CHAPTER TWENTY

SELENE’s POV

I barely slept…by six in the morning I had already showered, and was sitting at the study desk with the suppressed report spread open in front of me again. There was something about returning to evidence in early morning light that stripped away the noise and left only the parts that mattered.

A third party with intimate knowledge of the subject’s movements.

I stared at that phrase until Clara knocked softly at seven-thirty and reminded me I had a breakfast meeting with the Singapore delegation at nine.

I closed the folder, locked the drawer, and got dressed.

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The restaurant was one of those quietly expensive places that didn’t need to advertise itself. No signage visible from the street, no walk-in reservations, the kind of establishment that existed purely through private knowledge and older money. Leonard had introduced me to it two years ago, and since I returned to the city, I had used it three times already for meetings I didn’t want followed by cameras.

The Singapore delegation arrived exactly on time, two senior executives and a legal representative. Professionally measured and careful with their words, the way people became after years of negotiating at high tables.

The conversation moved perfectly. Shipping terms, percentage structures, long-term clauses were discussed. Clara sat beside me taking quick notes while I handled the negotiation directly. By the time the main course arrived, both executives had shifted from cautious to cooperative. That shift always came eventually, people just needed to feel like the decision was theirs.

“We appreciate Arden Corporation’s flexibility on the timeline,” the senior executive said.

“Flexibility benefits both sides,” I replied evenly.

He smiled. “You negotiated this faster than our legal team expected.”

“Your legal team was negotiating against the wrong pressure points.” I replied dryy

A short laugh followed, Clara covered a small smile beside me.

We were finalizing the last structural detail when movement near the restaurant entrance caught my attention. I looked up without meaning to.

And every carefully constructed thought in my head went completely quiet.

Ava Bennett stood near the entrance speaking with the host, her curly dark hair shorter than I remembered, cut close around her jaw now. She wore a tan coat slightly too large for her frame and still had that same restless energy she always had. Four years, and she still looked the same and entirely different at once.

“Miss Arden?” Clara’s voice reached me from a distance.

I pulled my attention back to the table. Both executives were watching me with polite curiosity.

“Apologies,” I said calmly. “You can proceed.”

The legal representative resumed speaking. I listened, responded where necessary, kept my expression exactly how it needed to be. But my awareness had splitted into two.

Ava was now being led to a table less than fifteen feet away. She hadn’t looked in my direction yet. She was settled into her seat by the host, thanking him with a brief smile, reached for the menu with one hand while her other rested flatly against the tablecloth.

I signed the final document Clara slid toward me without looking down at it fully.

“We look forward to formalizing this,” the senior executive said as they rose from the table.

“My legal team will be in contact before Friday,” I replied, standing.

Clara gathered the documents efficiently beside me. Then the executives left and the table was quiet, I had no reason left to keep my back to the room.

I reached for my coffee cup. Ava was reading the menu, her brow pulled together slightly, the way it always did when she found something on a menu she couldn’t pronounce and refused to admit it. A private joke that belonged to a version of my life I had buried in a locked drawer alongside suppressed investigation reports.

“Should I arrange the car?” Clara asked quietly beside me.

“In a moment.” I answered.

Clara glanced briefly across the room before looking back at her tablet without comment, while I set the coffee cup down carefully.

Ava looked up from the menu then, not toward me specifically, just scanning the room the way people did when they were waiting for someone. Her gaze moved across the tables slowly.

Then it passed over me and continued, no flicker of recognition. Of course, I presumed that already. Four years of deliberate transformation meant exactly this…the person who once knew me better than anyone could look directly at me and see a stranger. I had understood that intellectually since the surgeries.

I stood from the table and straightened my jacket.

“Miss Arden.” A voice came from my left before I could move.

I turned, the restaurant manager approached with a polite smile, holding a small folded card. “This was left at the front for you.”

I took it calmly, my name was written across the front in a handwriting I didn’t recognize. I opened it as the manager stepped away.

She’s been asking questions about the accident for four years. She got too close to a discovery three months after the accident and someone had made sure she left the country quietly.

There was no signature.

I folded the card once and slipped it inside my jacket pocket. I looked toward Ava again, she was still reading the menu. I turned away before my emotions took control of me.

“The car,” I said to Clara quietly.

“Ready downstairs.”

I picked up my bag and walked toward the exit at a measured pace. I did not look back at Ava’s table.

The morning air outside was cool and sharp when I stepped out. Marcus held the car door open, while I got in. Clara followed swiftly and closed the door after her.

The car pulled into traffic, I sat with both hands resting on my lap and said nothing for a long moment.

Someone had made Ava leave the country three months after my accident because she got too close. And now she was back, sitting inside a restaurant fifteen feet from the woman she had spent four years quietly searching for, ordering from a menu she couldn’t pronounce, completely unaware that her search had just ended. She just didn’t know it yet.

I stared at the back of the seat ahead of me. The unknown caller last night, the suppressed report, the flowers, the bracelet, and now Ava. Too many things converging at once was never coincidence, someone was definitely moving pieces and the board was getting crowded.

“Miss Arden,” Clara called beside me. “You have the Arden Corporation board review at eleven.”

“I know.”

There was a pause. “Are you alright?”

I turned toward her slightly. Clara rarely asked such question. She was precise, professional and excellent at reading rooms…and she had clearly read this one.

“I’m fine,” I said evenly.

She nodded once and returned to her tablet.

I looked ahead again as the car moved through the city.

Ava Bennett was back, and whoever had forced her out of the country nearly four years ago had just made a significant miscalculation. Because Ava was the most loyal and relentless person I had ever known. Whatever she sets her mind on, she always get it.

And someone had made the mistake of giving her a reason to.