The Emerald Heiress (Aurelia) novel Chapter 14

We went back to Sal’s restaurant.

It was 11 a.m. on a Tuesday. The place was nearly empty. Sal took one look at us, brought out two espressos and a chessboard, and disappeared into the kitchen.

Roman sat across from me, his jacket off, sleeves rolled to his forearms. Without the armor of a boardroom, he looked younger. Almost like the man I’d known in London.

Almost.

“Seven years,” he said.

“Seven years,” I echoed.

“You left without a word. One day you were there, the next — gone. No call. No letter. Nothing.”

“My parents had just died, Roman. I inherited a twelve-billion-dollar company I didn’t know existed and a legacy I wasn’t prepared to carry. I was twenty years old, and the lawyers told me that anyone close to me could become a target.”

“So you pushed everyone away.”

“I pushed you away. There’s a difference.”

He was quiet for a moment. “You could have told me.”

“And what would you have done? Dropped everything? Followed me into a world of corporate warfare and billion-dollar decisions? You had your own family, your own empire to build.”

“I would have been there, Aurelia. That’s what I would have done.”

The simplicity of it broke something inside me.

I wrapped my hands around the espresso cup. “I made a choice. I chose to disappear, to build walls, to handle everything alone. And then I married Derek because I wanted to feel normal. I wanted someone who didn’t know about the money, the name, the weight of it.”

“And instead, you got someone who didn’t know you at all.”

“Yes.”

Roman reached across the table and set up the chess pieces. White for me. Black for him. Just like always.

“Your move,” he said.

I moved the queen first. He smiled.

“Aurelia, I’m not going to pretend the last seven years didn’t happen. You hurt me. Deeply. And I spent a long time being angry about it.”

“I know.”

“But I also spent that time building something. Corsetti Holdings isn’t just real estate anymore. We have security divisions, intelligence networks, legal teams that rival any firm in the country. I built all of it, and some part of me built it because I knew — I knew — that one day, you’d need someone in your corner who couldn’t be bought, threatened, or broken.”

I stared at the board. My throat was tight.

“That’s either the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me, or the most terrifying.”

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