Chapter Thirty-Two
EVERETT
Moving out of the penthouse feels less dramatic than I expected.
No shouting or slammed doors. No cinematic collapse.
Just cardboard boxes, garment bags, and Levi standing in the middle of my living room holding a roll of packing tape.
"I have to admit it… this is depressing," Damien says from the kitchen.
He has one of my coffee mugs in his hand as he scans the living room with all of the boxes that the moving van will be taking to storage.
I could move it all to the Estate. There’s plenty of room in the attic for it all, but that’s her space now and the last thing I need is an excuse to go over there and see her.
Archer is on the floor by the media console, unplugging cables without comment. Levi is taping up another box of books I probably should've left on the shelf.
"It's not depressing," I say, folding a stack of shirts into a duffel. "It's practical."
Levi snorts.
Damien takes a sip from my mug and grimaces. "Your taste in coffee is bleak."
"That's not coffee," I say. "That's whatever's been sitting in the pot since six."
He looks down at it. "That explains some things."
Archer says nothing, but the corner of his mouth twitches.
I zip the duffel bag harder than necessary and set it by the front door.
The penthouse looks wrong, all half-packed.
Too open in some places. Too cluttered in others. Like someone started leaving and lost the nerve halfway through.
Fine. That's not inaccurate.
Levi straightens with a groan and tosses the tape onto the counter. "Tell me again why you're pretending this is couch surfing."
"Because it sounds less pathetic than saying I've been displaced by my own life."
"You're not living on Colston's couch."
"I'm aware."
"His penthouse has three bedrooms."
"I'm aware of that too."
"Then why do you keep saying couch?"
"Because saying guest room in my younger brother's penthouse makes me want to drive into the Sound."
Damien laughs.
"Fair," he says. "Although for the record, from the outside, all of this still sounds wildly rich."
Levi picks up another box. "That's because it is wildly rich."
"It is," Damien agrees. "But in a tragic way."
I ignore both of them and cross toward the bedroom for the last armful of clothes.
Easier when I don't look around too much.
The bed is stripped. The closet is half-empty. The bathroom counter is clear except for a razor and a bottle of cologne.
Don't think about Aria in one of my shirts.
Don't think about the way she'd leave her earrings on the counter beside my watch like they'd always been there.
Fuck.
I grab the suits and head back out.
Damien is holding a framed photo now, looking between it and me with open suspicion.
"You were smiling in this," he says.
"I doubt it."
"It's subtle," he says. "But it's there.
You look a little like a serial killer in one of the Netflix docuseries, but technically it’s a smile."
"Thanks asshole," I say.
Levi looks over. "Put that in the keep pile. He'll only pretend he doesn't want it."
I take the frame from Damien before he can study it any longer.
Foundation gala last year. Me in black tie, expression almost human. Everly beside me, radiant and terrifying. Christian in the background looking like he'd rather be in litigation than formalwear.
I set it face down in the box by my feet.
Archer rises from the floor with a coil of cords in one hand. "This goes where?"
"Whichever box you hate least."
He nods once and carries it off.
Levi watches him go, then glances back at me. "Did Jeremy take it hard when he found out you got fired?"
I frown at him. "Found out what?"
"That you got thrown out of your own kingdom."
Damien barks out a laugh. "He's probably celebrating. No more Tin Man emails at three in the morning."
I shove a stack of files into a banker's box. "I haven't actually talked to him properly in a few days."
Levi's brows lift.
"He's busy," I say. "Probably keeping the office standing by himself. He's the only one there who knows how all the pieces fit."
Damien leans in the doorway with his mug. "That is the bleakest compliment I've ever heard."
I don't answer.
The truth is, I haven't had room in my head for Jeremy. Not beyond quick replies and surface logistics. Someone had to keep the tower running while I detonated my life.
That's what assistants are for.
That thought sits wrong. I file it away and keep packing.
"Speaking of jobs," Damien says, setting the mug down. "Come work for me."
I look up.
Levi looks delighted immediately, which is suspicious.
Damien shrugs one shoulder like he didn't just drop a life raft into my living room. "I'm serious."
"Doing what?"
"Anything you want. Consulting. Strategy. Acquisitions. You can glare at people in conference rooms. I’ll even have it turned into a one way mirror so you don’t scare away the amazing talent I’ve brought on over the years. We can build around your strengths."
"My strengths are mostly trust issues and overwork."
"Perfect. You already sound like an executive."
Levi laughs.
Even Archer looks up for that one.
I shake my head and tape another box shut. "Thanks, but no."
Damien studies me. "You sure?"
"I know what you’re trying to do, and I appreciate it… I do. But I need to do this on my own. No hand outs," I look around the room at my other brothers who I know are probably teeing up with their own offer. "...from any of you." I add. "I’ll land on my feet."
The room goes quiet for a second.
Because it's true. I know how to work my ass off. How to out perform my competitors. I did it before the Kauffman curse and I can do it now too. I know who I am without the trust. What I don’t know is how I’ll ever figure out how to move on without Aria. I don’t think it’s possible.
But that's not a sentence I'm saying out loud in a room full of people holding my boxes.
Damien nods once, serious now. "Offer stands."
"Thanks."
He lets it go.
That's one of the reasons I keep him around.
Levi disappears into the hall closet and comes back with a stack of unopened mail balanced against his palm.
