I was still reeling from the events of the morning when Mom called us, several hours later… putting into motion the events that would dictate the rest of our lives.

“Raleigh and Riana are here, and they wish to see the two of you,” Mom curtly told me over the phone. “You’d better get over here, quick.”

I informed Dalton of this, and we reluctantly walked to his motorcycle. We drove the hour-plus back to our parent’s house with hearts full of a violent concoction of anxiety, dread, and fear for the future.

When we arrived, William let us in at the door. Without a word, he led us past the kitchen, down the corridor, and to the large dining room table from the day we’d learned that our parents were dating.

Mom was seated on one side, and across from her were Dalton’s grandparents, the fierce Raleigh and Riana Carlyle.

“Greetings, Dalton,” Raleigh nodded slowly towards his grandson as we entered the room together.

He turned back to William, who was taking his seat next to Mom. Dalton and I took the two chairs in the center, leaving the empty chairs across from us.

“I see that we are all here now…” Raleigh continued. “Shall we dispense with the pleasantries and get straight to business?”

William half-scoffed, but didn’t say a word.

“Excellent. Well then, we are gathered here today because, as you may or may not know, my health has begun to suffer. This means that we must discuss the coming inheritance.”

He began to prattle on about some inane bullshit concerning rules, stipulations, and the dangers of family disgrace in the eyes of English high society. After a while of this, Mom and William – particularly Mom, though – were visibly uncomfortable… and even borderline aggravated.

“I’m sorry, is there a problem?” Raleigh finally asked, cutting a glance over at his son and daughter-in-law. “Is something I’m saying disturbing or bothering you? This is rather important to the ongoing wealth, so if either of you find yourselves with some form of a problem…”

Mom pursed her lips furiously, but cast us a knowing, disgusted glance. William, on the other hand, simply sighed and remained quiet. It seemed that neither of them were willing to say a word about what they’d seen.

That’s why I was surprised when…

“They’re angry because they found me in bed with my stepsister,” Dalton casually remarked.

I glanced at him in horror. I quickly realized that every pair of eyes in the room had turned to him, featuring a range of surprised, disgusted reactions.

“Excuse me, Dalton, but would you care to repeat that?” Raleigh Carlyle muttered in indignation. “I don’t believe I heard you correctly…”

“I wasn’t picking up the phone because I was asleep,” Dalton elaborated. “Our parents decided to break into my home and march up to my bedroom. They found me asleep with the woman I love… a woman who, unfortunately, turns out to be my new stepmother’s daughter.”

It was a second before it clicked in my head.

He just admitted that he loved me to them all.

“You do not love my daughter,” Mom haughtily demanded. “You are just some scumbag military man with a power complex. I mean, for god’s sakes, she’s eighteen years old! You’re, what, twenty-five? Twenty-six?”

William curtly replied on our behalf: “Sarah, don’t call my son a scumbag. He’s many things, but at the end of the day… he’s a good man.”

Mom chortled. “Well, clearly not.”

“Excuse me,” Dalton chimed in, “but I fail to understand how loving someone makes me even remotely a scumbag… but I will say that we started falling for each other before we knew of the complicated relations…”

“I knew it!” Mom cut in.

“Knew what?” I demanded.

“When you two were introduced, you told us you knew that he was a Marine,” she relished in reminding us. “But I hadn’t told you that, because I’d only just found out a few days before… I knew that something was fishy about that. So, where did you two meet?”

“The night before, at a banquet,” I answered.

“A banquet?”

“A Marines’ banquet,” Dalton clarified. “I was in attendance, and we bumped into each other at a nearby bar after the fact. We were… mortified, to say the very least, when we recognized each other at your little family luncheon the following day…”

“And why didn’t you say anything, son?” William asked, having quietly watched us all interact. “We could have maybe done something about this back then…”

“Oh, definitely not,” Mom turned on him. “This is a travesty. Incest? In my family?”

“It’s more likely than you think,” Dalton chuckled. “But it’s not incest.” He pointed back and forth between us. “We’re not related.”

“You’re stepsiblings!”

“Thanks to the two of you, yes,” I cut in. “But not by blood. There’s nothing biologically wrong with our love.”

“Oh please,” Mom laughed. “You two keep throwing that word around. Love. As if you both know what that really means.”

I looked over at his grandparents, who had remained stone-faced and impenetrably sour during this entire exchange. No matter what my mom was saying, I was already dreading whatever would happen the moment that they opened their mouths…

“We do love each other,” Dalton told her, lifting his chin up. “I would die for this woman, if it meant keeping her safe. I’d lay my life down on the line to protect her. As long as she’s with me, she’ll never be in danger, never hurt or scared.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I? I have defended a dying man in the sand beneath a collapsing building with nothing but a goddamned knife. I did this against a man who was intent on killing him.”

