Billionaire's Betrayal a contracted revenge (Aurelia) novel Chapter 21

17:02 Fri, Jul 31

Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Rieck’s POV

:.

The slide on the wall said ‘BLUE DIAMOND. PHASE ONE. Q3 PROJECTIONS.’

I had not heard a word in twenty minutes.

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Vance was at the head of the table with a laser pointer in one hand and a cold coffee in the other, walking through the elevation drawings for the third time. The waterfront. Forty floors. Glass and brass. He kept saying the word ‘flagship’ and the word ‘legacy’ and the room kept nodding because the room was paid to nod.

I glanced out the window and saw that the city was grey under low clouds. From the thirty-second floor of Valerius Tower the river looked like a strip of dull pewter winding through the buildings. Somewhere east of that was Hebvron’s town house. Somewhere south of that was Dawson’s apartment. Somewhere in between, in my penthouse, was a woman who had told me she was not pregnant, and who I had then lied for, to my own father.

“Mr. Valerius.”

Vance’s voice interrupted my thoughts, drawing my attention back to the room.

“Pull the brass detail,” I said.

He blinked. “Sir?”

“All of it. Every brass finish on the elevations. Pull it.”

“The whole brass package was approved in March.”

“It was approved by men who think a building should look like a watch, so pull it. Bring me three options in matte black, brushed steel, and patinated bronze by Friday. I don’t want to see a brass screw in this project.”

At that moment, there was a small choking silence in the room. The kind of silence men make when they are trying to decide whether to argue or write it down.

“And the council letter?”

“On the south access road, sir?”

“Tear it up. Send it back. Tell them we want the whole road or we walk. They cap us at two lanes, we walk. They will fold by Monday.”

“Sir, our relationship with the council is…”

“Monday, Vance.”

He nodded and wrote it down.

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Chapter 21

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I stood up before the meeting was over. That was rude but I didn’t care. I walked out and let the glass door swing shut behind me and went down the long carpeted hallway to my office, closed the door and stood with my forehead against the cold of it for a slow count of five.

The words “she is not pregnant” kept echoing in my mind.

I had told myself in the elevator on the way up that I was fine. I had run a meeting. I had killed a brass package. I was fine.

But I wasn’t fine.

Just then there was a loud knock.

Petra never knocked like that. She knocked in two soft taps. This was one heavy one.

“Come in.”

The door opened and my father walked in, Then he took the chair on the other side of my desk without waiting to be offered.

He hadn’t been in this office in two years.

Hebvron Valerius did not pay visits. He summoned. The fact that he was sitting opposite me in a leather chair with his silver-tipped cane laid across his knees meant that something at the penthouse last night had told him exactly what I had been afraid it told him.

The smell of cigars and old leather settled in the room like furniture.

“Sit, son.”

I sat.

He looked at me for a long moment. The scar at the edge of his mouth pulled when he smiled. He smiled now, that slow smile, and folded his hands over the head of the cane.

“That was a strange evening,” he said.

“It was a long day for her.”

“Yes.” He let the word sit. “I am told women in their first trimester are emotional. I am told they cry over commercials. I wouldn’t know. Your mother, God rest her, only ever cried at funerals.”

“What can I do for you, Hebvron?”

“Tell me what is going on between you and your wife.”

“Nothing is going on.”

“Rieck.”

“Nothing is going on.”

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Chapter 21

A3

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“I have been reading faces for fifty years.” He tilted his head. “I read hers last night. She stepped forward to tell me something., but you stepped in front of her. You spoke for her. That is not the rhythm of a man whose wife is just tired.”

“She has had a difficult week with Dawson.”

“I am sure she has. But that is not the question I asked.”

He let the silence stretch. He was good at silence. He had taught me how to use it.

“Rieck.” His voice softened the way a knife softens on a whetstone. “I will ask you once, plainly, and I will trust the answer. Is Aurelia pregnant?”

Without thinking, I replied, “Yes.”

The lie came out perfectly. The same voice I had used in the foyer of the penthouse last night when I invented Doctor Lin, the voice of a man explaining an inconvenience over brandy.

He held my eyes and he held them long enough that I could feel the wolf in him reaching for the wolf in me, looking for the lie under my skin. I had been letting him do that since I was nine years old. I knew how to keep the floor of my chest perfectly level.

“Good,” he said at last. “That’s good.”

He got up, grabbed his cane, and hesitated at the door.

“You will tell me, of course, the moment the specialist confirms.”

“Of course.”

“Thursday.”

“Thursday.”

He smiled and left.

After the door closed, I sat in the chair for a long minute. Then I picked up the small crystal paperweight on my desk and turned it slowly in my hand.

I had lied to my father.

For her.

DUGOG BOGDOSC

The penthouse smelled like food when I walked in.

And that was wrong because Marta cooked on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Today was Wednesday.

I stood in the entryway with my coat half off and listened to the soft clink of cutlery being arranged on the long glass dining table.

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Chapter 21

Aurelia was at the head of it.

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She had pinned her hair up. She was in a soft cream sweater and jeans, no shoes, and there were two plates out, and a bottle of wine open, and a casserole dish in the centre of the table with steam still coming off it.

She turned when she heard me.

“You are home,” she whispered. “I made dinner.”

“Marta made dinner.”

“I made it. Marta watched and supervised. Mostly she laughed.”

I didn’t move from the entryway.

“You didn’t have to.”

“I know I didn’t have to.”

“Then why?”

She set the last fork down and looked up. The lamp behind her caught the line of her cheek.

“It is a thank you,” she said. “For the cover up. For Hebvron. For not asking me a single question on the way home that you were entitled to ask. For your hand on my back. I didn’t know how else to say it.”

I looked at the table. The wine. The plates. The way she had folded the napkins like she had seen it done in a magazine.

Then I shrugged my coat the rest of the way off and hung it.

“I am not hungry.”

Her expression didn’t change. But something behind it did.

“Rieck.”

“Eat without me.”

I walked past her down the hallway.

She came in five minutes later.

I was at the window in the bedroom with my back to the door, jacket off, sleeves rolled, both hands in my pockets.

“Talk to me,” she said.

“There is nothing to say.”

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Chapter 21

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