Chapter 36

Chapter 36
The whirr of the coffee machine shot Aria out of her thoughts and she clicked the button to stop it from grinding more.

For the first time since she got back from France, her thoughts weren’t scattered or all over the place. No. They were all revolving around one man.

Aston.

Ugh.

“You seem a little overqualified for this job”, a low pitched feminine voice sounded behind her, and Aria held back the urge to roll her eyes.

She had worked at Rothschild enterprise for a grand total of seven weeks. This lady had been bothering her for the past three.

“You don’t say? Excuse me”, Aria said politely, flashing her teeth without any feeling behind it.

She knew exactly why she was bothering her. She wasn’t the only one. 

“Are you always like this or do you just hate me personally?”, the beautiful blonde woman raised an eyebrow and blocked Aria’s way.

“I’m always like this. I’d like to get this coffee to its owner now, please get out of my way.”

“I’m your superior. You should be less rude”, the woman said amiably, a smile lingering on her face.

“…”

“What? You’re not going to say anything?”, she asked, folding her arms.

Aria honestly just wanted to leave. The coffee— well, death trap was a more accurate way to put it —was getting cold and Hartie would find another way to piss her off if she delayed.

“Thank you for all your concern. I’m correctly qualified. I really have to go now.” Aria said, choosing to fully bypass her and power walk down the hallway with a coffee tray with one full coffee and five empty cups in her hands.

She felt the woman stare at the back of her head till she left the vicinity and regretted Hartie finding out that she was married to a Beaumont. 

They had promoted her to the top floor now, after claiming that her work rate and efficiency was high enough that she deserved it immediately.

It wasn’t a lie generally.

But it was a lie from her family, no one cared about her work rate. They only wanted her to get to “the great Aston Beaumont” for their bullshit proposal. And they wanted her to feel the specific sting of being closer to them but impossibly far once again.

She knocked on Hartie’s door.

“Come in”, Hartie said in a singsong voice.

That’s right. Her new job at the ‘top floor’ was delivering coffee. 

For the past week, she hadn’t done anything administrative. 

God she missed Valerie and her bullshit ponytail swaying. She missed being overloaded with work.

Now she had to deliver coffee, AND see Hartie everyday. It was a purely lose lose situation.

There were two other people seated in Hartie’s office. Two men in the cleanest ironed suits.

They were handsome, and the one on the right sat like he owned the building, a reckless confidence she thought was innate in Liam radiated through the pores of his skin.

Huh.

He felt familiar.

She set the tray on the table and Hartie finally looked up and grinned at her. “Thank you, Ari. I knew your skills were more suited for the top floor.”

Aria’s fingers twitched beside her.

“Mm,” Aria replied. “If there’s nothing else—”

“Mr Devan, Mr Riley, would you like some coffee?,” Hartie asked, addressing the men.

A sharp stab of humiliation rose up in Aria’s throat like bile and went back down as soon as it came.

She had to calm down. Hartie only wanted her to respond to the bait so she could control the narrative and insult her more straightforwardly.

She’d prepared for this.

“Ha ha, no thanks,” said the one on the left, the one Hartie had referred to as Mr Riley.

Good.

The one on the right turned his head to look at her, and after fully surveying her — could she get HR on that? Business partner or not, the predatory gaze was a problem — he turned back to Hartie.

Aria took that as a no, thankfully she could lea—

“Yes. I would like a coffee.”

Oh. 

What was his name again?

Devan.

Devan had made an insurmountable enemy today.

“Well, you have one more thing to do before you can take a break Ari. You’re such a hard worker!”

Aria had never felt the urge to hit Hartie with the sharp end of her heel more than at that moment, but remembering her grandfather’s staunch tone, she swallowed it.

She was in another kind of deal with Aston, one that involved technically betraying Arthur. So to make it up to him, she HAD to ensure she fulfilled her mission and brought down the Rothschilds.

Even if it involved getting stepped on like this.

“She looks like she’d spit in it”, the man suddenly laughed. “Would you spit in my coffee, AG?”

AG?

She glanced at him sharply. Devan. 

Now she remembered where she knew him from.

“Yeah, I see the recognition in your eyes,” he chuckled. “Remember I said you’d either end up a whore or a delivery girl? Well well. You ended up as both.”

Aria raised her eyebrows.

Hartie gasped. “Mr Devan, that is my SISTER, how dare you?!”

Devan raised his hands in amnesty. “It was just a joke,” he turned back to Aria. “We were friends. You can take a joke from your friend right?”

Aria didn't flinch. She didn't even blink. Instead, she let a small, weary smile touch her lips, the kind of smile one gave a toddler who just proudly showed you a fantastic drawing of a brown smudge on paper.

She reached for the empty cup on the tray, her movements fluid and devoid of the "humiliation" Hartie was banking on.

She remembered him now. He and Zaphen Eastwood, and a whole bunch of them who were just faces without names or names without faces. 

They were her classmates from her very short-lived time in Wotushong.

"Friendship implies a level of mutual memorability, Mr. Devan," Aria said, her voice dropping into a smooth, low register that cut through his laughter. "But I’m afraid I can’t remember anything about you.”

Of course she knew Hartie would have cause to send her back to the machine. Aria wasn’t dumb. She made Hartie’s coffee with three times the beans and four times the volume. Her coffee was a whole coffee machine on its own.

Even after pouring half of the cup into another cup for Devan, Hartie would still choke half to death on the concentration of the espresso.

Aria was no ordinary delivery girl. She was a Griffin. 

Hartie couldn’t do much except verbally berate her, and that would go against her wonderful angelic image that she had spent all her life building.

She should count it as her little punishment. For as long as Aria was her assistant, she would never drink good coffee again.

"Black. No sugar," she noted, looking him dead in the eye. "I assume you’re bitter enough already."

She straightened her blazer, turning her gaze to Hartie, whose shocked expression was starting to twitch.

"If that concludes the trip down memory lane, Mr Devan, I’ll get going.”

She didn't wait for an answer. She picked up the tray, offered a sharp, mocking tilt of her head to the room, and walked out, a little pep in her step from finally acting out.

She’d been operating under strict rules before to ensure they didn’t find a single fault in her so she could lay low and fulfill her mission.

But now she had a trump card.

They couldn’t lose their only shot at pulling in Aston.

What were they going to do?

Fire her?

Ha!

Nah.

She went to her new little cubicle, the space suddenly looking ten times more pleasant with her new mood.

There was a post-it note on her computer. 

“Mr Rothschild wants to see you. 3pm, don’t be late.”

Of course. Her life had been far too peaceful and Liamless.

She had to suffer for it.