Chapter 6
AURELIA
The first thing that happened the day I emailed my resignation letter, effectively immediately, to my father was… nothing.
There was no frantic phone call asking me what was going on. No reply, not even an out of office or a read receipt. No angry voicemail from either Scott or Daniel demanding to know where their favorite coffee-girl had gone.
Nothing.
After staring at my laptop and my phone for longer than reasonably necessary, I laced up my sneakers and went for a jog, letting the sharp December air sting my lungs while downtown flickered to life with Christmas lights.
It’d been a long time since I’d been out in the streets this time of year, with enough time on my hands to really soak up the festive atmosphere.
Garlands wrapped lampposts, store windows glittered with fake snow, and couples walked hand in hand under awnings draped in red velvet bows.
My street looked like the set of a Christmas-themed rom-com and for a second, the scene was just so darn cheerful that I even almost forgot I’d just detonated my entire life.
Almost, but not quite. A tiny shiver of terror slid down my spine as I thought about it. This was the first time in my entire life that I’d quit something, and it hadn’t just been any little thing. It’d been my job, at my father’s company, resigning from the position in a department I’d built.
I breathed through the fear of the unknown, reminding myself that I’d done it after I’d put a plan in place for my future. A plan that involved the youngest Westwood heir, who just so happened to have been lingering on my mind since our meeting.
Harrison wasn’t at all what I’d expected him to be, and it was refreshing to have been wrong.
In another life, he and I might even have been able to be friends.
For the rest of my jog, I let myself think about him as a distraction to what I’d done earlier, but by the time I got back, I was fully expecting to have to face the consequences of that email.
It was after ten am when I opened my front door, sweaty and flushed. Any other morning, I’d have been at the office for two hours by now, fielding coffee orders from my brothers while trying to get some work done. I dropped my keys in the bowl at the door, still waiting for some kind of explosion.
There was still nothing. Not a missed call. No emails. No texts.
Left feeling unsettled and untethered, I took a shower and got dressed, doing my best to ignore the fact that I’d just abandoned my family’s empire. Clearly, they were all ignoring it, so I made myself a cup of coffee when I got back to my living room and opened my laptop.
It hurt so freaking bad that their silence confirmed what I’d already known, but it really had. They’d barely noticed that I’d even worked there. They hadn’t cared that I’d made them millions of dollars every quarter.
The knowledge stung every fiber inside my body, the sense of powerlessness and simply being overlooked so consuming that it nearly overwhelmed me.
Sometimes, I wondered why I even tried, but when I found myself wondering again whether maybe, my parents were right, I immediately pulled up the numbers on the deal I was doing with Harrison.
My parents are not right. Not about this.
I could make more of myself than just being an heiress who lunched. My mom was one of those and I loved the woman endlessly, but that wasn’t what I wanted for myself. As strange as I knew it was for them to accept, working in acquisitions was my passion.
It was what made me feel alive, what I was great at, and I wasn’t giving it up.
After checking the financials two more times, I came to the conclusion that my math had been flawless. I hadn’t made any mistakes and if Harrison and I pulled this off, I’d finally have something that was mine.
Harrison.
Discomfort threaded through me like it was being stitched to my insides when he slipped into my thoughts again.
The man was all charm and swagger, and he wore that ridiculous grin like it was part of his wardrobe.
Yet, when he’d looked at me across that table at the coffee shop, I’d felt like he’d really seen me.
Not as the assistant, or as an afterthought, or as a woman who was kidding herself about having it all, but as me. Aurelia Van Alen.
I shook it off, but shut down my laptop and decided I needed to look him in the eye again. By two o’clock, I was at his office. W&S was as sleek and sprawling as I’d always expected, multiple floors of glass, metal, and polished wood.
Even in the midst of their impressive workforce, finding Harrison, was easy. Naturally, he was tucked into a corner office on the very top floor. The baby of their family, but he was being treated like a king here.
As soon as I walked in, I could tell that he’d been expecting me. His secretary barely glanced up when I told her my name, only motioning me in. Moments later, she appeared with a cup of coffee for me, and not just any coffee.
It was my exact order from the coffee shop that day, too complicated to have been a coincidence. A double-shot oat milk latte with one pump of mocha and half-vanilla syrup.
I blinked at it, something warm spreading through my chest. I didn’t even think my own brothers knew my favorite coffee order, yet somehow, Harrison did. His secretary glanced at me, clutching her iPad like a secret weapon, but her smile was kind
“Mr. Westwood asked me to bring this in for you,” she said. “He’ll be back in a moment. He just had to step out for a meeting.”
I stared at the cup, shocked that he’d not only remembered, but that he’d gone out of his way to have it available for me. For a few minutes, I sat alone in his office, but then the door behind me opened.
I didn’t turn, though. Not yet.
“Are you going to drink that or are you just going to glare at it until it bursts into flames?” His voice held that same annoying, velvet-smooth arrogance as before, but there was also a hint of amusement in it today.
When I finally turned in my chair, I realized I hadn’t really been prepared to see him again.
All tall and too good looking in a perfectly tailored suit, his tie loosened just enough to look accidental and that dark hair artfully mussed.
A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth as he shut the door behind him.
I lifted the cup. “Is this a bribe?”
“Maybe.” He strolled in. “I figured that if we were going to do this, it was safer for me to keep you caffeinated. I’m pretty sure that stuff is the rocket fuel that keeps you running.”
