Billionaire's Betrayal a contracted revenge (Aurelia) novel Chapter 108

Chapter 108

Chapter 108

Rieck’s POV

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The blueprint on my desk was already perfect, but I studied it again anyway.

Steel frame. Glass front. Fourteen floors of space waiting to become something new.

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I had bought the building with my own money, money my father had never touched, and that fact alone made the deal taste sweeter than any contract I had signed in years.

Architecture had been mine long before Rooffe Construction carried my name. I remembered nights in college hunched over drafting tables, the smell of pencil shavings and stale coffee. I used to sketch skylines on napkins during lectures.

My father never cared for any of it. To him a building was only ever a number on a balance sheet. But to me it had always been something more.

This building was going to prove something. Not to Hebvron. Not even to the board that had stripped my title from me like it cost them nothing. To myself.

Just then a knock sounded at the study door.

“Come in.”

Aurelia stepped inside, still in her robe, her hair loose around her shoulders, a mug of tea warming her hands.

“I saw the interview clip last night,” she said, settling into the chair across from my desk. “The one where you talked about the new building.”

“And?”

“You looked good, Rieck. Confident. Calm.” She smiled. “That kind of interview is going to pull clients through your doors on its own.”

“It was your idea to lead with the building instead of the company history.” I leaned back, staring at her over the edge of the blueprint. “The reporters ate it up.”

“I only suggested it.” She raised the mug, hiding half a smile behind the rim. “You’re the one who sold it.”

“You underestimate yourself.” I set the blueprint down flat, giving her my full attention now. “Half the questions they asked circled back to things you told me to say that night.”

“Maybe I should charge you a consulting fee.”

“Careful. I might actually pay it.”

I studied her a moment longer than I needed to, the quiet pride in her voice settling somewhere in my chest, a feeling I still hadn’t learned how to name without flinching from it.

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Chapter 108

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“Get dressed,” I said finally, standing and rolling the blueprint closed. “I want you to see it in person.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

She was already moving towards the door before I finished the word, tea forgotten on the edge of my desk, some part of her clearly as hungry for this as I was.

The building in front of us was like something carved out of the sky, the lobby still bare and echoing with our footsteps.

“It’s massive,” Aurelia said, turning in a slow circle, her voice bouncing faintly off the empty walls. “Rieck, this could be anything you want it to be.”

“That’s the idea.”

She moved ahead of me, already tracing invisible lines through the open floor with her hand. “Your office should be here, corner space, both walls of glass. Executives need to see the whole city working under them, not just a slice of it.” She turned towards the far end. “HR and hiring closer to the entrance, easy access for interviews. A proper front desk right there, someone sharp enough to handle walk-ins and calls at the same time.”

“You have thought about this more than I have.”

“Someone has to.” She shot me a look over her shoulder, teasing but not quite joking. “You would have filled the whole floor with glass and called it a day.”

“There are worse plans.”

“Name one.”

“I can’t, off the top of my head.” I let the corner of my mouth curve, just slightly. “Consider that your victory for the day.”

She laughed, and the sound of it filled the empty lobby in a way that made the whole massive space feel…

smaller.

As I stared at her walking the length of the floor, something settled in my chest that had nothing to do with steel or glass at all.

She stopped near the far wall, running her palm along the concrete, already picturing something I couldn’t quite see yet. “A break room here, somewhere with light. People work harder when they don’t feel trapped.”

“You keep talking like you already work here.”

“Maybe I should.” She turned to face me fully now, chin up, daring me to argue. “You need someone who understands the people as much as the blueprints.”

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Chapter 108

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crossed the floor towards her slowly, and surprisingly she held her ground instead of stepping back the way most people did when I closed the distance.

Six months ago she would have dropped her eyes. But now she just tilted her chin up more, meeting me halfway.

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