Chapter 31
“How long did you blame yourself for this?”
Naija’s voice was hoarse, but the familiar edge was already creeping back in.
We were in her hospital room. Discharge was scheduled for later today. She looked better—color back in her face, voice stronger. More like herself.
I closed my tablet and set it on the bedside table. “About five minutes.”
“Fair.” She pushed herself a little higher against the pillows, moving carefully, and surveyed the room.
Flowers occupied practically every available surface: vases on the windowsill, bouquets on the chair, arrangements crowded onto the little table beside her bed.
There were cards tucked between them, balloons bumping lazily against the ceiling.
Her gaze landed on the bouquet of folded money.
“And all these?”
“The guys.” I leaned back in my chair.
She lifted an eyebrow. “And you didn’t think to mention that my favorite bouquet is the one that’s basically paying my rent?”
I picked up the arrangement and held it out to her. Each bill had been folded into the shape of a flower, an unnecessarily elaborate display of affection that had probably taken someone far too long to make.
“And give up all the points I’m supposed to earn from this?” I said. “Absolutely not.”
She took the bouquet, smiling despite herself. “This. This right here is why I can never quit this job.”
I crossed my arms. “That, and the fact that your contract says you can’t quit until the day I die.”
I paused.
“You really should read things before you sign them.”
She rolled her eyes and set the money bouquet beside my tablet. “So what are they saying out there? What’s the most popular headline?”
“The usual.”
I counted them off on my fingers. “Velaré Up in Flames—Literally. Is This the End for Sterling and Hartley? Garcia’s First Collaboration Ends in Ruins. Is This a Sign? From Divorce to Ashes: Can Alessia Quinn Rise Again?”
She groaned and sank farther into the pillows. “When are they going to move on from the divorce?”
“Probably after I remarry.” I picked at a loose thread on the blanket. “Maybe not even then.”
Her head turned on the pillow.
Her eyes found mine.
“Are you?” she asked. “Planning to get married again?”
I held her gaze, letting a small smile pull at my mouth. “I don’t know. Will you say yes if I propose?”
She lifted one shoulder.
“If the diamond is big enough.”
“Noted.”
The door opened before either of us could elaborate.
Felicity poked her head through, still in her scrubs, her ponytail beginning to surrender strands of hair around her face. “Whatcha doin?”
Naija didn’t hesitate.
“She was just telling me how she was going to propose to me.”
Felicity’s entire face brightened. She came into the room and dropped onto the little sofa in the corner as though she’d just been handed the best gossip of the week.
“I always knew you two were going to be official one day.”
Her gaze moved around the room, taking in the flowers, the cards, and the small cluster of get-well balloons Rohan had brought, which were now slowly deflating against the ceiling.
Something in her expression softened.
“You sure you don’t want us to call your family?”
Naija shook her head. “If one person finds out, everyone finds out. Then, next thing I know, I’ve got fourteen cousins in this room, someone’s crying, somebody else is praying too loudly, and my aunt has brought her famous casserole that nobody actually likes.”
She exhaled, long and slow. “I need quiet. I need peace. I’m going home later today anyway. I’ll call them then. When I can hang up when I want to.”
Felicity sighed, pulling her legs up onto the sofa. “If you say so.” She tucked her feet under her, settling in. She crossed her arms, then looked between us. “Where are the guys? They promised lunch.”
As if on cue, the door swung open and they spilled into the room, their voices layering over each other before they were even fully through the frame.
“You shouldn’t have taken that turn, Cassian,” Liam announced, dropping an armful of takeout containers on the table in front of the sofa. “Now look—we’re late. Because of you.”
“You’re the one who said to take the turn, saying it was a shortcut.” Cassian followed him in, a tray of drinks balanced in his hands. He placed a drink in my hand without looking away from Liam. “You literally said, ‘Trust me, I know this area.’”
Rohan entered last, shutting the door behind him. “I want everyone in this room to know that I was absolutely against taking the turn. I voiced my opinion. Clearly. Multiple times.”
“You said not to take the turn after I had already turned the car.” Cassian handed Naija a bottle of water. She took it with a small nod of acknowledgment. “There was a car behind me. I couldn’t just reverse.”
Rohan didn’t even look up from the food. “I just want it on the record. Where I stood on the turn situation.”
Liam passed a box to Felicity, already nodding. “I agree with Rohan. We shouldn’t let Cassian drive anymore.”
Cassian threw his hands up. “You were the one navigating!”
I took a sip of my drink—perfect, exactly how I liked it—and looked at Naija over the rim. “So. Quiet and peace, huh?”
She shook her head slowly, watching Liam nearly knock over a vase while gesturing about traffic patterns.
“It’s overrated anyway.”
“Sorry to keep you waiting.” Linda slipped into her office, closing the door behind her.
I spun in my chair to face her. “No problem.”
She settled behind her desk, and for a moment, I felt the familiar weight of this room. Aldric had spent my entire childhood drilling into me that this seat belonged to family. That it was my burden to carry, my duty to protect.
Linda looked good in it.
Better than he ever had.
