Chapter 47 Where You Are
Where You Are
Arden stirred against sheets that no longer held his weight. The warmth of him had faded, but his presence hadn’t. His scent lingered—clean, masculine, a little dangerous. It clung to the linen, clung to her skin. Something dark, threaded with heat. Sex. Him. The kind of scent that didn’t let go.
She didn’t panic.
Morning light pushed through the curtains in soft gold stripes, brushing across the rumpled space beside her. And he’d left something behind.
On the nightstand, a cup of coffee, still warm.
On her temple—the echo of a kiss, tender and lingering.
And on her phone, the soft buzz of a message.
Gideon: Didn’t want to wake you. You looked like peace I didn’t deserve to disturb. Coffee’s hot. Lock the door. Text me when you’re up. Please.
She read it twice, the corners of her mouth twitching despite herself.
Then came another message.
Gideon: You wrecked me, Rivers. And I’d let you do it again.
The heat that coiled low in her stomach had nothing to do with caffeine.
She sank deeper into the pillow, her body deliciously sore from the night before—every inch tingling with the memory of his touch. The ache between her thighs wasn’t a complaint. It was a memory. A promise.
Proof.
But even as warmth curled through her like smoke, something colder edged in.
Not fear.
Awareness.
That feeling again.
She shifted toward the window. And there it was—the same silver car from the week before. Parked.
Unassuming.
Unmoving. Too still.
Not paranoia. Not anymore.
She knew Christian’s team was watching. Gideon had told her—after the destroyed rose, after the shattered glass, after the gift of lavender tea with the note from a “secret admirer.” He’d wanted her protected. And she’d believed him.
But this? It didn’t feel like protection.
It felt like surveillance. Pointed. Precise.
Like someone wasn’t keeping her safe; they were keeping her.
She made it through her morning routine—Krav Maga, a long shower, extra concealer under her eyes, but the feeling clung to her like sweat before a storm. Heavy. Unshakable.
Even the burn of training hadn’t bled it out.
The adrenaline had helped. Temporarily.
But when she slowed down, it crept back in, coiling tight beneath her skin.
?
By the time she stepped through the employee entrance, the tension sat squarely between her shoulder blades.
The air shifted.
And she knew.
Something was off.
She felt them before she saw them.
Evelyn Blackwell entered like she was sealing a fate. Every movement had the precision of a final chess move. Her midnight-blue Chanel suit was tailored to perfection—severe in cut, colder in tone. The kind of fabric that dared anyone to wrinkle it. The kind of look that warned you not to try.
Beside her, draped in tailored black, Miriam followed with quiet threat and tightly coiled judgment. If Evelyn was the ice, Miriam was the air before it shattered.
They weren’t women in power.
They were predators.
And tonight?
They’d come to hunt.
Arden didn’t need to look up to know they’d arrived. The air shifted, coiling tighter, as if even the walls were bracing.
When she did lift her head, her gaze met Evelyn’s without flinching. Steel met steel.
“Welcome to The Blackwell Room, Mrs. Blackwell. Mrs. Harrington.”
Her voice didn’t waver. Didn’t bend. Cool, direct. Equal parts courtesy and warning.
Evelyn’s smile was more blade than warmth.
“Arden Rivers.” She let the name roll slowly from her tongue, each syllable laced with distaste. “We need a word. In private.”
The leather groaned faintly as Evelyn slid into the booth like a woman used to being waited on. Miriam followed, mirroring her posture—hands folded, gaze unreadable.
Arden didn’t sit.
She wouldn’t lower herself beneath them.
Evelyn tilted her wrist. A diamond bracelet caught the light, scattering it in sharp little shards across the table. The gesture was practiced. Controlled. A weapon disguised as elegance.
“I understand you’ve managed to capture my son’s attention.”
There it was.
The first cut, wrapped in silk.
Arden’s heart ticked once, then steadied. “Gideon and I are together. Yes.”
Evelyn’s expression didn’t shift. But something beneath it turned colder. “Together.” She repeated it as if the word offended her.
Miriam reached for her drink. Sipped. Set it down with a gentle clink.
“The Blackwell name carries weight, Miss Rivers. History. Responsibility. It wasn’t meant to be shared lightly.”
A pause. Then, smoothly:
“Especially not with someone of your… background.”
The unspoken part of the sentence filled the silence like smoke.
Your kind.
Arden didn’t flinch. Not anymore.
