Chapter Five

Aria’s POV 

"You don't have to do this tonight," Lucas said.

"I know."

"We can leave. Make him sweat another six months. The contracts are already —"

"Lucas." I straightened my clutch under my arm and looked at him. "I'm not doing this for the contracts."

He studied me for a moment, then nodded once and stepped aside.

The hotel had a private terrace off the east corridor, accessible through a side door most guests didn't notice. I had scoped it out before the event because I had learned in the last three years that walking into any room without an exit plan was a habit I could no longer afford. I pushed the door open and stepped out into the cool night air and waited.

He came two minutes later.

Damien Cross looked exactly like I had spent three years training myself not to think about. Tall, dark, jaw set the way it always was when he was controlling something he didn't want to show. He stopped a few feet away and the broken bond stirred in my chest immediately, dull and aching, like pressing a finger against an old scar.

I ignored it.

He opened his mouth and I held up one hand.

"I'll go first," I said. "Because I only have five minutes and I'm not spending them listening to something I didn't ask to hear."

He closed his mouth.

"Silvermoon Enterprises has acquired forty percent of your eastern development debt. We did it quietly over eight months through three separate holding companies, so your legal team won't have connected it yet. We also have letters of intent from six of your senior architects." I paused. "I'm not telling you this to threaten you. I'm telling you so we're standing on equal ground when I say what comes next."

He was very still.

"I don't want your company," I said. "I want the Cross Tower contract. The original one. The project I designed three years ago that your team has been rebuilding badly with two different firms since then. I've seen the revised plans. They're structurally compromised on the north face and eighteen months behind schedule. You know it and your board knows it."

Something shifted behind his eyes. Not surprise exactly. Recognition.

"You're offering to finish it," he said.

"I'm offering to fix it. There's a difference." I held his gaze. "Silvermoon Enterprises takes over the Cross Tower project. Full creative authority, our construction partners, our timeline. You retain ownership of the building and receive full credit on completion. No one needs to know the details of how we got there."

He was quiet for long enough that I started counting seconds in my head.

"That's a generous offer," he said carefully. "Considering."

"It's a business offer. Don't make it personal."

"You made it personal the moment you bought my debt."

"You made it personal three years ago in your office." I said it without heat. Flat and clean, like stating weather. "I'm the one who moved past it. You should try."

He exhaled slowly. His hands, I noticed, were doing the same thing they had done in his office three years ago. A slight tremble he was working to control. I remembered thinking then that it meant something — that some part of him had felt the weight of what he was doing. Now I didn't know what to do with that memory so I set it aside.

"Aria —"

"Miss Blackwood."

His jaw tightened. "Miss Blackwood. I owe you more than a business negotiation."

"You owe me nothing," I said. "And I owe you nothing. That's the only clean thing about where we stand."

He took a step forward and the bond lurched again, harder this time. I kept my expression still. He stopped, and I could see it cost him something — the restraint of not closing the distance. His wolf was in his eyes, just beneath the surface, and the sight of it made something in me want to step back and something else want to step forward and I hated both impulses equally.

"My wolf is dying," he said quietly.

"I know what a broken bond does, Mr. Cross. I lived through the other side of it."

"Then you know I don't have much time before —"

"That is not my problem." My voice stayed even. "You made a choice. Choices have weight. I'm not responsible for carrying yours."

He looked at me for a long moment.

Something moved across his face that I didn't want to examine too carefully. Not the cold arrogance from three years ago. Something rawer than that. It would have been easier if he had stayed cold. Cold I knew how to stand in front of.

"There are things you don't know," he said. "About why I made that decision. Things that were happening that you weren't aware of."

"Then they were things you should have trusted your mate enough to share."

The word landed between us like something dropped from a height. I hadn't meant to say it. Not like that, not with that particular weight. I saw it register in his face and moved on before either of us could sit in it.

"My offer is on the table until Monday. Have your legal team contact Lucas." I turned toward the door.

"She was watching us," Damien said behind me. "That day. In my office."

I stopped.

"There were cameras. Hidden ones. In my private office. I found them two weeks after you left." His voice was low. "Someone knew exactly what happened in that room. Every word."

My hand was on the door handle.

"Aria." He said my name without the correction this time and I didn't stop him. "Vanessa was the one who installed them."

The cold that moved through me had nothing to do with the night air.

I turned around slowly.

"How long have you known that?" I asked.

He held my gaze.

"Long enough to know you were never safe. And long enough to know that whatever is coming next —" He paused. "It didn't start with me rejecting you."

"Then where did it start?"

His expression did something I had never seen on Damien Cross's face before.

Fear.

"With you," he said quietly. "It started the day you were born."