He looked positively livid as he stared my mother down. “I don’t expect you to understand, Sarah, and I don’t particularly care if you condone it… but I have personally defended someone in the most literal sense of the term.”

Dalton pointed towards me.

“As much as I love my friend… as much as I’d do it again in a heartbeat… your daughter means more to me than that man. If I’m willing to sacrifice my own life to protect another man, what do you think I’ll be willing to do to keep the woman I love safe and secure?”

Our parents looked back and forth between us, and then at each other. It was William who spoke first.

“Well, I’m convinced.”

Sarah stared at him, mouth agape. “You can’t be serious. You know they don’t really love each other.”

“Darling, you don’t know my son. He’s not a liar, he’s not a scumbag, as you so carefully put it earlier, and he doesn’t give false promises… and I know that he doesn’t let anyone into his heart.” He turned to face Dalton, a proud smile on his face. “If he says he loves Clara, then I believe that.”

Mom was about to burst a vessel.

“Mom, I love him. I love him with all my heart,” I confessed to her. “He’s a real asshole sometimes, but he’s got a strong heart, a courageous spirit, and he’s possibly the best man I’ve ever encountered in my life…” I rose from my chair, standing by his side and threading my fingers into his. “I don’t care if you don’t get it. That’s not important to me. Just understand that we love each other, just as validly as Will and you love one another… and we’re prepared to prove it to you over time, if you’ll just let us.”

“I think I’ve quite heard enough.”

All eyes turned to Raleigh Carlyle, who rose up from his chair. He was staring dispassionately towards Dalton, an unreadable emotion stretching across his old, wrinkled face.

Whatever it was, it didn’t look good.

“Dalton Carlyle,” he spoke, letting his tone carry his grave disappointment, “you have disgraced this family beyond all reasonable doubt. I hereby fully renounce you from the Carlyle Fortune.”

“Yeah, I knew that was coming the second I opened my mouth,” Dalton smirked. “If you think endangering my future to be with the woman I love is reason enough, then you can keep the stupid money.”

“You realize, of course, that the moment my will is rectified, you will be forever barred from this inheritance, just like your father before you.”

“That’s always been the problem with you, hasn’t it, darling Grandfather?” Dalton asked. “You turned on your son when you thought he’d strayed down the wrong path… he pulled himself back, rebuilt his life, and made something of himself without you OR your goddamn money, and you never, ever considered reconciling with him… even after he lost his sister…”

William squirmed slightly in his chair, but nobody else was paying attention to him at the moment.

“You have always thought of yourself as having some sort of moral high ground,” Dalton continued, “but here’s the thing: you are the most selfish, conceited son of a bitch I have ever had the misfortune of knowing… and it’s a real shame, too.”

“Is it?” Raleigh asked apathetically.

“It is,” Dalton confirmed. “Because I’ve never really had grandparents. You’ve seen to that personally. The few times you two were ever around, it was always to pressure me into meeting your ridiculous expectations… tell me, Grandfather, what other family do you have?”

He remained silent.

“That’s what I thought… we’re it, aren’t we? We are the only people in the world that you can turn to as you grow old, and you’ve pushed us away…”

“I will not stand here and listen to this bullshit,” Raleigh Carlyle muttered. He turned to his wife. “Riana, we are leaving.”

Curiously, she didn’t budge.

“Riana?”

“Dalton… has a point,” she mentioned. “These two are all that’s left of the legacy, Raleigh. They are all that we have.”

“They’re not getting my money,” he firmly replied. “They’ve squandered their chances…” He turned back to face his son and grandson. “…They’ve disgraced us, the both of them. If only our darling Gloria had survived, we could have continued on… we could have mattered again…”

“You could have mattered all along,” William spoke up. “Instead, you chose to cut me lose when I needed you most, and you’ve barely been in your single grandchild’s life… you think we’re the disgrace, Father? No. No, that particular distinction belongs to you.”

Nobody said a word.

“The worst part of it,” he continued, “is that Mother’s always wanted more than what you’ve given her… you’ve alienated her from her family. Don’t think I haven’t noticed. Your obsession with English high society has blinded you, Father… and in your blindness, you’ve separated your wife from her only legacy. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Raleigh’s cold exterior iced over.

“Fuck you, William.”

He turned to Riana. “We’re leaving.”

“No, I don’t believe so.”

Dalton and William’s jaws practically dropped. Apparently, Riana Carlyle had never publicly defied her husband.

“Excuse me?” He asked, rounding on her.

“Raleigh, this has gone on long enough,” she wearily muttered. “Out of blindness, I allowed you to block our son from the inheritance… but our grandson? You want to default our wealth to the Crown? No, that just won’t do.”

Her husband turned purple with fury, but he didn’t move a muscle. She rose up from her chair, walking past him to confront my beloved. I moved to step away, but he kept my fingers locked into his, and so we both faced her together.

