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very quick info. Marci and Bren have reconnected after so many years. when she first walked into his classroom. she always sat in the front of his class. and as time went by. she wanted to do something she never done before so she would were skirts with no panties and when he walked by she'd open her legs to shower off her kitty... which mand him ferla and crave her. Neither did anything for awhie wanting to know/ learn more about once another before they started having private sexual relations. Bren was Marci's first true love and everything else. ~~~
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The call came on a Tuesday morning.
Marci almost didn’t answer it.
She was sitting at the kitchen counter with a cup of coffee between her hands, half-reading an article for one of her classes and half-watching the rain slide down the window.
Her father’s name was still at the top of her recent calls.
She hadn’t deleted it.
She couldn’t.
Six months had passed since she’d last heard his voice, and there were still moments when she reached for her phone because something happened that she wanted to tell him.
A good grade, a stupid joke. or something she knew he’d have an opinion about.
Then she’d remember.
Her father was gone.
The number calling her now wasn’t his.
It was one she didn’t recognize.
“Hello?”
“Miss Marceline ?”
“Yes?”
“This is Jonathan Hayes. I’m your father’s attorney.”
Her fingers tightened around the coffee cup.
For a moment, she couldn’t speak.
“I’d like to meet with you regarding your father’s estate.”
Marci looked down at the table.
Of course.
The will.
She’d known this conversation was coming.
“I can come in this afternoon.”
“That would be fine.”
He gave her the address, told her what time to arrive, and thanked her before ending the call.
Marci sat there for several seconds after the line went dead.
Her father.
His estate.
The word felt strange.
Cold.
Impersonal.
As though everything he’d spent his life building something that could really be reduced to a collection of documents in a lawyer’s office. She swallowed and looked toward the empty chair across from her.
“Okay, Dad,” she whispered.
Then she got up to get ready.
The attorney’s office was exactly what she’d expected.
Dark wood, leather chairs, tall windows, and bookshelves filled with heavy volumes or law books and other things.
Everything looked expensive and permanent, yet nothing like the life her father had actually lived.
Jonathan Hayes greeted her personally when she arrived.
“Marceline.”
She shook his hand.
“Mr. Hayes.”
“I’m sorry we’re meeting under these circumstances.”
Marci gave him a small smile.
“Thank you.”
He gestured toward the chair across from his desk.
“Please, sit.”
She did.
A thick folder lay on the desk between them.
Her father’s name was printed across the front.
For a moment, Marci couldn’t look at it.
Then she took a deep breath,clasped her hands together in her lap and looekd at the lawyer.
“I’m ready.”
Mr. Hayes opened the folder.
Her father’s wishes were straightforward at first.
The house, his cars, his accounts, investments, personal belongings, & Several pieces of property.
Everything was hers.
All of it.
She was his only child.
His only family that he had left in this world.
He had never remarried after her mother died, and there were no siblings, no cousins he’d remained close to, no one else waiting to inherit what he’d spent his life building.
It was all hers.
Marci listened quietly as Mr. Hayes went through each section.
Every so often she asked a question and every so often he made a note.
But eventually, the numbers stopped meaning anything.
All she could think about was how strange it was to inherit someone’s life.
Her father’s favorite car, his house, his books, and his watches.
Things he’d touched, things he’d chosen, things that still felt like him. where now merely a simple item on a list in his will.
When Mr. Hayes reached the final pages, his expression changed.
Marci noticed immediately.
“What?”
He looked down at the document.
“There is one final provision.”
Her heart sank.
“A provision?”
“Yes.”
She straightened in her chair.
“What kind?”
He was quiet for a moment.
Then he said,
“Your father placed a condition on the inheritance.”
Marci frowned.
“What kind of condition?”
Mr. Hayes folded his hands.
“For you to receive the entirety of the estate, you must marry.”
She stared at him.
“I’m sorry?”
“You must marry.”
The room seemed to become strangely quiet.
Marci blinked.
Her first thought was that she’d misheard him.
“My father wants me to get married?”
“It’s a condition of the inheritance.”
“To whom?”
Mr. Hayes looked down at the papers.
“To someone your father selected.”
Something inside her broke.
Not because she didn’t want marriage.
She did.
God, she did.
She wanted the whole thing.
The house, the quiet mornings. Someone waiting for her when she came home, someone who knew her completely, and someone she could love for the rest of her life.
She wanted Bren.
She had wanted Bren for so long that the idea of spending forever with anyone else felt almost unbearable.
Her eyes burned.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I assure you, your father was quite serious.”
Marci looked away.
She could already feel the tears gathering.
Her father was gone.
And somehow, even from beyond the grave, he was asking her to give up the one future she desperately wanted.
She had never told him everything about Bren.
Not everything.
He knew Bren, of course.
Their families had known each other for years.
Her father had always spoken highly of him.
But he had never asked.
And Marci had never volunteered the truth.
That she loved him, that she had fallen completely and hopelessly in love with him, And that she wanted Bren to be the man she came home to.
