Novel-novel oleh White Heart

AURELIOI crossed the room with a scowl already arranged on my face and pulled the door open, and Troy stood on the other side.His eyes moved over me once, unhurried, and then dropped, then a small side reached his face.I followed his gaze.The stain on the front of my trousers was not subtle, I realised a breath and looked back up.Troy pressed his lips together, and returned his eyes to my face, the effort he was putting into not laughing was genuinely visible."What," I said flatly."Dinner," he said."Not interested." I moved to close the door.His hand caught it. "I wouldn't have knocked if it was just dinner, Aurelio. Simone Enrique wants to meet tonight” he announced, gauging my facial reaction, when I didn't try to close the door he smiled and relaxed.“I knew you'd…”“Troy, I've got things to do, so what exactly does he want?” I asked already frustrated with him.“Apparently, he heard you were in Paris and reached out an hour ago." He held my gaze. "It's good timing, you'r

AURELIO “Stay out of my business, Troy,” I said when I finally snapped out of my silence, as I leaned back into the leather chair, he was acting like some fucking moral compass when we both knew he was no saint.“I didn’t fly all the way here for a lecture. I came to take over the company, have some fun, and go back home.”He rubbed his temples like I was giving him a migraine. “I’m only looking out for you and Camille, man.”I laughed bitterly. “Looking out for me? Please, you’re not a saint either, so stop sounding like one, Emilia was seventeen when you started fucking her all over those university halls and classrooms, you’re still together, and nobody’s hurt and we both know you're never going to be anything more than the player you are.”Troy’s jaw tightened. “Those are different scenarios, Aurelio, I wasn't eighteen years older than Emilia, and sure as hell not married.”“Fuck off,” I snapped, standing up.He sighed heavily. “I’m only trying to look out for you.” I paused at t

AURELIOThe door had barely closed before Troy turned around.I had seen that look on his face before, across boardroom tables and late night conversations and every crisis we had navigated together over fifteen years, but I had never seen all three of those expressions arrive at the same time. Disbelief, surprise and shock, sitting on his face simultaneously like he couldn't decide which one to lead with."Who is that girl outside again," he said."Her name is Camille," I said."Stop messing with me, Aurelio." He pointed at the door. "You know what I'm asking.""I'm not messing with you. Her name is Camille, that's what you asked.""Who is she to you."I looked at him steadily. "She's my woman."The room went quiet.Troy looked at me.I looked back.The silence stretched long enough that I pulled back the chair across from his desk and sat down, and still he said nothing, just stood there looking at me with that triple expression slowly solidifying into something I couldn't fully r

CAMILLECharles de Gaulle was everything I remembered and nothing like I expected.I had been to Paris once as a child, young enough that most of it lived in my memory as impressions more than details, the smell of something sweet near a market, the colour of a bridge, my mother's hand in mine on a crowded street. I had wanted to come back for years and had never found the reason or the right moment.The right moment had apparently been a Tuesday morning over breakfast in Aurelio's dining room.I pressed my face closer to the window as we descended and watched the city arrange itself below us, grey and gold in the afternoon light, the Seine cutting through it like something deliberate, and I felt that familiar feeling of excitement of waiting for something for a long time and finally having it.Aurelio was watching me from across the cabin."Put this on before we land," he said, and held out a face mask.I took it. "Why?""Reporters," he said simply. "Charles de Gaulle attracts them

AURELIOI woke up before she did.I was a light sleeper by habit, had been since my early thirties when the weight of running a company had trained me to wake at the smallest sound, but somewhere between the soup and her hand in my hair I had gone under completely and slept the kind of sleep that doesn't care what time it is.I lay still for a moment, orienting myself.The room was grey with early morning light, quiet except for the sound of her breathing, and Camille was pressed against my side with her face turned into my shoulder and one hand flat against my chest, completely and entirely asleep.I looked at her.I thought about yesterday, about how it had started, the dinner and the argument in this room and her face when she had said *I'm your mistress* with that particular steadiness that was worse than if she had shouted it. I thought about the road at two in the morning, her headlights behind my car, the fact that she had come without making me ask twice.Yesterday had starte

AURELIO"I'm sorry, Aurelio."She said it quietly, and then she moved to leave.I caught her wrist before I had fully decided to.She stopped.I stood up from the edge of the bed slowly, and she turned to look at me with those eyes that were trying very hard to be neutral and not quite managing it. I could see it, the quiet sadness sitting in them, the thing she had been carrying all evening and had not once complained about.I brought my hand to her face.She went still.I traced her jaw with my thumb, slowly, just that, just my hand on her face in the quiet of the room, and I watched something in her expression shift the way it always did when I touched her gently, like she hadn't expected it and didn't know what to do with it.I kissed her.Soft and with no urgency behind it, no pull toward anything else, just my mouth on hers, asking nothing, just there.I pulled back."Stay," I said.She looked at me."Aurelio…."I kissed her again before she could finish it, slower this time, m