration when the priest continued to make them share vows.

When the priest announced them husband and wife, Samuel slipped a ring onto her finger. His hands were warm, steady, but impersonal. She also had to slide a ring onto his ring finger at that time. And, there was no kiss to seal the vow. Only a handshake, just like an exchange of gazes that reminded her this was, above all, a contract.

The contract content was read by Kiara just after the ceremony. It was a simple one-page contract, showing the contents: no touch, no bedroom shares, no arguments or personal space intervention.

Kiara would never forget the day she became Mrs. Samuel Stone. Not because it should be the happiest day of her life, but because it marked the beginning of a journey she had never chosen, yet one that would change her heart in ways she never imagined.

By the time she reached the penthouse on the highest peak of the skyscraper owned by Samuel Stone. She was engulfed again in her reveries as she walked toward her designated bedroom shown by the maid.

What started as a sacrifice, a duty to her family, slowly became something else? Something dangerous. And though their marriage had been nothing but a contract. Did their destiny have a different story for them?

***********

The first week passed in silence. Samuel had kept his word. Their marriage was platonic, untouched. She lived in his vast house, so large she often felt like a ghost wandering empty halls. He was courteous but distant, always busy with work. They rarely ate together, and when they did, conversations were polite but brief.

Kiara filled her days with books, sketching, watching drama series, and sometimes wandering the gardens near the penthouse building. She had freedom, yes, but also an aching loneliness.

At night, she would sometimes hear Samuel in his study, his deep voice murmuring into phone calls that stretched past midnight. Other times, she’d pass by his closed door and wonder if he ever thought of his late wife. If he still grieved her. If Kiara was nothing more than a placeholder in his story. Besides, the age gap hung between them like a shadow. Samuel’s maturity, his composed silence, only made Kiara feel more like a child trapped in a grown-up game.

And yet... sometimes, when she caught him watching her quietly at dinner, or when he paused a little too long before answering her questions, she wondered if there was more beneath his carefully built walls.

A quiet yearning was there. One evening, just a month after the wedding, Kiara found herself in the library, curled on the armchair with a sketchbook. She had been doodling absentmindedly when Samuel entered. He rarely sought her out unless necessary, so his presence startled her.

“You draw,” he said, noticing the sketches.

Embarrassed, Kiara closed the book. “Just for myself.”

“May I?” His tone was gentle, a stark contrast to his usual business-like authority.

Hesitant, she handed it over. He studied the pages, sketches of flowers, architecture, even a few portraits she had drawn from memory. His expression softened.

“You’re talented,” he said finally, returning the book.

The words warmed her more than she expected. For the first time, she realised he wasn’t always the untouchable CEO. Beneath the tailored suits and cold efficiency, there was a man who noticed small things. A man who, perhaps, felt more than he let on.

It was a small crack in the wall between them, but it stayed with her. Their arrangement was simple: no touch, no demands, no intimacy. A contract marriage to save her father’s legacy. But life had a way of weaving threads where none were meant to exist.

It began with shared meals that lasted a little longer. Conversations that grew deeper, straying from polite necessities into personal confessions. Kiara learned Samuel loved classical music, though he never played it aloud in the house anymore. She discovered he had once dreamed of being a painter before life dragged him into business.

In turn, Samuel learned she feared thunderstorms, that she loved strawberry tarts, and that she hummed when she concentrated on her sketches. These small revelations stitched together something fragile but real. And then, something unexpected happened.

The night everything changed was not planned, not part of the contract. Because it was the moment that turned their platonic arrangement into something neither of them had foreseen. They shared their hands intertwined and felt something electrifying. They were even on the verge of kissing each other, while their hearts were beating dramatically in the heat of the moment. And that made Samuel realise that he should keep maintaining his space. Because he was feeling something unnecessary toward her. That prompted him to write another contract within the next week, just before their reception party, which was held on the insistence of his mother, Amelia Stone.

Amelia Stone was a 65-year-old bubbly woman who always took everything in a positive light. She even took the marriage between Kiara and Samuel as the mesmerising experience of life, despite their age gap. She wanted to throw the reception party just after the marriage ceremony was held, but Samuel insisted that she delay. And then, within two months, she was throwing this party in her house, the Stone Estate, in the suburban area, in the façade of a charity gala. Additionally, when she came to know that her son and daughter-in-law were staying in the commercial space penthouse, she forced this newlywed couple to stay at the Stone Mansion.