“Thanks again for Ivy,” she said, leaning back. “She’s fitting in well with the team. Sharp. Doesn’t need her hand held.”
I waved it off. “I just sent her your way. She’s the one doing the work.”
Linda smiled knowingly but didn’t push. Instead, her expression softened into something more careful. “How are you holding up?”
I crossed one leg over the other. “Damage control mode. The usual.”
“We’re in damage control mode.”
I had a three-phase plan.
Phase one was containment. We couldn’t undo what happened, but we could control how it was framed.
My team pulled every post from the influencers who’d been at the event—the glowing reviews of the food, the space, the Garcia legacy—and pushed them back into the feed.
Flooded the morning scroll with anything that wasn’t the fire.
By the time the first outlets published their headlines, there was already a second layer of content sitting underneath them.
The narrative had competition before it even settled.
Phase two was transparency. We drafted a joint statement with Cassian and Liam’s team.
No spin. No deflection. Just facts: the fire, the injuries, the confirmation that both Naija and the other guest were recovering and expected to be released.
We released it before any of the outlets could piece together their own version of events.
Phase three was the long game. Every outlet that ran the fire story would also get the follow-up.
The recovery. The reopening. The comeback.
I made the calls to journalists who owed me favors, the ones who knew better than to bury the second act beneath the first headline.
The story wasn’t going to end with smoke.
I wouldn’t let it.
She thinned her lips, a familiar expression of barely restrained fury. “Fucking Michael.”
She exhaled, visibly putting the anger aside, and slid a thick file across the desk. “Anyway. This is everything I have on his company. Everything I could find that’s useful, anyway.”
I took the file. “Thank you.” I set it on my lap, already planning to read it cover to cover the second I was back at work.
But something else was nagging at me. “I wanted to ask you—how did you find the information about Michael’s past?
It looked like he made sure no one would talk about it. How did you track it down?”
Linda’s expression shifted, something almost sheepish surfacing. “That’s actually part of why I wanted to meet you in person.”
She folded her hands on the desk, choosing her words carefully.
“So you know how we were digging around in Michael’s hometown? Talking to old neighbors, old classmates, anyone who might remember the Baylee family?”
I nodded slowly.
“Turns out Charles Sterling lives there now. Has been for a while, apparently. He found out what we were doing and he… reached out.”
I frowned, the name taking a second to land. “Charles? As in Cassian’s father Charles?”
“Yes.”
“And he’s living there?” I couldn’t keep the disbelief from my voice. Charles Sterling—the man who’d walked away from this life. Who’d left his wife, his son, his company. He’d been hiding in Michael’s hometown this whole time?
Linda winced. “Yeah.”
I sat with that for a moment, letting it settle. “Okay,” I said finally. “What did he want?”
She opened her desk drawer and pulled out a small sticky note. Her fingers hesitated over it before she slid it across the desk toward me.
“When he called, he said he wanted to talk to you. I told him that wasn’t happening. I was about to hang up when he said he’d give me everything on Michael—the real story, the full picture—if I’d just give his number to Cassian.”
She let go of the note. It sat between us on the desk, a string of digits written in neat handwriting.
“I wanted to give it to you sooner,” Linda said, her voice softer now.
“But you were so focused on the restaurant. And with everything else—the launch, the pressure, the Garcia partnership—I didn’t want to drop this in your lap when you were already carrying so much. I thought I’d wait until after.”
I stared at the note.
Charles Sterling’s number. A man who’d been a ghost for years, suddenly surfacing in the last place anyone thought to look.
If he wanted to talk to his son, he should have done it himself. Picked up the phone. Written a letter. Shown up at his door. Done any of the things a father who actually wanted to make amends would do.
There was only one reason he was doing it this way.
My jaw clenched.
He was trying to earn points. Show Cassian that he helped. That he was useful. That he provided information about Michael, so surely he deserved at least a call back from the son he abandoned.
It was transactional.
Conditional.
Fucking manipulator.
Linda’s voice pulled me back. “What are you going to do?”
I stared at the slip of paper for a long moment, then folded it and slid it into my pocket. “I’ll have to think about it.”
I reached into my bag and pulled out the envelope I’d been saving for the end of the meeting.
“Here. Your F1 tickets. And yes, you get to meet the drivers, but—” I held the envelope just out of reach as her hands stretched toward it.
“Don’t do anything weird. They’re my clients.
I need them to still want to be my clients after this. ”
She snatched the tickets from my hand so fast I almost didn’t see it happen. “Of course not.” Her eyes were already on the envelope, her fingers already working it open. “This is going to be the best day of my life.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you win Businesswoman of the Year twice? And get married? To a person you actually like?”
She didn’t look up from the tickets. “I said what I said.”
A smile tugged at my mouth despite everything. I stood, slinging my bag over my shoulder. “See you soon, Linda.”
“Thank you.” Her voice followed me out, distracted, already somewhere on a racetrack.
I raised a hand in acknowledgment and stepped into the hallway.
I pressed my hand to my pocket, felt the edge of the paper against my palm, and walked toward the elevator without knowing what I was going to do with it.