Free Web NovelChapter 415: Chapter 415
Aria’s POV
Three Years Later
My office had a window that faced west.
I had chosen it for that reason. I loved the way the afternoon light came in at that angle and turned the whole room gold before the day ended. My grandmother had always said that people make better decisions in a good light. I did not know if that was true, but I had kept the habit of working in it.
I leaned back in my chair and let the thought settle across the afternoon.
The Darvin Group shares had collapsed in the six months following Patrick’s sentencing, as such things do when the architecture of a company turns out to have been built partly on fraud.
I had watched the numbers with the particular attention of someone who has done their homework, and was waiting for the right moment to strike. I had bought the shares at the bottom and climbed into the structure from the inside.
I had spent the better part of a year rebuilding what could be rebuilt and discarding what couldn’t, and now I sat in this office as its chief executive.
The Osborne heirloom was in a case on the bookshelf. A small, unassuming thing for what it represented. My grandmother’s sister had handed it to me, putting me in the position of the head of the family. In the past three years, I have grown the Osborne family business massively and established several branches in the international market.
My lawyer’s license had been reinstated eight months ago. The legal firm had grown. Aria Legal Services — which had begun as a statement made at a funeral, a business card extended like a blade — now had a proper office, a proper staff, and a growing reputation for taking cases that other firms considered too complicated or too politically dangerous.
Alpha Richard had been caught in his hiding place six months after Sophia’s sentencing. He had not gone gracefully. The ten years the court gave him were, in my opinion, lenient. But that was the justice system’s business, not mine.
Clarence, Tyler and the rest of the people who had helped Patrick fake Clarence’s death were all sentenced to prison for some years for the crimes they committed.
And my mother.
Margaret had come to me three months after the sentencing, on a Tuesday afternoon, and stood in my doorway with her hands folded in front of her, and she had looked, for the first time in my memory, like a woman who did not know what to say.
She had wept. She had apologized. She had said things I had waited, without knowing I was waiting, to hear her say for most of my life.
I had forgiven her.
But I had kept my distance, because forgiveness is not the same as trust and trust takes time to rebuild, and some things that have been broken are different afterward even when they are repaired. We spoke occasionally. I sent her photographs of Lana. She always replied quickly, which was something.
The phone on my desk rang.
I glanced at the screen and felt the corner of my mouth lift before I could stop it.
It was Jonathan.
"Alpha Jonathan," I said, answering with the formality that had long since become a private joke between us.
"Selina," he replied, giving me his private joke in return... the name of my alter ego, the one I had worn when I designed for Celestyr. "Do you know how many emails I have received this week from people asking when the new collection drops?"
"How many?"
"More than two hundred," he said. "Williams printed them out and arranged them in a pile on my desk. He said it was a ’visual representation of urgency.’"
I laughed heartily. "I haven’t forgotten," I said. "I’ve been working on designs. You’ll have something within the week."
"Something within the week," he repeated. "The last time you said something within the week, I received the most critically acclaimed collection Celestyr has released in a decade."
"Then you have nothing to worry about."
He was quiet for a moment. It was a brief, comfortable pause, the kind that exists between people who have decided not to complicate what they have by wanting it to be something else.
Three years ago, Jonathan had told me, with the particular grace that characterized everything he did, that he had feelings for me that went beyond friendship. freёwebnovel.com
I had told him, as honestly as I could, that I was grateful for him, that I valued him more than I could easily say, and that what I felt toward him was genuine and real and entirely non-romantic.
He had absorbed this in silence for approximately thirty seconds, and then he had said *alright* and changed the subject, and we had not discussed it again, and our friendship had, somehow, grown rather than diminished.
There was something to be said for a man who could hear no and choose, freely, to stay.
"I’ll look forward to it," he said. "Take care, Aria."
"You too."
I hung up and sat for a moment in the gold afternoon light.
Then I picked up my bag and went home, excited for what the day held. Tonight, I would have a dinner date with the most persistent and intentional man I have ever met.
