Chapter 136
Chapter 136
Alina's POV
The moment my eyes met Jason's, the coffee cup in my hand tilted — just slightly — and a splash of scalding liquid landed on the back of my hand. I didn't look down.
I watched his lips part. He hadn't yet said my name, but his feet were already moving, carrying him across the café toward me.
On instinct, I set the cup down on the table, stood, and walked toward the side exit.
He broke into a jog.
"Alina!"
His voice hit me from behind — disbelief and urgency wound together in a single word.
I kept my eyes forward. I told myself, one more time, not to turn around. By the time I reached the side door, the two women assigned to watch me had materialized from somewhere and positioned themselves in my path — or rather, in Jason's. One of them stepped forward and blocked him with a calm, firm courtesy. "Sir. Please stop there."
Jason pulled up short. I stood with my back to all of it, and I could feel his gaze reaching past her shoulder and pressing into me like something solid.
I reached into my bag for my sunglasses. Before putting them on, I gave the other woman a brief look. She turned to Jason immediately. "There's no one here by that name, sir. I'd ask you to conduct yourself accordingly."
"But—" Jason tried to step forward and was pushed back by a security guard who had arrived at the commotion.
I settled the sunglasses onto my face and walked out without looking back — whatever he was saying, whatever he was doing, I left it behind me.
I pushed through the glass panel of the side door. Behind me, Jason's voice was still coming through, strained and urgent: "Alina! Is that you?! Wait — Mr. Lowell, he—"
I kept moving. The side door opened onto a narrow service alley; the alley led to the parking lot behind the building. I had clocked the route when I arrived that morning. I just hadn't expected to use it like this.
I crossed the parking lot, found the black sedan Adams had arranged, and pulled open the rear door.
The driver had been sitting with his head down, looking at his phone. My early return clearly caught him off guard, but he didn't ask questions — he put the phone away and started the engine.
As the car eased out of the lot, I turned and looked back toward the café.
Through the glass panel of the side door, I could make out Jason's shape. He was still standing there, talking to the people who had stopped him. His expression was tight — angry, controlled — the face of someone choosing his words very carefully. Even as I watched, he pulled out his phone. There was only one person he would be calling. His boss. Lowell.
I faced forward again and let the breath out slowly. My whole body was trembling, just slightly, in the aftermath of those few minutes.
The car merged into traffic. The street began to slide past the windows. I took off my sunglasses and held them in my lap.
"Take me back to the estate," I told the driver.
He nodded and turned at the next intersection.
---
When I got back, I didn't shut myself in my room. I went to the living room and sat down the way I always did — waiting for Adams to come home.
I knew the people he'd placed around me would have already reported the café incident by now. If I hid, it would only look like guilt. Better to be exactly where I was supposed to be.
As expected, he came home that evening.
He handed his coat to the waiting housekeeper in the entryway, then walked through to the sitting room and lowered himself onto the sofa across from me — unhurried, like a man who had already decided how the conversation would go.
He didn't speak immediately. He settled back against the cushions and lit a cigar with the ease of someone with all the time in the world. The flame flickered between his fingers for a moment, then steadied. A thread of pale smoke rose between us.
Through that thin haze, his eyes rested on me — measuring, without any warmth.
"I hear you ran into someone you knew in the lobby café today." The way he said it wasn't really a question. It carried the quiet certainty of a man who expected a full account.
There was no angle here. I nodded. "Jason. Lowell's deputy."
Adams exhaled a slow draw of smoke. "He recognized you?"
"Most likely." I kept my voice even, and left it at that.
"And what do you intend to do about it?" He asked it simply, as though he had already mapped out several possible responses and was waiting to see which path I chose. "He'll go back and tell Lowell. That side will move."
"So?" My tone was cool. "If Lowell comes asking, I won't confirm anything. I didn't exchange a single word with Jason. I didn't give him any way to contact me. As far as he knows, he saw someone who looked like a woman he used to know."
Adams watched me for a moment. Then something eased in his expression — almost appreciative.
"Good." He stubbed out the cigar and stood, moving to stand beside me. He rested a hand briefly on my shoulder. "Leave it to me from here. I'll have someone keep an eye on his movements. Your job is to focus on what's in front of you."
He paused.
"There's something else. In a little while, I'm going to bring you forward — a proper public appearance, as a senior executive of the group."
I looked up at him — at the cool, assessing eyes of a man who never did anything without a calculated reason behind it — and felt something hollow open up in my chest.
What was he setting up now?
But I didn't have the energy to follow that thread tonight. I nodded, said nothing more, and waited for him to go.
---
Life at the group continued in its usual rhythm over the days that followed. The talk about me inside the company gradually died down. After Johnson was reassigned, everyone else seemed to decide that silence was the wiser policy — at least no one said anything unpleasant to my face anymore.
At the same time, word of my appointment had been spreading quietly through internal channels. The outside world knew that Charlecross Group had a new senior executive; Adams had been careful to control how much information flowed out, so most people beyond the company walls had no idea who she was.
That changed a week later.
Adams finalized a partnership with a foreign enterprise. He had me dressed for the occasion and brought me with him as a representative of the group's leadership.
The signing ceremony was held at a ballroom in a five-star hotel in the city center. It was a major deal — a new energy initiative — and the scale matched the ambition: dozens of press teams lined the red carpet on both sides, cameras raised, flashguns going off in steady pulses that lit up the whole entrance.
"Beautiful," Adams said. He was standing behind me, looking at my reflection in the mirror. "I mean it — you are the finest thing I have ever made."
He cupped my chin in his hand and pressed a kiss to my cheek.
I kept my face still and my fist closed, staring at the woman in the mirror.
"Finish getting ready. We're going."
He left. I stood there alone.
---
We arrived together, in the full glare of the press. When Adams stepped out of the car, he turned slightly and offered me his arm.
I hesitated for just a moment. Then I placed my hand in the crook of his elbow and walked with him onto the red carpet.
The flashguns came all at once — a wall of light and the rapid-fire sound of shutters, like a sudden downpour. I squinted instinctively against the brightness, but I felt his arm tighten almost imperceptibly against my hand, reminding me where I was and what I was doing here. I stopped myself from lowering my head. I kept the appropriate smile in place and walked with him through that sea of light.
Then someone recognized me.
A few sharply-drawn breaths rippled through the press line, followed by the low rush of voices spreading outward like rings on water.
"Who is that?"
"The woman with Charles Cross — has anyone seen her before?"
"Wait — she looks familiar..."
The sounds reached me from both sides, carrying surprise, curiosity, speculation. I let them pass. Everything tonight had been staged by Adams down to the last detail; whatever happened, he had already accounted for it. It wasn't mine to manage.
The signing ceremony went smoothly. Adams took the stage, signed his name, shook hands with the representative from the other company. The flashguns flared again across the room.
I stood near the front of the audience and watched him — composed and unhurried under the stage lights, utterly at home in front of a room full of people. I knew, with complete clarity, that whatever came after tonight would be different from everything that had come before.
The thought of it sat in my chest like a fist slowly tightening.
I barely heard a word of his remarks. I was already somewhere else entirely — until the final lines cut through.
"And now, it is my honor to invite my adopted daughter — Alina Charlecross — to say a few words. Her contribution to making today's partnership a reality has been nothing short of extraordinary."