Free Web NovelChapter 37: Not A Stranger
"Because I’m not the Valerie who let people push her around anymore," I said, steady. "And I have you now."
"If we weren’t on this plane right now, I’d kiss you until you couldn’t breathe." Caspian held back, pulling me close instead, his chin resting against my hair. For now, that was enough.
Out in Economy, Amara’s assistant had apparently tried to figure out what I was doing in First Class. The flight attendant stopped him at the door, and he spent the rest of the flight stuck on the wrong side of it with no way through.
After twelve hours in the air, we touched down at nine in the morning local time. Iris was already waiting at arrivals. The second she spotted us, she moved in with open arms and hugged everyone in the group, myself included. She had an Asian face but carried herself with the height and confidence of someone built for the West, every piece she wore a limited design, the kind where only one existed in the entire world. Her only real drawback was features too plain to have made it in front of a camera herself, though what she lacked there she made up for with an eye for talent that had made her genuinely respected. Her artists weren’t household names globally, but they carried real weight in the American market.
I’d only met Iris twice back when I was with Liam and never warmed to her. She was the kind of woman who needed to control everything in a room, and I never responded well to that.
She didn’t waste any time making her position clear. Standing in front of the whole group, she looked straight at me.
"Valerie, I’ve already heard what happened between you and Liam, and I’ve already scolded him for it. But you need to keep work and personal life separate. It isn’t right to cause trouble at work over your own feelings." She let that sit a second. "For this Secret Magazine shoot, give me some face. Listen to what they ask for and don’t make things harder for Liam. Okay?"
Beside me, I could feel Nicole’s fury radiating off her in waves. Iris hadn’t said one word to Amara. Not a single correction. She’d walked straight up to me instead, using her brother’s territory to remind me of exactly where she thought I stood.
I just looked at her and smiled slightly. I didn’t agree and I didn’t argue. I gave her nothing to work with, and I could see from the flicker behind her eyes that the silence unsettled her more than any pushback would have.
We started toward the exit as a group. At the same time, Caspian was walking out of arrivals with a handful of senior staff from one of his American subsidiaries. The moment Iris spotted him, something in her shifted entirely. She went after him in her heels without a second’s hesitation, calling out across the terminal.
"President Novak! President Novak!"
He turned at the sound of his name, eyes sweeping the group before landing on me. Everything he wanted to say passed between us in that one look. He wanted me to find a way to get to his place and stay close while we were here. I smiled back quietly. I’d do my best.
Nicole and Quinn both understood exactly why he’d turned around, and they both knew Iris wasn’t getting within two meters of him. He held my gaze a moment longer, then looked straight past Iris like she wasn’t standing there at all, turned, and stepped into the Lincoln waiting at the curb.
Iris stood watching it pull away with nothing left to do about it. Nicole’s mouth twitched with something close to a smirk, the kind that said she was thinking exactly what I was thinking, that Iris had some nerve assuming she could just walk up to my husband like that.
Iris, oblivious to all of it, was still glowing from the sighting. "I never expected to run into Caspian here. He is so handsome," she gushed, hand pressed to her chest like a fan who’d just spotted a celebrity.
Quinn caught my eye for half a second, something working behind her expression, and I had a feeling she was turning over the same irony I already knew the punchline to. The woman Iris had just finished lecturing in front of everyone was, in fact, Caspian’s wife.
I put my sunglasses on and said nothing. Iris straightened back into full manager mode and addressed the three of us with the kind of authority she clearly enjoyed wielding.
"Valerie, since you just got in, go rest and adjust to the time difference. The driver will take you to the hotel. Liam, Amara, and I have a family dinner tonight. You three, take care of yourselves."
A family dinner.
That said everything I needed to know. Iris had already folded Amara into the family. She wanted me to feel exactly how alone I was, in a foreign country, far from home, with no media connections and no leverage on the ground. She was counting on all of that working against me.
What she’d forgotten was that three years ago, I’d appeared in several major American campaigns. I wasn’t at the peak of my career back then, but I wasn’t a stranger here either.
"I haven’t been to the States in a while, so I’ll go see some old friends," I said evenly. "I might stay with them while I’m here. You can cancel the hotel room."
Iris nodded without objection. "Fine. But when we call you to set, you’d better show up on time."
Amara hadn’t said a single word through any of it. She just stood there soaking in the satisfaction of watching Iris put me in my place, clearly convinced this trip was going to be the turning point she’d been waiting for. Far from anything familiar, she figured I’d finally run out of ground to stand on.
Neither of them had stopped to consider whether any of this was actually going to be as easy as they imagined.
Once Iris left the airport with Liam and Amara, I waited until they were out of sight before pulling out my phone.
"Cass, have you gotten far?"
"What do you think?" His voice came through calm and certain. He’d already told his driver to wait somewhere out of view. He’d known I’d find a way to peel off from the group, and he’d been right.
I smiled to myself and waited. Less than a minute later, a Lincoln pulled up in front of me. The driver stepped out, opened the door, and welcomed us aboard in English. I climbed in with Nicole and Quinn, and both of them went quiet the second they were inside. First time either of them had been this close to Caspian, and neither had the nerve to actually look at him. In front of other people, he stayed cold and untouchable. That only ever softened around me.
Caspian handed me a glass of red wine and ran his hand slowly through my hair. "Are you worried about the Secret shoot?"
"All three of them are on the same side," I said honestly. "They’re going to make trouble for me, no question. I might get replaced. I might find out I came all this way for nothing. I’m prepared for either." I said it plainly, because that was just the reality of it.
"Iris is only doing this because she thinks Valerie’s isolated out here with no fans," Nicole cut in, sharp with frustration.
I turned to her with a quiet smile. "Who told you I’m a stranger here?"
