Chapter Thirty-Four
EVERETT
I keep my hand low at Sienna's back as I guide her toward the black town car waiting at the curb.
She says something under her breath that might be a joke. I don't catch it. Or maybe I do and my brain tosses it before it registers, because I've been running on too little sleep and too much damage for three straight days.
I open the rear door for her.
She slides inside first, gathering the hem of her coat as she shifts across the leather seat.
Then I duck in after her from the curbside before the traffic stacking up behind us starts honking.
The door shuts.
The city slides past the tinted windows as the car pulls away. Reflected glass. Late-afternoon traffic. All of it looking the same way Seattle always looks when you're too tired and running on zero sleep.
Sienna glances up from her phone as I settle beside her.
"You look terrible," she says.
I loosen my tie another fraction. "Good afternoon to you too."
"It is afternoon." She sets the phone down beside her. But "I'm not convinced it's good."
Neither am I.
The briefcase rests beside me. Aria's invitation is still inside it, tucked between legal folders and paperwork I haven't actually looked at since Christian handed them to me.
I turn toward Sienna.
"You wanted to talk privately in my town car," I say. "You didn't want an audience. Now you have me alone. What is it you need to say that no one else can hear?"
Sienna looks at me for one long second, before blurting it out.
"Jeremy sold you out."
I take a second, shaking my head at the thought.
"Jeremy…?" I ask.
"That’s right," she says, her eyes on her phone as if casually checking an email.
"As in my assistant…?" I ask. "That's a serious accusation."
"It's not an accusation," she says. "It's what happened."
I look away from her. Out the window. At nothing.
"How do you know?"
"Because an associate of mine called me three days ago asking why your assistant was trying to cut himself into one of your merger deals before you moved on it."
I turn back sharply.
"What?"
Sienna folds one leg beneath her and angles toward me, voice calm in a way that makes this worse.
"He approached someone I know. Mid-level player, but close enough to hear about things before they become formal. Jeremy was trying to position himself ahead of a transaction you've been circling. The South Florida deal. He made it sound like he'd have visibility and leverage before you moved."
The city outside goes gray.
"That doesn't make sense."
"No," she says. "It doesn't. Which is why my associate called me. He thought it was weird that Everett Kauffman’s assistant came into a large sum of money and was trying to cut him out of the deal."
I stare at her.
"So he called me," she says. "Asking if I knew what was going on and how Jeremy came into that much money."
I scrub a hand over my jaw.
"How much?"
"I don't know exact numbers. Enough to act like he suddenly had a seat at a table he used to stand outside of."
"That deal is a bad deal. The company is about to go belly up. You can see it in the financials. They're just harvesting investor funds trying to stay afloat. I give it a year… two tops."
"I know… but we discussed that right before you got engaged… over lunch one afternoon that Jeremy couldn’t make it. Remember? We cut out of the deal so I never brought it back up, and neither did you."
My mind starts to spin about what leverage he had and what the trust would have gotten in exchange for money.
Jeremy in the town car the night Aria kissed me outside the Hawkeyes arena and slid in beside me and offered marriage like a business solution neither of us had fully thought through.
Jeremy in the front seat while my life changed behind him.
Jeremy at the penthouse after, when we worked out exactly how fake it would have to look to pass.
Jeremy moving in and out of conference rooms while Everly built the PR strategy and Christian drafted the secret prenup.
Jeremy outside my office. In my calendar. In my inbox. In every room that mattered.
He didn't guess.
He knew.
He knew enough to hand the board the firing, the clause, the contract, the kiss, the timeline. He gave them every piece they needed to turn my marriage into fraud with a payout attached.
I handed Jeremy everything to hang me with because I kept it too close. Because I trusted him, and he sold it anyway.
Fuck.
I feel the blood leave my hands.
"He'll lose it all. He'll be broke in two years… at the latest," I say, as if I can't believe he's make such a stupid decision. "What did you tell your friend?"
A ghost of smirk pulls at her lips. "I told him to sell him the deal."
She’s cut throat and I’m glad she’s on my side.
Still, the whole thing doesn't sit right. Jeremy was loyal for years. He's kept more secrets than anyone I know.
"Why would Jeremy do this?"
"Apparently he had a lot to say about being overlooked." Her mouth flattens. "About how Conrad left one of his former assistants enough money to retire in the will, but not him. About how he's more competent than any of the Kauffman brothers and should have been the one running everything."
A sound comes out of me that isn't quite a laugh.
"Did he?"
"He did." She watches me closely. "And he was angry, Everett. Not the kind that blows over. The kind that's been sitting there for years, waiting for an opening and calling it justice."
I look away.
Jeremy… Not Sienna. Not some power play from an ex with old feelings and a grudge.
If this had been Sienna, it would have been ugly in a recognizable way.
Personal and emotional. A bad decision driven by history.
I should have known that Sienna was too loyal to do this.
She could have screwed me over on deals in the past but she never has.
She’s been an asset to this family and now she is again.
Jeremy was the one I didn’t see coming.
Jeremy was proximity. Access and trust.
He knew what was on the line and what it was worth. He knew where the bones were buried because he was the one helping me decide where to dig.
