Billionaire's Betrayal a contracted revenge (Aurelia) novel Chapter 26

10:09 Sat, Aug 1

Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Reick’s POV

:

VPN 22

55 vouchere

As soon as the elevator doors closed, she had her shoulder against the wall and her head tipped back, eyes half closed.

“That was nice,” she said.

“It was just a meal.”

“It was a date, Rieck.”

“Whatever you say,” I shrugged.

“It was fun,” she whispered, almost to herself.

The word landed in my chest a second time, the way it had landed at the table. “Fun.” I had been turning it over for the last hour without permission. I didn’t like that I had been turning it over. I didn’t like that I had walked back to the car with my hand at the small of her back and not been able to find a good reason to lift it.

“Aurelia.”

“Hm.”

“It was a fine evening.”

She opened one eye and looked at me sideways and I felt the corner of my own mouth move before I could stop it.

Just then the doors opened on the penthouse floor.

She walked out ahead of me, the skirt of her dress whispering against the marble floor. Vanilla and rain on cedar trailed behind her in a thin warm thread and I let myself walk in it for three steps before I peeled off and went towards my study.

“Going to work?” she called out from somewhere behind me.

“For a few minutes.”

“It’s already past ten.”

“For a few minutes.”

She didn’t say a word. I heard her heels go in the other direction, towards the bedroom, and I heard the soft hiss of a zipper through an open door, and I made myself walk into the study and shut it behind me before any other part of me made a different decision.

The lamp on the desk was already on. Marta had set it that morning the way she always did. I sat down, opened the laptop, and the inbox loaded.

1/5

10:09 Sat, Aug 1

Chapter 26

:

VPN 22

55 vouchers

I read the first subject line and the warmth from the restaurant went out of me like a window had opened on a winter night.

“RE: Marston bid. Final. 18:00 deadline.”

The time stamp was 16:42. The follow-up below it was 17:31. The third one, the short one, the one with no greeting, was 19:50.

“Rieck. We took the offer from the south group. We will work with you on the next round if the timing fits. Best, M.”

I read it twice, then read it again.

I leaned back in the chair and put one hand flat on the desk and the other on my mouth and I read it a fourth time.

The Marston bid had been seven months of work. Seven months of dinners I had not enjoyed, lunches I had not wanted, a trip to the coast in February I had cut three days short to be home. The deadline had been at six, but he had given me until almost eight. At seven fifty-one, I was pulling out a chair for Aurelia under a velvet drape, mesmerized by the flickering candle in her eyes.

I had not checked my phone for ninety minutes.

I had felt it buzz. But it was a text from Tobias. Kaelen in the city.

I had not felt the three buzzes before that. The ones with the M.

I closed my eyes.

“This is exactly why,” I thought, very clearly, the way a man thinks when he is making a note inside his own head to never make the same mistake again. “This is exactly why I don’t do this.”

When I opened my eyes, I immediately typed a reply. “Marston, I understand. I will be in touch for the next round.” I sent it.

After that, I just sat in the lamp light and didn’t move.

The number behind the deal was not the part that hurt. The number was a number. It would come back around in another quarter on another tower with another client. What sat under my sternum like a cold stone was the line I had crossed inside myself to be in that restaurant at all. I had decided, at four-twelve this afternoon, that one quiet meal was worth the cost it would put on my month. I hadn’t actually known what the cost would be, but I knew now.

“Worth it,” I had thought.

A man should not let a woman in a blue dress make him think the word “worth” about anything that has not been put through a contract first.

Suddenly the door opened.

I didn’t look up.

2/5

10:09 Sat, Aug 1

Chapter 26

“Rieck?”

:.

VPN

92

55 vouchers

Vanilla. Rain. The scent now stronger because she had changed, and the bedroom robe she was wearing did not have the shoulders of the satin in the way. I could feel her standing just inside the door.

“Are you okay?”

I closed the laptop slowly.

“I’m fine.”

“Your face.”

“My face is my face, Aurelia.”

“Did… what happened?”

I looked up.

She had her hair down, the two pieces from the temples set free now, and she had washed the quiet red off her mouth. Her feet were bare on the rug. The robe was the cream one she had bought herself in the second week. She had one hand on the door frame and the other at her collar, holding the front of the robe closed without seeming to know she was doing it.

I opened my mouth and the words “I lost a seven-month deal because I sat in a restaurant with you” were right there. They were on my tongue.

But then I closed my mouth and just looked at her, and I looked at the candlelight still sitting at the back of her eyes, and I thought about the word “fun” on the linen between us, and I did the calculation that I had been doing all night without knowing I had been doing it.

“Do not ruin this evening,” I thought to myself. “Not tonight. Tomorrow she gets the cold version. Tonight she gets to keep the candle.”

“Nothing,” I finally said.

“Rieck.”

“Nothing, Aurelia. Go to bed.”

She didn’t move. Her eyes moved across my face the way her eyes always moved, slowly, reading me like a page she wasn’t sure was in English. And I let her look, but I didn’t give her anything to find.

“Okay,” she said, eventually. “Come soon.”

I didn’t promise and she didn’t wait for one. She slipped back out and pulled the door closed behind her.

I sat in the lamp for another quarter of an hour. Then I stood up, took the laptop under my arm, and walked to the bedroom.

000000000000

3/5

10:09 Sat, Aug 1

Chapter 26

She had left a small light on for me.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify