Chapter 16 The First Crack
Ariella didn’t go home after the media training.
She’d planned to. Had told her mother she’d be back by two, that they’d have lunch together, that everything would be fine. But standing in Aiden’s studio, looking at the blueprints he’d drawn for her grandmother’s bakery, she realized she couldn’t face the bus ride. Couldn’t face forty minutes of strangers and traffic and the slow descent from the wealthy hills back to her neighborhood.
Couldn’t face pretending to be okay.
“Can I stay?” she heard herself ask. “Just for a little while?”
Aiden looked surprised. Then relieved. “Yeah. Of course. Are you hungry? We could have lunch. Or I could show you the rest of the house. Or we could just…” He gestured vaguely. “Exist in the same space without talking?”
“That last one sounds good.”
“Excellent. I’m great at uncomfortable silence.”
Despite everything, Ariella managed to smile.
He found her a spot on the worn couch in the corner of his studio, the only piece of furniture in the mansion that looked like it had actually been used. She curled up in the corner while Aiden went back to his drafting table, pulling out a new project.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
Ariella watched him work. The way his hand moved across the paper, confident and sure. The way he’d pause sometimes, staring at nothing, before adding a new line. The way he’d unconsciously push his hair back when he was concentrating, leaving it sticking up in odd directions.
He looked different here. Less like the hollow-eyed boy who’d shown up at her bakery, more like an actual person. Someone with interests and passions and a life beyond being Richard Frost’s heir.
“What are you designing?” she asked finally.
“A house.” He didn’t look up. “For no one in particular. I just… design houses sometimes. When I can’t sleep. When things are too much.”
“Where is it?”
“Nowhere. Everywhere. It doesn’t exist.” He glanced at her. “That’s the point. It’s imaginary. A place that couldn’t be ruined by real life.”
Ariella understood that more than she wanted to admit.
“What’s it like?” she asked. “Your imaginary house?”
Aiden set down his pencil. Leaned back in his chair. “Small. Just two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room. Big windows but not like here, not cold and exposed. Warm. With actual curtains, people could close them. A garden in the back. Nothing fancy. Just vegetables and wildflowers and maybe a hammock.” He paused. “A fireplace. The kind you actually use, not the kind that’s just for show. And a reading nook. With built-in bookshelves and a window seat where you could watch it rain.”
“It sounds perfect.”
“It sounds impossible.” Aiden’s voice was soft. “Houses like that don’t exist for people like me. We get glass palaces and security gates and rooms we’re afraid to live in.”
“Maybe someday you’ll build it for real.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t sound convinced. “What about you? If you could design your perfect place, what would it be?”
Ariella thought about it. “A bakery with an apartment above it. Like we have now, but better. Bigger kitchen, more light. A rooftop garden where my mom could grow herbs. A big table where we could have dinner with friends instead of eating standing up between batches of bread.” She paused. “And a room just for me. With a door that locks. Not because I don’t love my mom, but because sometimes I just need to be alone.”
“That doesn’t sound impossible.”
“It does when you’ve spent six months watching everything fall apart.”
They were quiet again. But this time, the silence felt less uncomfortable. More like two people who understood each other’s sadness.
Aiden went back to drawing. Ariella closed her eyes, just for a moment.
She must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew, someone was gently shaking her shoulder.
“Ariella? Hey. Wake up.”
She opened her eyes. Aiden was crouched beside the couch, looking concerned.
“You okay? You’ve been asleep for two hours.”
“What?” Ariella sat up too fast, head spinning. “Two hours? Oh my god, my mom…” She fumbled for her phone.
Seven missed calls from her mother. Three from Sophie. Two voicemails. Seventeen texts.
“Oh no. Oh no, no, no…”
“Hey, it’s okay. Call her back. Tell her you’re safe.”
Ariella’s hands were shaking so hard she could barely dial. Her mother picked up on the first ring.
“Ariella Marie Hayes, where the hell are you?”
“I’m sorry, Mom, I fell asleep, I didn’t mean…”
“You said you’d be home by two. It’s four thirty. I’ve been losing my mind. I thought…” Her mother’s voice cracked. “I thought something happened. I thought they’d…I don’t know what I thought.”
“I’m sorry. I’m still at the mansion. I fell asleep in Aiden’s studio. I’m okay. I’m safe.”
A long pause. “You fell asleep there?”
“I was tired. The media training was…it was a lot, Mom.”
“Are you coming home?”
Ariella looked at Aiden. He was giving her space but she could see the concern on his face.
“Do I have to?” she asked quietly.
Another pause, longer this time. “No, baby. You don’t have to. But I miss you. And we need to talk about the move tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Ariella repeated. Moving day. The end of her old life. “Right.”
“Come home for dinner. Please. I’m making pasta.”
“Okay. I’ll get the bus…”
“Marcus is sending a car,” her mother said. “He called earlier. Said they’d have a driver available whenever you needed. I thought it was invasive but now I’m grateful.”
“Mom…”
“Just say yes to the car, Ari. For my sanity.”
“Okay. Yes to the car.”
“Five thirty. Don’t be late.”
The line went dead.
Ariella lowered her phone, feeling like the worst daughter in the world.
“She was worried,” Aiden said unnecessarily.
“I know. I should have texted. I should have…” She stopped. “Do you ever feel like you’re constantly disappointing everyone?”
“Every single day of my life.”
The honesty in his voice made her look up. He was sitting on the floor now, back against the couch, looking as exhausted as she felt.
“My father expects me to be the perfect heir,” Aiden continued. “Lily needs me to be the stable older brother. My therapist wants me to be honest about my feelings. The company needs me to be confident and capable. And I’m just…” He gestured vaguely at himself. “This. Whatever this is. Anxious, broken, and barely holding it together.”
“You’re not broken.”
“I have panic attacks in cemeteries. I can’t sleep without medication. I’m terrified of thunderstorms because they remind me of the night my mother died. I’m eighteen and I’ve been in therapy for six years and I still can’t…” His voice cracked. “I still can’t believe I deserve to be alive.”
The words hung in the air like smoke.
Ariella slid off the couch, sitting beside him on the floor. Their shoulders touched.