Chapter 9: The First Meeting

Aurelia's POV

Kael's assistant scheduled our meeting for Wednesday morning, ten o'clock, in a small conference room on the thirty-second floor of Blackthorne Global....neutral ground, one floor below Cassian's office and two below Kael's, close enough to be convenient, far enough to avoid an audience.

I arrived at nine fifty-five with a folder of vendor quotes I didn't need to have memorized and had memorized anyway.

He was already there when I walked in, jacket off, sleeves rolled to his forearms, a laptop open in front of him and two cups of coffee sitting on the table. One black. One with a splash of cream and no sugar.

I stopped in the doorway.

"You didn't have to do that," I said.

"It's coffee, Aurelia. Not a declaration of anything."

But he'd remembered. Cream, no sugar, the exact way I used to take it years ago, the exact way I still took it now, and neither of us said a word about what that meant.

I sat down across from him and pulled out the folder, mostly so I'd have something to do with my hands.

"The florist quote came in high," I said. "I think we can negotiate it down if we commit to two events instead of one."

"Send it to Priya. She handles vendor contracts for my division.....she'll get you a better rate than anything in that folder."

"You have someone whose entire job is negotiating flower prices?"

"I have someone whose entire job is making sure I don't overpay for anything. Flowers happen to fall under that." A trace of a smile. "You'd like her. She doesn't take excuses either."

I found myself smiling back before I caught it and put it away.

We worked through the guest list next, then the seating charts, then a disagreement about whether the keynote speaker should go before or after dinner that somehow stretched into twenty minutes neither of us seemed to be in a hurry to end. It felt, for the first time in longer than I wanted to think about, like being good at something someone actually noticed.

"You're better at this than Cassian gives you credit for," Kael said, closing his laptop as we finished. "He mentioned you'd been doing the gala planning for years. He said it like it was a footnote."

"It's not exactly the kind of thing that gets announced at board meetings."

"It should be." He said it simply, no flattery in it, which somehow made it land harder than if there had been. "You ran three events this size without a title or a budget of your own....that's not a footnote, that's a job most people would need an entire department for."

I looked down at the folder in front of me instead of at him, because I didn't trust what my face was doing.

"Cassian doesn't see it that way," I said, before I could stop myself.

"I noticed."

I looked up. "You noticed what, exactly?"

"That he introduces you like you're the woman who plans nice parties. Not like you're the reason half of what this family presents to the world actually works." He wasn't looking at me with pity, which I would have hated, he was looking at me like he was simply stating something true and slightly overdue. "That's not a compliment I'm handing you, Aurelia. It's just a fact I noticed."

Something in my chest ached at that, sharp and unexpected....not because it hurt to hear.

Because it had been so long since anyone had said something true about me and meant nothing by it except the truth itself.

*****

We'd moved on to the seating chart for the head table when there was a knock, and the door opened before either of us answered.

Bianca stepped in, a leather folder tucked under one arm, a bright smile already in place.

"Sorry to interrupt," she said, not sounding sorry at all. "I heard you two were working on the gala together, and I had some thoughts on the theme. I hope you don't mind."

She sat down before either of us invited her to, opening her folder, spreading out mood boards like she'd been part of this project from the beginning.

"I was thinking something more classic," she said, sliding a printout toward Kael instead of me. "Aurelia's ideas are lovely, of course, but they can be a little....safe. This is a big year for the company.....we should make a statement."

"The vendor contracts are already signed based on the current theme," I said evenly. "Changing it now would mean renegotiating with three separate vendors, on a timeline that doesn't leave room for it."

"I'm sure Kael's team could push through the changes if it mattered enough." Bianca smiled at him, warm and easy, the kind of smile that assumed it would work. "Wouldn't they?"

Kael closed the folder she'd pushed toward him without looking at it again.

"The current plan is good," he said. "Aurelia's already done the work. There's no reason to redo it."

Bianca's smile faltered, just slightly, before smoothing back into place. "Of course, I just wanted to help."

"I appreciate that," I said, because it was the polite thing to say, even though we both knew it wasn't true.

She gathered her folder and stood, pausing at the door. "You two seem to be getting along well. That's good......Cassian will be relieved you're working smoothly together."

She said it lightly, like an afterthought, but her eyes lingered a beat too long on both of us before she left, the door clicking shut behind her.

The room felt smaller once she was gone.

"She does that a lot," I said quietly. "Shows up with something better, right when I've already finished the work."

"I noticed that too." Kael's jaw was tight in a way it hadn't been a few minutes ago. "You don't have to let her keep doing it."

"It's easier not to fight her on small things, she usually finds a way to make it cost more than it's worth."

"That's not the same as it being right."

I didn't have an answer for that, mostly because he was right and I didn't want him to be.

We finished the seating chart in near silence after that, the ease from earlier in the meeting cooled by Bianca's visit, though something else had settled into its place.....a kind of quiet understanding neither of us said out loud.

As I gathered my things to leave, Kael stopped me at the door.

"Aurelia."

I turned back.

"Next time she does that," he said, "let me handle it. You've been carrying this house by yourself for long enough."

I didn't know what to say to that, I didn't trust myself to say anything at all.

So I just nodded, and left, and spent the entire elevator ride down telling myself the warmth spreading through my chest was nothing more than gratitude.