“Dalton, there is something that you were never told about the Carlyle Fortune… something that neither of you were told,” she began, turning to William as well. “You see… Raleigh was never the inheritor of our family’s money.”

“I don’t understand,” William replied.

Riana smiled. “I was.”

“But… how?” Dalton asked. “Raleigh Carlyle carries the family name… how did you…?”

“Simple, really,” she continued. “I was born Riana Carlyle, and I married one Raleigh Fisher. The original Carlyle will dictates that the family name must always survive, and so Raleigh adopted my surname, instead of the other way around. Therefore… Raleigh never truly controlled the inheritance at all.”

William and Dalton seemed to take this particularly hard. “But… that means…”

“That’s right,” Riana sighed. “I should have intervened before, but I was wrapped up in Raleigh’s misguided thoughts on how the money should be handled… William, I am so very sorry. You earned your right to the money back, and I stood by and allowed this transgression against you to continue.”

“I forgive you, Mother,” he smiled faintly. “I prefer this life without it. I’ve supported myself ever since then, married a wonderful woman, and raised a strong and capable son… I couldn’t ask for much more.”

“And so you have,” Riana agreed. “And on the topic of this strong and capable son of yours…”

She paused, casting Raleigh a quick glance. He didn’t budge or open his mouth, and so she glanced over at Dalton once more.

“You tell us that you love this young woman… a young woman who is not only significantly beneath yourself in age, but your stepsister… I am bound by the laws of Reginald Carlyle’s will, as evidenced by the Crown. Your love for her is a disgrace to the family, as Raleigh so elegantly put it earlier… are you willing to forsake your inheritance for her?”

“I am,” Dalton answered, without skipping a beat. “Forgive my disgrace, Grandmother, but I cannot help the woman I love… and I’m willing to give it all away for her.”

“I see,” Riana observed coolly. “Well, that is certainly your decision to make, and I commend you for sticking to your convictions, no matter the cost. I daresay noone in this room can argue with you any longer.”

She gave a meaningful glance to my mother, who quietly simmered in response.

“…But I suppose I am at some liberty to say that there are some… extenuating circumstances, in the event of something like this.”

Dalton lit up. “Such as…?”

“The original patriarch of the Carlyle Fortune, your ancestor Reginald, had a second will drafted… one that was able to counteract the first,” she answered. “One that was also signed by the Crown, with a later date to prove successive displacement of the original terms. There’s a slight amendment to the way the inheritance works.”

The entire room hung on every word.

“As it were, Reginald Carlyle sympathized with his older brother Abner more than history recalled. It turns out that, not only did the disgraced Windsor-Carlyle truly love the Crown Princess, but Reginald foresaw this possibility happening in the bloodline again. It turns out that the man believed very firmly in destiny. ”

Dalton and I shared a meaningful look.

“Once five hundred years had passed, the terms of the second will were to be followed… they stipulated that, in the event of the money defaulting to the Crown over a matter of love, no matter how disgraceful, all money and resources would default to the otherwise rightful inheritor, and the terms and conditions of the Carlyle Fortune would henceforth be disbanded.”

Raleigh’s lips quivered. “You don’t mean…”

“That’s correct,” Riana Carlyle smiled. “As it turns out, the 500^th anniversary was approximately two decades ago. The moment you disavowed Dalton Carlyle his inheritance, and he proved in front of us all that he would gladly turn down the money and power to be with this young woman… our grandson won.”

Everyone was silent.

“Dalton, I must appeal to you now,” Riana spoke, stepping forward and taking his free hand in both of hers. “The Carlyle Fortune is no more, and the money is yours. The family attorneys will see to the succession with you. I ask, my darling grandson, that you allow us a stipend to continue living on, and that you give us time to move out of your rightful manor.”

“Grandchildren typically spend some time in their grandparents’ homes,” Dalton answered. “A weekend here, a week there, to get to know those before them. There’s a certain familial bond to the practice. However… I’ve never slept in Carlyle Manor. That mansion is just another oversized, overblown dot on the English countryside to me. I have no personal attachment to it, or ambitions for it.

“Feel free to keep the manor. I’ll let you have whatever money you need, so long as it defaults back to me in the end.”

Riana bowed her head graciously. “Thank you, Dalton. I deeply appreciate that.”

Her husband looked positively defeated. He sank back down into his chair, staring off into space miserably.

It was William who spoke next. Loud enough for everyone to hear, he turned to my mother and mentioned offhandedly: “You know, Sarah, he wouldn’t be a bad son-in-law to have…”

“And why is that?” Mom snapped.

“Well, besides convincing all of us that he loves your daughter with every fiber of his being, and that he’ll protect her until his dying breath… Dalton just became a multi-millionaire.”