28. Chapter 28
A ria
The climb to her flat seemed interminable.
Her bag dropped onto the table with a dull thud. She didn't even bother removing her coat before filling the kettle and setting it to boil. The kitchen lights buzzed faintly overhead.
She felt at odds with herself, like she was being pulled in two different directions.
Crispin deserved to know about the baby. Lule had been insistent that she tell him.
But every time she imagined his reaction, her nausea returned like a scorned lover. Would he insist she end it? Would he throw practicality and legacy and bloodlines at her like bricks?
He wasn't ready-everything she knew about him reinforced that. And she couldn't raise a child with someone who didn't want to be a father.
Still, he had a right to know. But did he need to know right now? Was she a coward if she waited a little longer?
She rubbed her hands over her face. If she was truthful, she wanted to pass the point of no return before she told him. Because she feared what would happen-that he'd argue, persuade. She feared he'd try to cajole her out of it as if her body, her baby, were up for discussion.
And frankly, she was done with explanations, done with needing approval.
She didn't want anyone-especially not the man who'd contributed nothing but DNA-thinking he had the right to change her mind .
Half her income was already gone. She wouldn't go back to Ophelia. The Du Valares job was ending next week. The cleaning agency had told her she was no longer being offered shifts. No one had called her directly, but the woman on the phone had mumbled something about a "black mark" on her record.
Blacklisted.
It hadn't been said outright, but the message was clear enough.
She had nothing. Just this flat with the rent due next week and a plastic stick in her bag that still said positive.
She had no income. She was still waiting for that reference she was promised.
She stared at the kettle, not really seeing it, until a knock broke her trance.
Was it wrong that she didn't want to see his face? He was all that was wrong with her life.
Crispin had become the embodiment of everything unravelling in her life: her lost jobs, her humiliation, the pregnancy she now had to protect like a secret.
She felt the resentment crawl up her spine like a hot wire .
Why couldn't he just leave her alone?
The knock came again.
She sighed, long, slow and resigned. Then she squared her shoulders and walked to the door, because no matter how much she wanted to shut him out, part of her still needed to hear what he had to say.
When she looked through the peephole and opened it, Crispin was there with his hand raised to knock again.
His hair was windswept, coat unbuttoned, the collar askew like he hadn't realised he was still wearing it. His eyes locked on hers immediately.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
The air between them sizzled, low and electric, just like it always had. They both registered the changes in silence.
She saw it in him first-how his suit hung slightly looser on his frame, the sharpness in his jaw more pronounced, as if sleep and food had become optional.
He saw it in her, too-how her collarbones jutted a little more than they used to, how her cheeks were subtly hollowed, the skin under her eyes smudged with shadows of fatigue .
They looked like people mid-undoing.
Aria blinked and had the stray, irreverent thought, Would it be too much to ask for a goodbye fuck before we ended this whole mess?
Her hormones were chaos. Her brain seemed to be on vacation and the substitute was cotton candy fluff. But her body still remembered him, still ached in ways that felt both shameful and necessary.
Then she mentally shook herself and stepped aside.
He passed her, their shoulders barely brushing in the narrow hallway, and stood facing each other across the room. For a moment ,they were just two people with a hundred things unsaid, and the wreckage of what had been between them.
He came in silently, and they stood facing her on the other side of the table. The same table where they'd once shared laughter and cold leftovers before their relationship became more and more perfunctory. In the beginning, he used to reach for her hand without asking.
She opened her mouth, wanted to ask if he was behind her being blacklisted. But he got ahead of her, as if there was a lot he needed to get off his chest.
"I need to tell you something," he said, his voice low and tense .
He sat down and gestured for her to do the same. She hesitated, then lowered herself into the chair opposite him.
"You know my family owns a large part of the company," he began. "What most people don't realise is how complicated that ownership really is."
He looked down at his hands, then back up at her. "My mother owns twenty percent. She comes from money. My father...he had the name, the title, but not the wealth. He was gifted ten percent by my grandfather when he married her. It was an arrangement."
Aria said nothing, listening.
"My sister and I... we each inherit twenty percent when we turn thirty-five. That's in a few months, for me. Until then, my parents have all the control."
She didn't blink.
"And the remaining thirty percent is scattered across board members, loyalists, and distant family.
My father clawed his way to the top through all of it.
He insisted on changing the company name to his last name.
He kept his promises to my grandfather, and I have been carrying on his legacy, trying to prove myself.
The company is in a better place, but my mother and father still hold the reins. "
Crispin leaned forward. "I've been acting CEO in name only; he still controls the board. He will force me out if I don't do what he wants, and my mother will stand with him. No matter how he hurts her, she will stand with him."
Aria's breath caught, but she didn't look away.
"My father has known about us for god knows how long.
If he knows about you, then he knows about your sister and her boyfriend.
He probably knows how much money you have in your bank account and what your favourite brand of coffee is.
He would find a way to ruin them if it meant punishing you. And me."
That made her eyes widen.
"I'm telling you this because I need time," he said. "Just a few more months. I'll have control of my share, and I can walk away on my own terms."
She stared at him, hands clenched in her lap.
"And I promise you, on everything I am, I've never been unfaithful to you. Not once."
Aria swallowed. She didn't want to trust him, not again and not so easily.
But something in his voice, in his eyes, tugged at the part of her that still remembered what it felt like to be held in his arms like she was precious .
Reluctantly, she nodded.
Crispin let out a quiet breath, as if her silence had been holding him underwater.
"There's one more thing," he said.
She glanced up, guarded.
"There is a trust. I come into it at thirty-five-same age as the company shares. It's...substantial and separate from the business. From my parents, I mean. They can't touch it. And once I have it, I can strike out on my own."
He leaned forward slightly, his voice low and steady. "I'm telling you this because I want you to know I'm all-in, have been for a while. And I would like to salvage what I can for our children. This company has been in my family for generations. That has to mean something..."
Her eyes flicked to the teacup on the table, then back to his face.
She didn't reply right away. Just sat there, her fingers curled around the edge of her mug, eyes on some invisible point just past his shoulder.
Finally, she said, "I need to think about this. You have given me a lot to chew on. "
Crispin gave a short nod. "That's the best I can hope for."
She looked at him then, really looked. "But while I think...don't come by. Don't show up at work. Don't try to run into me." Her voice was calm, even. "Just let me think."
There was a beat of silence. Then he nodded reluctantly. "Fair enough."
He didn't say anything else. Maybe he knew that any more would undo whatever fragile thread they'd just managed to tie. His eyes lingered on her face for a breath too long, like he was memorising it, then he turned, walked to the door, and opened it without another word.
The door closed softly behind him.
And Aria was alone again with her thoughts and the faint hum of the kettle, still cooling.
The quiet ache of something unfinished lingered in the air like an unfinished symphony.