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ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴀᴛʜᴇʀ ʏᴏᴜɴɢ ᴀɢᴇ ᴏғ ᴇɪɢʜᴛᴇᴇɴ, ᴠᴀʟᴇɴᴛɪɴᴇ ʜᴀᴅ ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴛᴏ ʟᴇᴀʀɴ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʟɪғᴇ ᴡᴀsɴ'ᴛ ғᴀɪʀ.

She had grown up with God at the other end of their dining table, much to her father's unease. Her mother was incredibly religious despite Gabriel's repulsion to the very topic. But Valentine had begun to think that the lord her mother worshiped didn't like her very much, perhaps because of her father or perhaps- though she wouldn't like to admit- because of Michael.

Things, for a while, had been perfect. Her life had never been so good. Waking up beside Michael Gray most mornings was a risky move- though risk she was willing to take just to feel the dip in her bed, the warmth of his body beside hers. It felt so good to be woken by a kiss, by chilled hands sneaking round her waist and pulling her closer. It felt so good.

And yet everything would change. Just as it always did. Life wasn't fair. Nothing good in life lasted. And most of the time, she could guarantee that it was her father's fault.

"Valentine!" Her father shouted from the bottom of the stairs as she descended.

That morning, she hadn't been woken by tender kisses, but rather by the rumbling of an engine rounding the driveway in front of her house. Michael had startled awake with wide eyes, still half asleep as he had scrambled out of her bed to pull on his own clothes. He had barely managed to give her a peck on the cheek before he was climbing from her window, following the same footsteps that had been carved to let him down from many uses over the past months.

Still dresses in her nightdress, covered by a dressing gown, Valentine walked through the hallway as her father called for her. She had noticed the coats hanging by the doorway, not yet taken by the maids. She had heard the voices from the front of her house.

Walking through the door to the study, Valentine saw her father, sitting with a man older than her by at least ten years and a woman older by another five.

"Valentine, darling!"

She fought the urge to cringe. Darling. Since when had he called her that? If that pet name hadn't made it clear enough that her father was acting in a bid to impress, the overly done gestures around the room definitely did.

"I would like you to meet Mr Jean Pierre Moreau."

He motioned to the chairs in front as she sat down, urging her to take him in and to greet him. The man- Jean Pierre- was traditionally handsome, wearing an expensive, navy suit and a glistening watch stretched on his skinny wrists. Certainly someone her father would pin a target on, for means of business or association. He was that sort of person: a person who would work their way through a crowd until they found a person who would benefit them in one way of another. What benefit Jean Pierre could have been, Valentine didn't know yet.

The unnamed woman beside him was beautiful, her hair short and impeccably styled. Valentine couldn't ignore the lingering gaze her father gave the woman. He had always had a taste for younger, dazzling women from his own country. Someone like her mother once would have been.

"Nice to meet you," she said, pulling on a smile as polite as she could muster.

"Charmed." Jean took her hand in his and on it placed a gentle kiss. "I am Jean Pierre and this is my sister, Caroline."

"Valentine, Mr Moreau is here with a special request which I have accepted and blessed prior to your meeting."

Gabriel smiled proudly down at his only daughter. Had it been any other situation, she would have snapped at him, asking why he was wasting her time. But it looked so genuine, his wide and dizzying smile, so she listened, blinking expectantly. Though her father seemed to want to drag it out as long as possible.

"Valentine, I have granted my permission to Mr Moreau for your hand in marriage."

Hand in marriage. Her ability to breath was strangled from her throat. It was out of her control, just as everything else in her life seemed to be. She stood abruptly, almost knocking a tea cup clean from the table as her knee crashed into it. But she didn't acknowledge the aching in her leg. It didn't near the pain in her head, numb and throbbing continuously.

Hand in marriage.

Her father wanted her to marry a man she had never met. A man older than her by many years. A man who would surely want to whisk her away to a county she no longer called her own. To a country where Michael couldn't follow.

"I will speak to you outside father," she said quietly.

