Chapter 46 Chapter 46 The Email Aria Hartwell.

Chapter 46 Chapter 46 The Email Aria Hartwell.
Chapter 46
The Email
Aria Hartwell.

I sat at my desk at 4:43 in the afternoon when it showed up.

There was no subject line and the sender field showed a jumble of characters that wouldn't trace back to anyone. The email had One sentence in the message box and one file attached.

Cassian Kent knows the truth about how your father died.

I read that sentence three times before I clicked the attachment.

It was a photo of Cassian and Dr. Fenwick, my father's heart doctor, the man who signed the death certificate, sitting across from each other at a restaurant table. Both of them leaned inward. Nothing sat between them on the table except two glasses of water and whatever conversation they were having. The timestamp in the corner said three weeks before my father passed away.

Not after, but before.

I stared at that on my screen and let the room's quiet sink into the floor. Today was Sunday, as I was sitting in the office because I would rather not be in my mother's house until my accommodation situation was sorted out. My mind went back to Cassian.

He had told me over the phone that he found out shortly after the funeral. He had worded it carefully that he was gathering evidence, protecting me, handling the threat before it got to me. I heard him out and hung up before I could really think it through.

But this picture wasn't taken after the funeral. It was taken three weeks before my father died, and Cassian was sitting across from his cardiologist.

I closed the email and sat with that information for a while, wishing the Harrison was still alive to walk me through whatever the fuck was really happening because right now, I had run out of people to trust. And to think all these was happening because of a fucking company was what frustrated me even further. I needed to think before I took any other step.


Cassian Kent.

I had been sitting at the small desk in the hotel room, with my jacket off, going over Hartwell's quarterly numbers on my computer when the a message popped up on my phone. I opened it without checking who sent it and immediately wished I hadn't.

It was the man named Ethan Calloway in a parking garage based on the angle and the lighting. Aria frame showed from the side with her chin slightly raised, his hand on her jaw and his mouth pressed to hers.

I looked at it for a long stretch of time and felt the slow rage building up at the sight of another man having his hands around her. I wanted to break every bone of those hands and fingers, and even smash his face.

Then I looked at him. I had never met this man before, but something about his posture kept nudging at a thought I couldn't finish. The shape of his jaw... The way his shoulders were positioned.... Something specific that I couldn't identify and couldn't ignore.

I wasn't thinking as my hands flew across my laptop screen to book a flight back home.

"What are you doing?" Laila came out of the bathroom wearing the hotel robe, with a towel wrapped around her hair.

"Looking at flights."

She stopped moving and leaned in beside me to look at what I was working on. "Cassian."

"Something is going on at the company. Harrison is dead, his files are gone, and Aria is walking into an audit without any..."

"You are not leaving Paris because of Aria Hartwell." Her voice came out flat and final.

"It's not only about Aria. It's the business, it's Harrison's case, it's..."

"Stop." She sat on the edge of the mattress and looked straight at me. "We have been here for four days. Four days, Cassian. And every single day you have been on your phone, checking in, calling her office, tracking board votes from another country." Her voice stayed controlled but tight around the edges. "I agreed to this arrangement. I married you knowing what it was. But I did not agree to spend my honeymoon watching you feel guilty over a woman you can't stop thinking about."

"This is not about..."

"Then look me in the eyes and tell me that photo on your phone has nothing to do with why you're checking flights right now."

I didn't respond.

She let out a short laugh, completely cold. "You get a picture of her with someone else and within five minutes you want to fly out of the country." She stood up. "Do you understand how that looks?"

"Laila..."

"She kissed someone, Cassian. She is a grown woman who is allowed to do that." Her voice cracked a little on the last word, and she pushed through it. "You do not get to fly back to New York every time she does something that makes you feel emotions you haven't dealt with. That is not what I signed up for."

"There is a real danger to the company..."

"Then let the company handle it for three more days." She walked over to the window. "You have a team. You have lawyers. You have board members who are also capable. Three days will not make everything fall apart." She turned around. "But if you walk out of this hotel and get on a plane tonight, I need you to understand what that means. Not for our arrangement. For me personally."

"I'm sorry," I said. And I meant it, which only made it worse because I wasn't changing my mind to have Aria be in the arms of a man she didn't even know.

"I know you are." Her voice came out softer now. "That's the issue." She turned back to the window. "Book the flight. I know you're going to anyway. Just do me the favor of not pretending you're doing it for the company. Because it fucking sucks, Cassian!"

"Laila... We can just come back together and tell everyone that..."

"You can go back on your own, Cassian. I know you have the best excuses to give."

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