Rebirth Of The Heiress And The Tycoon's Lover (Alina) novel Chapter 345

AUTHOR’S POV

If things were already bad in the Evergreen mansion, it was worse now. It’s been a couple of days since the press conference and the tension in the family was suffocating more than ever.

The house moved around the family in a carefully choreographed silence, each corridor and room carrying the weight of conversations not had.

Luna has been giving Darius the silent treatment, front–facing politeness at public moments, cold distance at all others. She answered in clipped sentences when required and then retreated into long, hard pauses that said more than an argument ever could.

Damien on the other hand was present, a solid shape at the table and in the hallway, but he kept his replies short, spoke only when expected, then folded his hands into a deliberate quietness. He watched and measured.

He had things in him that had comments attached and actions planned. He was waiting for the right moment to make noise, not waste it.

Alina existed like a shadow in her room. She didn’t speak to anyone. She didn’t join the family in the dining room. Food came up on a tray…sometimes she ate a few bites, sometimes she pushed it aside untouched.

She wasn’t staging some grand hunger strike… not at all, she simply did not have an appetite, and forcing food down felt like pretending. Pretending was exactly what the house was full of, and she couldn’t stomach the deceit in any form.

Cassian, meanwhile, had made himself the person Darius addressed at the table. He and Darius had conversations that could have happened in a boardroom just as easily as in the home…market talk, risks, hedges, long–term plays.

Cassian spoke with the polished cadence of a man who had read every annual report twice and decided which lines the public would swallow. Darius listened and nodded, performing the father/head–of–house role, and in public these two men projected the image of order.

But privately the arrangement felt like a wound beneath a bandage.

Darius acted as if he did not notice the distance growing in his family, but it hurt him. It was a small, private hurt he swallowed and told himself was necessary. Pride, legacy and future, those words had become armor that he preferred to wear even when it cost him warmth.

The dining room was assembled in the way Darius preferred, heavy oak table, shining silver, low flame in crystal holders to soften faces, hired linens folded with geometric precision.

The chef had prepared a brief and precise light course meal with tame flavors. Nothing too extra that could spark a negative reaction. The staff worked with courteous efficiency, their movements were like wind in the background.

Although the cameras from the press were not here, the feeling of being observed leaked into their behavior.

Darius lifted his glass first, setting it down with the practiced motion of a man who marks transitions with ritual.

“So,” he began, voice even, “the market’s been… volatile.”

Cassian met him with a smile that was almost rehearsed. “Volatility presents opportunities,” he answered.

Darius leaned back a fraction, considering. “Evergreen Holdings has exposure in the Asia fund. The indexes aren’t behaving as we forecasted. Input stresses from the currency hedges are biting into our short–term yields.”

Cassian nodded, fingers steepled as if running numbers in his head. “You need to balance the duration mismatch. Don’t be overexposed to short–term counters while levering long–term infrastructure plays. Rebalance into safer duration and look at

opportunistic buys in distressed assets. When interest rates normalize, those discounts will make for tidy returns.

The conversation was brisk and tidy, the kind of language that smoothed risk into something digestible. Darius listened, then approved softly. “So we reduce volatility by smoothing duration and capturing the temporary dislocation in real assets.

“Exactly,” Cassian said, and his tone carried the comfort of someone who believed in his own advice. “Also, accelerate the Evergreen portfolio integration. Merge administrative functions and centralize operations; present a stronger front to the bank syndicates. Your debt covenants will look healthier, and underwriters will be more comfortable.”

Darius allowed a small, private smile to slip free. The reassurance of plan, the narrative to be sold to boards and markets, steadied his hands more than the food warmed them. He liked it when talk could be made into script: chant it enough and the world followed.

“Legacy preservation,” Cassian said lightly, adding the phrase as if it were a final, elegant stitch.

Darius echoed the words, tasting them. He said the next name with a ritual air, as if performing an introduction everyone was supposed to accept. “Lucius Stormvale, you are just like your father.”

The syllables landed oddly. The name sounded foreign in his mouth.

He looked across the table, and for a second his gaze snagged on Damien.

“Damien,” Darius said slowly, each word measured as if testing the shape on his tongue. “You haven’t spent time with Lucius since he came.”

Cassian held back a grimace at the name.It didn’t fit the rhythm he’d grown up with, it felt newly grafted.

Even aloud, the name did not settle like a familiar coin. It was a new thing he was trying to make old.

Damien’s fork paused mid–air. He set it down with the deliberate care of someone who controls the small sounds in a room. “We’re not children, father,” he said flatly. “I’m sure wherever Cassian has been hiding, he made some friends.”

His voice held more than sarcasm, there was a cold edge to it, accusation that barely disguised the distrust. The comment was as precise as a scalpel.

Darius’s eyes flashed with a warning. “Damien.”

Damien gave a small, unrepentant smile that was part challenge, part indifference. “What? You want to force me to hang out with him the way you’re forcing Alina to marry him?”

Darius’s jaw hardened. He opened his mouth as if to retort, to impose the kind of stern lecture that usually ended these moments. But the house intervened with its own conversation.

A maid who had been sent to call Alina to dinner crept back into the dining room, apron clutched tightly in her fist.

She had the look servants develop when they must carry bad news, apologetic eyes, fiddling fingers and mouth forming a careful shape.

“Sir?” she said, timid, the sound of her words almost lost to the hush that had fallen. “Miss Dahlia said she wasn’t hungry.”

Darius’s face went still. He didn’t react, the control he cultivated over time was calculated and rehearsed.

He saw how nervous the servant was and knew that wasn’t all.

“Exactly what did she say? And I mean word for word,” he asked, the warning in his tone clear as crystal.

The maid’s fingers picked at her apron. “She said she’d rather eat nails and die than sit and eat with her enemies.”

Alina said those words with the aim of hurting every one of them and it worked. The words although merely repeated,

landed like a thrown plate.

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