Hello everyone, whoever is reading this I want to say that this is my first story and I have gotten inspiration from here and there but it is my own work. So if you think that this sentence or section is the same as other than kindly inform me I will give you answer but do not and I say again do not accept harsh words.

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"With Draco Malfoy?" Hermione looked at her grandfather with surprise, a grandfather who had been a stranger to her, except in his reputation. "In exchange for the money I need, you expect me to marry Draco Malfoy?"

"Exactly." Hermione's grandfather smiled.

Hermione tried to control her emotions while trying to recover her voice to confront her grandfather. Malfoy, the Greek tycoon who had taken the reins of a moderately successful business of his father and had transformed it into a corporation that competed with his grandfather, the man who changed women faster than a car.

"You cannot be serious!" She looked up and clenched his teeth. The very idea made her sick. "The Malfoy family was responsible for the death of my father..." She despised them as much as she did her grandfather. And to everything Greek.

"And for that reason, my offspring were cut off," his grandfather said harshly "I want the Malfoy family to have the same destiny. If he marries you, he will have no offspring."

Hermione stopped breathing from the shock. His grandfather knew it. He knew it somehow. Hermione turned pale and dropped the folder in her hand, and papers scattered all over the marble floor. She did not even notice.

"Do you know I cannot have children?"

'How was it possible that he knew, she had kept it a secret?' She wondered.

Hermione looked at him with agitated breathing. She felt vulnerable. Naked before a man who, despite having his blood, had been a stranger since childhood. A man who looked at her with satisfaction. Tom Riddle, his grandfather.

"I take care to know everything about the whole world. Information is the key to success in life."

Hermione swallowed. His grandfather was cruel. It had been a long time since she had accepted the idea that she would not marry. Her future would provide anything but marriage. How was a woman to marry in her position?

"If you really know everything about me, then you will also know the reason why I am here. You must know that my mother is getting sicker... That she needs an operation."

"Let's say... I knew you would come."

Hermione felt angry inside. 'she hated it.' She looked at his grandfather, whom she had just met and shuddered with revulsion. She had a headache, and now her stomach ached, something that reminded her that she had been too nervous to eat in the past days. It played a lot in all that. The future of his mother was in her hands, in his ability to negotiate some kind of agreement with a man who was a monster.

Hermione looked around with displeasure. That display of wealth made her dizzy. That man had no shame. Did he know that she had to have three jobs to be able to give her mother the care she needed? Care of which he should have taken charge during the past fifteen years.

Hermione tried to calm herself down. Soon she would not take her anywhere. But she wanted to leave and leave that tyrant alone. But she could not do it. She had to stay there, focused on the task at hand. Nothing would distract her from the reason she was there. This man had ignored his mother's needs for fifteen years; He had denied her existence, but Hermione would not allow him to ignore her anymore. It was time for him to find out what she can do.

"Take that expression off your face. You have come to me, do not you remember? It's you who wants the money" Tom said harshly.

Hermione stiffened "For my mother"

Tom uttered a sneer of contempt and answered "she could have asked for it, herself if she had guts"

Hermione felt angry "My mother's health is very bad..."

Tom stared at her and smiled contemptuously "And that's the only reason you're here, right? Nothing else would induce you to trespass the threshold of my house. You hate me. She has taught you to hate me." He leaned forward "You are furious, but you try to hide it because you do not want to risk being against me in case I deny you my help"

Unable to believe that he could be so ruthless, Hermione said "She was your son's wife ..."

"Do not remind me" said Tom, serious, without remorse or lament "It's a pity you're not a boy. I get the impression that you have inherited the spirit of your father. You even look a bit like him physically, apart from that brown hair and those honey eyes. You should have had light hair and dark eyes, and if my son had not been seduced by that woman, you would have the status you deserve, and you would not have lived the last fifteen years of your life in exile. All this could have been yours"

Hermione looked at 'all this' with utmost disguise.

The contrast between her circumstances and those of his grandfather was impressive. The proof of his wealth was everywhere, from the ostentatious statues that guarded almost all the entrances of his mansion to the enormous fountain that presided over the patio.

Hermione thought of her home, a small apartment on a ground floor in a marginal area of London that had adapted to her mother's handicap. She thought about her mother's struggle for survival, a struggle that this man could have softened. she gritted her teeth and tried to control himself again.

"I'm happy with my status. And I love England"

"Do not answer me!" He looked at her, furious "If you answer me, he will never marry you. Even if you do not look like a Greek, I want your behavior to be totally that of a Greek. You will be obedient and docile, and you will not give your opinion on any subject unless you are asked. Do you hear me?"

Hermione looked at him, incredulous "Are you serious? Do you really think I'm going to marry Malfoy?"

"If you want the money, yes" Tom smiled unpleasantly "You will marry Draco Malfoy and make sure he does not find out about your infertility. I will see to it that the terms of the agreement bind you until you have children. Since you will never have an heir, he will be subject to a marriage without children forever" He leaned back and laughed "This is just punishment. It is always said that revenge is a dish served cold. I've waited fifteen years for this moment. But it was worth it. It is perfect. You are the tool of my revenge"

Hermione looked at him, horrified. No wonder her mother had warned her that his grandfather was the same demon. "You cannot ask me to do this"

She could not marry Draco Malfoy. He had all the characteristics that she despised in a man. He could not ask her to share her life with him...he just could not...

"If you want the money, you'll have to do it"

"That's wrong..."

"It's about justice. It would have been just to punish the Malfoy family a long time ago. The Greeks always come to their dead and you, even if you are only half Greek, you should know"

Hermione looked at him helplessly. She could not say anything that might alienate his grandfather against her. She would do anything to get the money for her mother. And having that enemy man did not suit her. Then she laughed at her own naivety 'they were already enemies'

They had been since his mother had smiled at his father and conquered his heart, spoiling Tom's wedding plans with a good Greek girl.

"Malfoy will never accept to marry me" she said calmly and she would not have to spend the rest of her life with a man she had been taught to hate. Draco Mlafoy was a womanizer, he consoled himself.

He was not interested in marriage.

Besides, how was he going to marry her, if their families were at odds?

"First of all, Draco Malfoy is a businessman and the incentive to marry my granddaughter will be too tempting to reject"

"What incentive?"

His grandfather smiled with contempt "Let's say, simply, that I have something that he wants, which is the basis of any negotiation. And he is also a man who cannot miss an attractive woman without trying to seduce him. For some reason, he has a preference for chestnuts, so you're in luck, or you'll be when we take off those jeans and put on decent clothes. And if you want that money, you will not do anything to chase it away. And now, pick up those papers that you have thrown to the ground"

'Good luck?' Thought Hermione 'Did your grandfather really think that attracting that arrogant and ruthless Greek was a fate?'

With a trembling hand, Hermione automatically picked up the papers she had dropped. What alternative did she have? She has no other way to get the money she needed, she told herself and she consoled herself by saying that it would not be a marriage in the true sense of the word.

Probably, they barely spoke.

"If I do, if I say "yes", will you give me the money?" she asked

"No ... But, Malfoy will give it to you. He will give you a sum of money every month. In what you spend it, it will be your decision" answered her grandfather with chastising smile

Hermione was left with her mouth open. Her grandfather had planned an agreement in which he did not even have to put his money.

Draco Mlafoy was not only going to have to marry the granddaughter of his worst enemy, but he would have to pay for that privilege.

Why would he accept such an absurd idea? What exactly was the incentive her grandfather had referred to?

But one thing was clear: if she wanted the money, she would have to do something she has promised herself never to do: she would have to get married and not only that...but she would marry the one person responsible for the death of his father.

A man she hated.