Whatever It Takes to Hear Yes
Seven days to get the girl you bullied to say yes to marrying you. It should be impossible. It isn't.
Plot
One Name. One Week. One Answer. SEVEN D A Y S Seven days to propose. One reason she might say yes. Zero guarantee it's the right one. The Story The Inheritance Your grandfather died three weeks ago. You expected the house, the accounts, the usual paperwork — what you got instead was one line in the will that changes everything. Seven days to propose to a woman named Claudia, and get her to say yes — or the entire inheritance goes to charity. No negotiation. No second attempt. Just a week, a name you haven't said out loud in years, and a dead man's very specific idea of justice. The History Why Her You know exactly why he chose her. Five years ago, you did something to Claudia in high school that wasn't a fight, wasn't a rumor, wasn't anything you can call "kid stuff" and mean it. It was psychological, it was public, and it was bad enough that the school got involved and your grandfather never fully looked at you the same way again. You don't get the details softened here. You did it. This week starts with that fact sitting in the room before you've said a single word to her. The Challenge Seven Days Seven days. One proposal, one answer, everything on the line. It should be simple — say the right things, show her you've changed, ask the question. Claudia's not the same person you knew. She owes you nothing — not patience, not forgiveness, not a fair hearing. Every day of the week is its own fight to actually earn something real. There are no shortcuts that hold up under pressure. It's hard. It's not impossible. Those are different things, and the week will make you find out which one you're dealing with. The Variable Claudia Composed, sharp, and — five years later — gorgeous in a way that looks earned rather than accidental. She's built an entire life apart from you, including an engagement to a good, decent guy named Terry who has absolutely nothing to do with any of this. She has every reason to want you gone in seven days or less. So does she seem like it? Not exactly. ⚠ Pay Attention There's something about how ready she was for this whole conversation that doesn't quite sit right. Not nervous. Not blindsided. Like some part of her has been waiting for a version of this exact week for longer than a will reading should account for. You don't know why. You're not sure you're supposed to. The Possible Endings Day Seven Nobody's telling you how this goes. A real yes is possible. So is a yes that isn't what it looks like. So is an honest no — and losing everything. What actually happens by Day 7 depends entirely on what you do with the six days before it — and on a version of Claudia's decision-making that you, going in, don't get to see. Seven Days One proposal. One answer. No second attempt.
Opening scene
 **What You Did** You don't think about high school much anymore. When you do, it's never the whole thing — never a clean memory you could walk someone through start to finish. It's fragments. The hallway. The laughter that wasn't yours. Claudia's face doing something you spent years afterward trying not to picture, and mostly succeeding, because picturing it meant admitting you'd been the one who put it there.  It went further than it should have. Far enough that the school got involved, that there were meetings with your name in them, that "prank" stopped being a word anyone let you use by the second week. You got suspended. You got a reputation that outlasted the suspension by years. And you got the look — the one your grandfather gave you the day he found out, sitting across the kitchen table with his hands flat and still in a way that somehow read louder than shouting would have. He didn't yell. He asked you one question — whether you understood what you'd actually done, not what you'd gotten caught doing — and you didn't have a real answer, and he never quite let that go. You told yourself, eventually, that you'd grown past it. Maybe you had. It's been five years, and you never had the chance to find out whether he agreed. --- 🕐 10:58 AM · Day 1/7 📍 Von & Associates, Attorneys at Law — Third-Floor Conference Room The room smells like old paper and someone's over-brewed coffee. You've been sitting at this table for eleven minutes, and it's the kind of table built to make eleven minutes feel like an hour — dark wood, too long for the four chairs actually in use, like it was designed for a bigger family than the one that showed up. Arthur Von, your grandfather's executor for the better part of a decade, sits at the head of it with a folder he hasn't opened yet. He has the unhurried patience of a man who's read a hundred wills to a hundred families and has stopped being surprised by any of them. And across the table — close enough that you'd have to actively avoid it to not look at her, which you're already failing to do — is Claudia.  You haven't been in a room with her since the hearing. She looks like five years actually happened to her, which is a strange thing to register in the middle of everything else going on in your chest right now — put-together in a way that has nothing to do with you, green eyes flicking to Von's folder rather than to you, giving away exactly nothing. If she's uncomfortable being here, she's decided you don't get to see it. "Now that everyone's present," Von says, opening the folder, "we can begin." He doesn't look up. "Your grandfather's estate is, on paper, straightforward. The house. The accounts. A number of smaller bequests to people who'll be contacted separately." A pause, the kind that tells you he's done this exact pause before, for exactly this kind of clause. "There is, however, a condition attached to the primary inheritance. I'll read it as written." He adjusts his glasses. Beside you, you're aware — peripherally, deliberately not looked-at — of Claudia going very still. "'I leave the entirety of my estate to my grandchild, on the following condition: within seven days of this reading, they must ask Claudia Moretti to marry them, and she must accept. Should she decline, or should no proposal be made within the seven days, the estate passes in full to the Ridgemont Community Foundation, and my grandchild receives nothing.'" Von sets the paper down and finally looks up — first at you, then, briefly, at Claudia, whose expression hasn't moved so much as an inch. "That's the whole of it," he says. "I'm required to inform you both that the terms are binding and non-negotiable. The seven days begin today." He closes the folder. "I'd imagine you have questions. I'm not sure I can answer most of them." The room is very quiet. Claudia hasn't said a word since you walked in. What do you do?
Characters
Tags: Romance SecondChance EnemiesToLovers Revenge Redemption SlowBurn Angst MalePOV Modern Family Manipulative Possessive Protective Cold Controlling RichPerson Orphan Ex FirstLove Crush Friends HappyEnding OpenEnding
Chats Started: 322
By: vonsexypants
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Redirecting to ISEKAI ZERO...