"Is this yours or are we forwarding all of Seattle's junk to Colston now?"
"Mine."
He drops it onto the counter in front of me.
Bills. Investor newsletters. Something from a wine club I never joined and never successfully unsubscribed from. A charity invitation. Two large cream envelopes with calligraphy on the front.
Then I see something else.
Mrs. Aria Kauffman.
The letters go sharp under my gaze. I reach for it before Levi can.
Heavy paper. It’s expensive which means it’s probably an invitation. Foreign postage in the corner.
My jaw tightens before I even turn it over and see the embossed mark on the back.
Amaury Gallery.
Cannes.
Fuck…
For a second the whole room narrows to the envelope in my hand. I don't need to open it to know what it is.
But I do anyway because I’m an asshole.
The card inside is an invitation to a gallery showing next week in Cannes. Gabriel's name printed beneath the exhibition line. A handwritten note at the bottom in dark ink.
Aria — there is a place for you here when you're ready.
Something twists low in my stomach.
It’s not anger, exactly. More like jealousy and there’s no point dressing it up.
After Christian gets the papers finalized, she'll be free to do whatever she wants. Go wherever she wants. Be with whoever she wants.
Go back to Cannes. Back to that coast. Back to the man who saw her work and knew her worth before I figured out how to say it without building a studio first.
And I'll have no right to say a damn word about it.
Levi is watching me now.
"What is it?"
I slide the invitation back into the envelope.
"Nothing."
"That's never a reassuring answer."
"She got invited to a gallery show."
Damien's brows lift. "That's good, isn't it?"
It is. That's the problem… She should have it. And more than that—she should go. She's too good not to. I know that. I love her too much to let her dream die. To hold her back because I’m the one who will never move on from her.
I also know there's no chance in hell I'm driving to the estate to hand it to her myself. Not now. Not after the look on her face in that foyer. Not when I barely got out once. I won’t be able to leave a second time. I’ll end up begging her to take me back.
Carrying her back to the shower… the drawing table—anywhere that I can remind her how to fit together.
Pleading with her not to run into Gabriel’s arms, but I can’t do that.
I made the deal with the trust to cut ties to protect her and my siblings. Her life and who she falls in love with isn’t any of my business anymore.
I tuck the envelope into my briefcase before I can think too hard about what I'm doing. I'll get it to Everly. Everly can take it out to the estate. No reason for me to go back there. It’ll only gut me further than I already am.
Levi's eyes narrow slightly.
"You're going to give her that, right?"
"Yes."
"When?"
I pick up another stack of mail. "When I can do it without being stupid."
Damien leans against the counter. "That window may have closed."
I ignore him.
Archer comes back into the room carrying the last sealed box and sets it by the door.
"That's it."
I look around. The penthouse is stripped now of anything that resembles that I lived here. Not that I ever really lived anywhere.
It was a place to work. A place to sleep. To disappear after a long day, just long enough to shut my eyes for a few hours, eat something, and get back to work like the good little CEO robot my mother trained me to be. Incapable of seeing the woman right in front of me.
Maybe all of this could have been avoided if I would have just asked Aria out the first day we met… when I knew that she wasn’t a woman I was going to forget.
I could have taken her on a date, I could have made her fall in love with me like I was already falling for her. It wouldn’t have even taken me those six months to propose. I know that now. I would have had to pace myself to wait to propose with more time to not scare her away.
I could have done this all the right way. There never would have been a secret deal between us that someone ratted out to the trust. She’d still be my wife and we’d be building a life together right now.
Levi grabs the keys from the counter and jingles them once. "You ready?"
"Yeah," I say, because there’s nothing left in this penthouse for me anyway. The only thing I want is miles away in an estate I gave her to keep her painting.
That’s where I want to be. Not here.
We start moving the last boxes out.
Damien takes the lighter ones, probably on purpose. Archer grabs the two heaviest without comment. Levi carries my briefcase and garment bag like he doesn't trust me not to leave one of them behind on principle.
By the time we get downstairs to the loading bay, my phone buzzes.
I hand Archer the box in my arms and check the screen.
Sienna.
My grip tightens.
Thank you for agreeing to meet tomorrow. There are a few things I'd rather say in person.
I stare at the text.
Damien notices first. "That good?"
"Not particularly."
Levi shifts the garment bag higher on his shoulder. "Who is it?"
"Sienna."
That gets a look from both of them.
Not Archer. Archer just takes the box and waits.
I slide the phone into my pocket.
Sienna knew about the clause. She knew enough to understand why I married Aria. She wanted to talk before all of this blew up.
And if anyone outside the family had both motive and access, it was her.
Except that doesn't hold exactly.
If Sienna went to the board, and handed them the thread that unraveled everything, she's risk blowing up one of her firm's biggest clients in the process.
That isn't ambition. That's arson. And Sienna is a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them.
Would she really do that just to end my marriage?
Levi is still watching me.
"You think she knows something?"
"I think," I say, taking the box back from Archer, "that tomorrow is either going to answer a few questions or I’m going to leave with more questions than I came in with."
Damien picks up the last duffel. "Excellent. I love when a mystery also threatens to ruin your life."
I don't answer.
I just head for the SUV with the invitation still in my briefcase and Sienna's name still sitting in my chest like something I can't swallow.
If Sienna is the reason I just lost Aria… this meeting won’t end well.