Her hand curled once at her side. Just once. And then stilled.
“What exactly do you think I am, Mrs. Harrington?”
Miriam’s smile was small. Icy.
“A distraction. A phase. Something he’ll move on from.”
Arden leaned in slightly. Her voice was calm. Razor-clean.
“Let me guess—you’d prefer someone more… suitable?”
Evelyn tapped her fingers once against the table. Sharp. Deliberate.
“Let me be clear, Miss Rivers. Gideon is expected to marry well. To carry on the Blackwell name with someone who understands legacy. That woman—” she tilted her head, gaze sliding over Arden like a dissection, “—is not you.”
She paused.
And then the twist of the blade, spoken so casually it almost passed as observation:
“Not exactly the elegant, willowy type, are you?”
The insult landed. Right where she meant it to.
Miriam’s smirk confirmed it.
But Arden didn’t break.
She never wanted to be one of them.
The words cut clean. But they didn’t wound.
Instead, she smiled. Slow. Cutting.
“Not exactly your type, either, is it?” Her voice was silk-wrapped steel. “Funny—I was thinking the same about you.”
She didn’t blink. Didn’t back down.
“You’ve got the diamonds. But none of that means a thing if you can’t stand to be in your own skin.”
Her chin lifted, casual. Controlled.
“And I can. I am.”
She didn’t raise her voice.
Didn’t need to.
“Gideon didn’t choose me because I’m willowy or elegant or bred to play a role. Because here’s the truth.
He chose me because I don’t pretend. And I don’t need to.”
Her gaze slid briefly to Miriam. Then landed back on Evelyn with quiet finality.
“I know exactly who I am.”
The game changed. The air tightened.
Evelyn’s lips thinned. Miriam shifted, fingers curling once against the leather.
Arden tilted her head, cool and collected.
“It must be exhausting—living a life someone else scripted for you. Chasing approval you never asked for. But Gideon? He’s not chasing. Not anymore.”
She smiled again.
The silence that followed wasn’t heavy.
It was hollowed out. Gutted.
Evelyn’s voice went cold as steel. “Doors close quickly in this world, Miss Rivers. You’d do well to remember that.”
Arden’s exhale was smooth. Confident.
“And yet, here I am. Still standing.”
She turned without waiting for dismissal.
Left them both sitting there, two women who’d always controlled the board, realizing, too late, they’d just lost a queen they never saw coming.
And that?
That kind of power couldn’t be bought.
Only earned.
The conversation ended, but the tension didn’t.
It followed Arden out of the club like smoke clinging to her skin, unshakable, invisible, and impossible to ignore.
The night air cut cool across her cheeks. Manhattan buzzed around them: horns in the distance, music bleeding from open windows, the occasional burst of laughter from late-night wanderers. The city didn’t care what had happened. It kept moving.
But Arden didn’t.
Not really.
She stayed close, her heels tapping out a quiet challenge with every step. She crossed her arms, shoulders stiff, jaw clenched like she was holding something in. Every clipped step tried to shake off the frost Evelyn Blackwell had left behind.
It didn’t work.
She exhaled through her nose, then finally broke the silence.
“Do you always let her treat people like pawns?”
The words snapped harder than she meant them to. She knew that.
But bitterness had teeth, and hers were showing.
Gideon stopped walking.
Abrupt. Still.
The streetlamp caught the angles of his face, carving lines into his expression that hadn’t been there a minute ago.
He stood there, silent, like words would only get in the way.
Didn’t rush to defend her. Didn’t rush to defend himself.
He stared at her. Jaw tight. Eyes unreadable. A storm barely held back.
Then his hand dragged through his hair, frustration flashing across his features.
“No.” His voice cut clean through the night, controlled, but edged. “And I don’t let her intimidate the people I care about.”
Her heart stuttered.
The people I care about.
The words weren’t loud. But they echoed.
Arden looked away. Scoffed, soft and sharp.
“That’s funny. She just spent the last twenty minutes making sure I know I don’t belong anywhere near you.”
Gideon stepped in closer.
Measured. Steady.
Not to dominate.
To be seen.
“She doesn’t get a say,” he said, the edge in his voice all steel and certainty. “You’re in this with me because I chose you.”
Her breath caught.
He made it sound so simple.
Too simple.
“And what if that choice stops being enough?” she asked, quiet but unflinching.
Something shifted in his eyes—sharpened, storm-bound. His control coiled tighter. And he didn’t look away.
