Chapter 50: GROWING SUSPICIOUS

NOVA'S POV

Matthias was already at the table when I walked in.

He stood up the moment he saw me, the way he always did, and pulled my chair out before I could reach it. His hand rested briefly at my back as I sat down, warm and deliberate.

"You came." He settled into his seat across from me, his eyes moving over my face slowly. "I wasn't sure you would."

"I said I would." I put my bag on my lap and smiled at him.

He was quiet for a moment. Then he reached across the table and turned my left hand over gently, his thumb pressing against the inside of my wrist. The mark had faded but his eyes found it anyway.

"Nova." His voice dropped low. "I have been sick about this since it happened."

"It's fine, Matthias." I kept the smile where it was.

"It is not fine." He shook his head, something moving across his face that looked exactly like real guilt. "I don't have any explanation that makes what I did okay. I was out of my mind and I took it out on you and that is not something I will ever forgive myself for."

He squeezed my hand gently before releasing it. "It will never happen again. I need you to believe that."

I looked at him across the table.

He looked sincere. He looked like a man who had spent four days carrying something heavy and had thought carefully about exactly what to say when he finally got to put it down.

The problem was I had spent those same four days counting things.

"I believe you." I reached for my water glass. "Can we order? I skipped lunch."

Something relaxed in his shoulders and the evening shifted, the heavy moment folding itself away as cleanly as he had opened it.

We ordered. He described the wine to the waiter with easy confidence. He asked about my week and I told him about a file I had been working on, keeping everything light and vague, nothing that went anywhere near the folder on Callum's desk with his company name printed on the tab.

He listened the way he always listened, like whatever I was saying was the only thing worth hearing.

"You seem more settled tonight." He tilted his head slightly, his eyes reading my face. "Different from the last time I saw you."

"Work has been a lot." I turned my wine glass slowly by the stem. "Getting out of that building helps."

"Then we should do this more often." He leaned forward, resting his chin in his hand. "You spend too much time inside those walls. It is not good for you."

"Says the man who runs a forty floor company." I raised an eyebrow at him.

He laughed, easy and unguarded, and that was the thing about Matthias that made everything so difficult. The warmth felt real. Whatever was sitting underneath it, the warmth that surfaced when he looked at me still pulled at something I wished it didn't.

We ate and talked and I laughed once at something he said and the laugh came out genuine and that bothered me more than a forced one would have.

It was over dessert that he started.

He was talking about a property his company was considering on the east side of the city, his voice easy and relaxed, and then without any shift in his tone at all he said, "Richard's health must be making the board nervous. Has there been any talk about what comes next?"

I picked up my spoon and turned it over with my fingers. "Nothing official."

"But unofficially?" He kept it light, the way someone asked about the weather.

"Callum has everything under control." I kept my eyes on my plate. "He always does."

"Of course." Matthias nodded slowly, lifting his wine glass. "He's capable, I'll give him that." He paused just a beat. "It must be a lot for you though. Being that close to all of it. The business, the brothers, everything. That's heavy for someone who didn't ask for any of it."

"I manage." I looked up and smiled at him.

He smiled back and covered my hand with his and I let him, keeping my fingers completely relaxed under his palm.

Three questions in under an hour.

Richard's health. The board structure. How close I was to the brothers.

I counted them quietly behind my smile the same way I had been counting everything else since Callum told me to keep things normal for two days.

He drove me back to the estate just after ten. At the gate he cut the engine and turned to face me in the dark of the car, his hand coming up to my jaw and tilting my face toward his.

"I'll call you tomorrow." He pressed his lips to mine, kissing me slowly.

"Okay." I pulled back gently and reached for the door handle. "Goodnight Matthias."

"Goodnight beautiful." He watched me climb out with that look he always had, the one that made leaving feel like the wrong decision.

I walked through the gate without looking back.

The entrance hall was quiet when I pushed the front door open. Most of the downstairs lights were off except for the lamp in the sitting room throwing a low glow into the corridor.

I was halfway up the stairs when I heard them.

Callum's voice coming through the gap under his bedroom door, low and tight in the way it only got when he was working very hard to hold something in.

Then Elias, sharper and less patient.

I stopped on the fourth step from the top with my hand on the banister and listened to the shape of a conversation I couldn't quite make out.

Then the voices stopped.

Callum's door opened and both of them stepped into the corridor and saw me on the stairs at exactly the same time.

The look that passed between them lasted less than a second.

Elias's jaw was tight. Callum had his phone in his hand and his expression was sealed off in the way that only happened when something was serious enough that he didn't trust his face with it.

"Nova." Elias took one step toward the top of the stairs, his voice dropping. "How was dinner?"

Something about the way he asked it, too careful, too measured for Elias of all people, made the hair on my arms stand up.

"Fine." I looked between them. "What is going on?"

Neither of them answered and that single second of silence told me more than any words could have.

"Tell me right now." I tightened my grip on the banister. "Both of you."

They exchanged one last look.

Then Callum held his phone out toward me, screen facing up, something open on it that I couldn't read from where I was standing.

"Come up here first." His voice was very quiet. "You need to sit down before I show you this.”