The man beside her at fifty.
At sixty and at eighty. Heck, she wanted forever.
And now her father’s will seemed determined to take that away.
“ To who?” she whispered.
Mr. Hayes looked at her.
“Marceline, there is something you should understand.”
She wiped quickly beneath one eye.
“What?”
“This was not an arbitrary decision.”
She looked at him.
“Then who is he?”
Mr. Hayes lowered his eyes to the final page.
“Your father named the man he wanted you to marry.”
Marci’s heart sank.
She looked down at her hands.
She had spent the entire afternoon listening to her father’s wishes, trying to keep herself together as piece after piece of his life was placed into hers.
The house, the cars, the accounts. And all the things he’d collected over the years.
Everything he had worked for, everything he was leaving behind.
She had expected sadness.
She hadn’t expected this.
“A man?” she asked quietly.
“Yes.”
Her throat tightened.
“Who?”
The attorney didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he turned another page in the will.
There was a handwritten note in the margin.
He studied it for a moment.
Then his eyes lifted toward her.
“Your father added a personal note here.”
Marci frowned.
“A note?”
He nodded.
“It appears he wanted me to read this portion to you exactly as he wrote it.”
Something about that made her uneasy.
The attorney adjusted his glasses.
Then he began.
“Marceline, you know this Brendon Park very well.”
Her breath caught.
The attorney continued.
“You have known him for some time, and I believe you know his character better than I ever could. I have known Brendon since he was a young man, and I have always trusted him.”
Marci stared at the attorney.
Her heart was pounding now.
Brendon.
Her Bren.
There couldn’t possibly be another.
But the attorney hadn’t said his name yet.
Not fully, Not in the context of the marriage.
She almost didn’t want to hear it.
Because if it wasn’t him—
If her father had chosen someone else—
Then the life she’d quietly dreamed about would disappear.
She looked down.
Her fingers trembled in her lap.
The attorney turned to the next line.
“It is my wish that my daughter marry—”
He paused.
Marci’s eyes closed.
Please.
Please don’t let it be someone else.
“—Brendon Park.”
Her eyes opened.
She stared at him.
For several seconds, she couldn’t speak.
“Brendon... Park?”
“Yes.”
“Professor Brendon Park?”
“Yes.”
Marci’s hand flew to her mouth.
A breathless laugh escaped her.
“Oh my God.”
The attorney smiled faintly.
“I take it you know him.”
She lowered her hand slowly.
Tears had already begun slipping down her cheeks. she nodded her head not able to talk she was so happy and overjoyed.
“Yes.”
Her voice broke.
“Yes, I know him.”
Not just knew him.
Loved him.
She loved him.
More than she had ever intended, and possibly more than she’d ever admitted out loud.
She had spent so long pretending that what she and Bren had could exist quietly in its own little world.
She had never allowed herself to think too far ahead.
Because thinking about forever had always seemed dangerous.
Too hopeful.
Too impossible.
But she’d wanted it.
Every part of her had wanted it.
She wanted his name beside hers, she wanted to wake up beside him, she wanted to grow old with him, she wanted a life that didn’t have to hide, and now her father’s final wishes had somehow placed exactly that possibility in front of her.
“You knew him?” she whispered.
The attorney nodded.
“Your father did.”
Marci looked at the note again.
There was something almost painfully intimate about seeing her father’s handwriting beside Bren’s name.
Her father had known.
Maybe not everything.
Maybe not all the details.
But enough.
Enough to know that Bren wasn’t a stranger, enough to know exactly who he was, & enough to trust him with his daughter.
The attorney continued reading.
“I know my daughter. And I know that if she has given her heart to someone, she has given it completely.”
Marci’s eyes filled again.
She couldn’t look at the attorney.
She looked down instead.
Her father’s words blurred.
He had known her.
Even at the end.
He had known her heart.
The attorney placed the paper gently on the desk.
“You seem relieved.”
Marci laughed softly through her tears.
“Relieved?”
She shook her head.
“You don’t understand.”
She looked up at him.
A smile spread slowly across her face.
“I was terrified you were going to tell me I had to marry someone I didn’t love.”
“And instead?”
Marci looked down at Bren’s name.
Her heart felt impossibly full.
“Instead, my father chose the man I already love.”
The attorney was quiet.
Marci wiped her cheeks.
She wasn’t crying from sadness anymore.
She was happy.
Completely, overwhelmingly happy.
She was going to marry Bren.
Her Bren.
The man she had already chosen in her heart long before her father ever put his name in a will.
She touched the page gently.
“I’ll marry him.”
There wasn’t even a question in her voice.
“I’ll marry Bren.”
~~~
After finishing with the attornery and handling evrything she wiped the tears from her eyes, thanked him and took her leave. her heart felt lighter then ever.
She sat in her car and smiled even wth her father no longer here he was protecting her, he was protecting her heart. and he somehow new how she felt about Bren. and how those feelings weren't puppylove. and he had arraged marraige for her to be with Bren.