“Then I burn it all down.”
It wasn’t said like a threat.
It was a promise.
Something cold and electric slid down her spine. Not fear. Something deeper.
Because he meant it.
She should’ve pushed back. Should’ve told him he didn’t have to burn anything for her.
But the truth?
If someone came for him, she’d light the match herself.
She swallowed hard. Eyes tracking the sidewalk. The city blurred around the edges of her thoughts.
Then she saw it.
A sliver of soft light across the street—small, tucked between glass towers and late-night taxis. A café. Still open. Still warm.
She nodded toward it.
“I need coffee.”
Gideon didn’t flinch. Didn’t press. He nodded once.
“Come on,” he said quietly.
His hand grazed the small of her back—not steering, not leading. Just… there.
They crossed together, silent, slipping through the thin stream of traffic. The buzz of the café’s neon sign hummed overhead. Inside, the scent of espresso drifted out, curling through the cold like comfort.
Arden breathed in deep, letting it settle somewhere beneath her ribs.
She didn’t know what came next.
She didn’t know how to silence the voice whispering that none of this could last.
But tonight, Gideon stood beside her.
And for now?
That was enough.
?
The café was warm. Quiet. The kind of place where people whispered truths over chipped porcelain mugs and left parts of themselves behind in the grain of old wood.
Gideon sat across from her, fingers loose around a coffee cup gone cold. Steam curled between them, a barrier neither fully wanted to break.
The overhead light caught her cheekbones, softening her edges in gold.
But he knew better.
She wasn’t made of gold.
She was fire.
Always had been.
And tonight, he’d watched Evelyn try to smother it.
Watched Arden stand her ground while his mother sliced at her with words polished to a sheen. The only reason he hadn’t stepped in, hadn’t dragged Evelyn out by the throat, was because he knew; Arden wouldn’t have wanted him to.
She hadn’t needed saving.
But God, it had gutted him.
Because she shouldn’t have had to fight at all.
Not against Evelyn.
Not against anyone.
And not alone.
Across the table, Arden exhaled, quiet but weighted.
Her fingers tapped the rim of her cup in an uneven rhythm he recognized, restless and guarded.
Carrying Evelyn’s poison.
The weight of never being enough.
The ghost of a world that never invited her in.
It made him want to set something on fire.
She glanced up, catching him mid-thought. Her expression softened enough to see through.
“You’re quiet.”
He didn’t answer.
Just looked at her.
At the sharp blue of her eyes.
The stubborn tilt of her jaw.
The tension in her shoulders she didn’t know she carried.
Maybe that’s what cracked something open in him.
His voice, when it came, was low. Certain.
A promise wrapped in iron.
“You don’t have to fight them alone.”
A flicker passed across her face—surprise? Doubt?
Gone before he could name it.
Her hand curled tighter around the mug. “I know.”
But she didn’t.
Not really.
He could hear it in the way the words landed, too brittle to be belief. Too careful to be truth.
Gideon didn’t push.
Not yet.
Instead, he reached across the table, his fingers brushing the back of hers.
She didn’t pull away.
His thumb traced a slow arc across her knuckles. He felt her breath catch.
For only a second.
But it was enough.
“Evelyn’s never going to accept this,” she said, her voice low.
Still, she didn’t move her hand. Didn’t pull back.
He kept his hold light but sure. “I don’t need her to. But you…”
He paused.
“You do.”
That made her look at him.
Sharp. Direct. Wary.
And God help him, he wanted to kiss her so badly it hurt.
But this wasn’t about taking.
It was about proving.
That Evelyn didn’t get to define her.
That no one did.
Not in his world. Not anymore.
His fingers tightened around hers slightly before letting go, before he did something she wasn’t ready for.
Her throat moved as she swallowed. He could see the war happening behind her eyes.
But then—
She turned her hand over, palm up, fingers open.
And she laced them through his.
Gideon Blackwell, a man who built empires on control, nearly came undone.
She didn’t say a word, but exhaled audibly—a soft, fragile sound.
But he felt it.
The walls. Cracking.
Her fingers tightened around his, a whisper of pressure.
Then she let go.
Not rejection.
Just space.
Just breath.
Just a promise.
He ran a hand through his hair, exhaling slowly, heartbeat a steady riot.
“Okay,” she said, quiet but steady. “Let’s go.”
He didn’t ask where.
He didn’t need to.
Because wherever she was, that’s where he’d be.