"I wanted to tell you sooner," Sienna says. "That's why I kept trying to get you alone."
I turn back toward her.
"Why not text?"
Her expression flattens.
"Because I had no idea how much access Jeremy still had to your phone or your email. Or whether he was monitoring either. If someone close enough to you was willing to sell out the trust issue, I wasn't interested in leaving a written trail for him to find."
That shuts me up.
Because it's sensible.
Worse, it's the kind of sensible I should have gotten to on my own. Instead I assumed she wanted something from me. That she was circling old ground. That this was personal.
Another thing I got wrong. Add it to the damn list.
"I thought this had something to do with you and me," I say finally.
Sienna's expression softens by half an inch.
Then she lifts her left hand.
The diamond on it could probably be seen from space.
"I should thank you, actually."
My brows pull together.
She glances down at the ring. "For not letting me sell myself short. I would have agreed, you know. If you'd asked back then, I would have said yes." Her mouth curves, but there's no real humor in it. "And we both know we would have ended up miserable."
I don't argue.
Because she's right.
She lowers her hand and looks back at me. "You marrying Aria gave me the chance to see what was right in front of me. He asked. I said yes."
I nod once. "I'm happy for you. You deserve it."
"I know I do," she says lightly, then the smile fades. "And I want you to be happy too, Everett. This," she gestures vaguely between me, the briefcase, the city outside the window, all of it, "isn't what I want for you."
"It doesn't help that I went from your best client to nonexistent."
That gets a quiet laugh out of her.
"Yes, well. It won't help the paycheck, that's for sure." Then she sobers. "But I care more about your family than just that. We've worked together for years. I hate that the trust is doing this to all of you. I wish I knew how to help."
"Some things can't be helped." I look down at the briefcase beside me. "The rest of the Kauffmans will make it without me. And I'll be fine."
"I know you will be." She studies me for a beat too long. "But you love her, don't you?"
There's no point pretending with Sienna. There never really was.
I nod.
"I do."
She leans back against the seat and lets out a slow breath.
"I knew it the moment you kissed her at the wedding." Her eyes flick to mine. "That was the moment I realized I wanted a man who looked at me like that too."
That sits in my chest for a second longer than it should.
Maybe because she's right.
Maybe because it means even then— before France, before the studio, before I ever let myself name any of it— someone else saw it on my face before I did.
The car turns. My briefcase shifts beside me, and the cream envelope inside slides half free.
Sienna's eyes catch on it immediately.
Mrs. Aria Kauffman.
Then the embossed seal. Amaury Gallery.
She looks at the envelope. Then at me.
"You're carrying her mail now?"
I slide it back into the briefcase and close the clasp.
"It arrived at the penthouse."
"And?"
"And I haven't gotten it to her yet."
Sienna watches me for a second too long.
"That wasn't really an answer."
I say nothing.
Because I don't have a good one.
I could have given it to Everly this morning. Could have left it with Levi. Could have had someone drop it at the estate by lunch.
Instead it's in my briefcase.
With me.
Still.
"She's going to go, you know," Sienna says.
My jaw tightens. "I know."
"She should."
"I know that too," I say.
"You don't sound thrilled."
I look down at the leather case by my knee. After Christian gets the annulment papers finalized, Aria will be free to do whatever she wants.
Go to Cannes. Show her work. Stand in rooms full of people who see her before she has to explain herself. Be with whoever she wants.
Gabriel's note is still sitting at the bottom of that card.
Aria— there is a place for you here when you're ready.
Sienna's voice cuts through.
"If you really meant to let her go, you would've sent it already."
I look at her and she doesn't soften because that's who Sienna is. She doesn't let you off the hook just because the truth is inconvenient.
"I'm trying not to make things worse."
"No," she says. "You're trying not to make them final. There's a difference."
Sienna glances down at the ring on her hand.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry."
I frown. "For what."
"For the fact that whatever happened between you and your wife, you're clearly not the only one paying for how it started."
For a second I can't answer.
Because she's right.
And because hearing the word wife from Sienna should feel strange but it doesn’t because Aria is still my wife. On paper and in every damn place that matters. Just not in any way I'm allowed to keep her.
I set one hand flat on the seat between us.
"If Jeremy reaches out again," I say, "Don't intervene. It sounds like he's already tied himself to a boat anchor. Let the rest take care of itself."
Sienna nods once. "You're getting soft in your old age. Does that have anything to do with falling in love."
I grin. "Most likely."
I move to get out of the car and then Sienna speaks.
"For what it's worth, Everett?"
I glance back at her.
"If you're trying to convince yourself she'll be better off in someone else's world," she says, "don't keep carrying proof that you still want to be in it."
I hold her gaze for one beat and then glance down at the invitation peeking out of my briefcase.
Then I open the door and step out onto the sidewalk.
The car pulls away behind me, and I stand there for one second longer than necessary with the briefcase in my hand and two names running parallel in my head.
Jeremy. Who sold me out because he thought he deserved a seat that was never his.
And Aria. Who's being pulled toward a life I told myself I wanted for her.
I should let her go. I should hand the damn invitation to Everly tonight and be done with it.
As much as I want to keep thinking there’s a way out, Jeremy sealed our fate.
I have to let her go.