The hallway she emerged into no longer felt like home. Just how Gabriel no longer felt like her father- not that he ever really had. It was dramatic, over emotional, her reaction. She knew as much. But nothing could compare to the suffocating feeling that overtook her body, squeezing out any sense of free will or hope or happiness that had ever resided there.

Anger wasn't hidden in her loud voice as she shouted at her father. She had no love or compassion to share with him. "I can't believe you've done this, father. Do you know how much this will hurt me?"

"Quiet your voice Valentine!" Gabriel shouted back, ushering them further away from the study door in an attempt to block her complaints from his guests. "I was hoping just this once, Valentine, that you would do something for the family and the business yourself. By marrying this man you'll be uniting both of our families and that means guaranteed safety."

She didn't care how safe he though it could make them. What good was a business that relied on an arranged marriage to make it safe? Gabriel paused, placing two hands on her cheeks as he looked down at his daughter fondly.

"He has ties with the mafia, Valentine. He has men and family in America, Italy and France. Imagine the places he could take you. Imagine the things you could accomplish for the business. We'd be unstoppable. Not even the Peaky Blinders would stop in our way."

Gabriel believed in sacrifice, in doing things for the greater good. It could have been a noble belief, one that Valentine could understand, had he been true to it himself, had the business been worth fighting for. But Gabriel had never sacrificed anything himself, apart from the time it took to place someone else of the chopping block, singing their prayers for them.

Gabriel knew giving her to a man she couldn't love was wrong, but she had to understand that it was for a good cause. If she was part of this family there were some things that she would need to sacrifice, and Valentine didn't like that.

"Stop hiding away from the truth," she seethed, not even bothering to speak in french. "Stop hiding away from the fact that this is all for you. Don't say our and we as if we're all in this together. This is you. It always has been and it looks as if it always will be."

Gabriel's face burned red, his neck folding in on itself in horror. He glared, moving to grip her arm in his chubby hands. He was no longer soft in his voice toward her, no longer acting as the doting father that acted only in her best interest. It seemed he had she's his masking layer, like a snake it's skin, and had opened up to the truth within seconds. Just as she had demanded.

"Valentine you will marry Mr Moreau and that is the end of this. I will not have you ruin this now. Sacrifice. That is what our family knows to do. And it is what you will do for us," he hissed, pointing to the study door, his other hand burning around her skin. "Now go in there and put on a smile."

She stood blankly for a few moments, staring at him, her eyes full of hate. But then she turned begrudgingly, ignoring the smug and devious smirk that played out on her father's face as walked away from him, ripping her arm from his grasp in the process. Valentine didn't even bother with the fake smiles or the pretty posture as she slumped into the room, greeting the two guests once again.

Jean Pierre stood once more, his tiny hands sliding to his pockets to pull out a small, velvet box. A ring box. Valentine was almost sick from the ill timing. He opened the box.

The fact that the ring was gorgeous, baring three, large emerald across the golden band- her favourite gem- made it even worse. Made her eyes prick with hot tears. They felt like they were burning from the effort of not letting them spill. It made her so angry, to see the ring behind slipped onto her finger by a man down on one knee. By a man who didn't even ask her to marry him. By a man who wasn't Michael Gray.

She swallowed, smiling painfully. She hadn't been given a chance to refuse. Valentine couldn't even bare to think of Michael as she stared down at the glistening stone, at all that it now meant. She was engage, claimed by another man.

Congratulations echoed in her ears as her mother and father pattered her back and shook hands with the guests. But all she could hear, was the ghost of Michael's voice, meeting her ears only, sources from her own memories. The sound of Michael saying words that he had never even uttered to her, and had probably never even thought. Valentine had heard them in her dreams though. Twice, she thought.

Marry me, my Valentine.

She had said yes each time.

But in the space of a mere half an hour, Valentine's dream had been ruined completely. By her father, as she could have begged. It would be a sin to dream of Michael, of a man other than her soon to be husband. But a sin she would delve readily in.

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