Appreciation twisted in the center of my chest, but I covered it with a scoff, sipping just to prove a point. “You know, Westwood, most men buy flowers. They don’t bother with surveillance-grade coffee orders.”
“Flowers die,” he said smoothly, rounding his desk and dropping into the chair opposite me. “Remembering the finer details? That’s how you win, Van Alen. You can write that down.”
My lips parted, but for once, I had no comeback. Harrison noticed, and his grin widened before he leaned forward, eyes locked on mine like he could read every thought in my head. “What are you doing here, Aurelia? I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon.”
As I opened my mouth, the door opened again and I stiffened, expecting to meet one of the other Westwoods, but nope.
Instead, an entire team of decorators swept in like a small army, dragging in a tree that had to be at least twelve feet tall, garlands that looked like they’d been pilfered from a five-star hotel, and enough twinkle lights to power Times Square.
I arched an eyebrow as one woman who could’ve doubled as an Olympic gymnast scaled a ladder to wrap red velvet ribbons around his chandelier. “Does this happen every Thursday?”
Harrison didn’t even flinch. “It’s Christmas, man. Have a heart.”
“Having a heart is going to get you stuck in an office that looks like a Hallmark movie got sick in it.”
He gave me a pointed look. “That’s rich coming from a woman who probably organizes her family’s stockings alphabetically.”
I shrugged. “I color-code them, actually.”
He laughed, and it was like I could feel the warmth of the sound burrowing into my chest. At least he didn’t notice that. He just leaned back in his chair, ignoring the decorators like he was completely comfortable talking about this in front of them.
“Okay, well, if you’re not going to tell me why you’ve come, I’ll go first. I have good news. My board approved bringing on an investor.”
“I’d prefer to be a silent one. If that’s okay.”
“It’s not,” he said without hesitating.
My eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”
“If I hadn’t ruined your meeting, you would’ve bagged this deal. This is your show, Aurelia. I’m just the guy making sure the wheels don’t fall off only because you didn’t have all the backing you needed.”
I blinked too many times in rapid succession. “You’re giving me credit?”
“Don’t tell anyone.” He winked. “I have a reputation to uphold.”
I couldn’t help the reluctant smile that spread on my lips. “Your secret is safe with me, but what kind of credit are we talking?”
“Outside of my eternal gratitude for your partnership on this one?” he asked innocently, but then his lips curved into a devilish grin. “Forty percent.”
My eyebrows nearly hit my hairline this time. “Forty? How much are you getting?”
“It’s usually forty, but for this deal, I’m taking thirty.”
I stared at him, waiting for the catch. “Are you seriously telling me that you’re giving me more than you’re taking?”
“Consider it an early Christmas present,” he said without skipping a beat.
I snorted. “What’s next? Are you going to tell me that Santa is your uncle?”
As if right on cue, a staffer rolled a life-size sleigh prop, complete with reindeer, past the window looking into the corridor outside his office. Harrison grinned at me like he’d personally ensured the timing.
“Not quite, but I’ve never asked. I suppose he might be.”
My phone buzzed across the desk, the word Mother popping up on the screen. I almost ignored it, but I was still too tender to bring the wrath of Regina Van Alen down on myself.
“Hi, Mom,” I said cautiously, averting my gaze even though I knew damn well Harrison would still hear every word. “Can I call you back in a few?”
“That’s not necessary, sweetheart. This will be so quick. I’ve heard you’re no longer insisting on shackling yourself to that dreadful little desk. Why don’t you come to the club this week? For tea. It’ll do you good to rejoin the real world.”
In other words, she wanted me to play dress-up for the gossips. To help her quell any possible rumors of discord among the Van Alens once word got out that I’d quit.
“Of course, Mother. I’ll see you there.” I ended the call and looked up to find Harrison’s eyebrows riding way too high. “What?”
“I wasn’t eavesdropping,” he said, holding up both hands in surrender. “I do have impeccable hearing, though.”
A laugh escaped me before I could choke it back. It wasn’t even the polite, porcelain-doll laugh my mother had drilled into me. This one had been real and it was so foreign that it startled me.
“Relax,” he said, leaning back like he’d just scored some kind of win. “Does that mean you’ve resigned? Officially?”
“Yes. I’m a free agent now.”
“Well, then I guess this isn’t the only deal we’re going to do together.”
My heart tripped over itself. “You’re confident, aren’t you?”
“Nah, I’m just smart.” He met my gaze head-on. “Especially if you win this for me.”
I shouldn’t have smiled back, but I did anyway.
Just as a door behind us banged open and an army of people who looked like interns filled the executive waiting room visible through that window.
A few of them were hauling an inflatable snowman and another nearly decapitated Harrison’s friendly secretary with strands of lights.
When I looked back at him, Harrison was as smug as freaking sin. “Westwood and Sons takes Christmas very seriously.”
I pressed my lips together, trying not to laugh again as the snowman’s head began inflating. “I can see that.”
As the snowman’s grin grew wider, Harrison chuckled. “Well, would you look at that. Frosty approves of our partnership. It looks like we really are a match made in Heaven. Or the North Pole.”
“Or China,” I retorted, my eyes rolling. “Just so you know though, if that thing starts singing, I’m walking and I’m never coming back.”