CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

XAVIER’S POV

By Friday of that week, my calendar had accumulated four additional engagement-related items without my active participation, a menu tasting Celeste had booked on my behalf for Saturday morning, a call with the Alderton Hall events manager that had appeared in my schedule overnight, a reminder about confirming the final guest list, and a note from Ivanna asking whether I preferred the champagne toast before or after the dinner service.

I stared at the calendar for a moment before I closed it.

My grandfather also had called twice this week. Both times I had been in the middle of meeting that couldn’t be interrupted, once a call with the legal team, the second time, a board meeting that had been rescheduled once and I couldn’t afford to disrupt. I had called back both times after I was done but my calls only reached his voicemail. I hadn’t called again after then.

I had thought what he wanted to discuss couldn’t be anything other than the planning of the engagement party, so I didn’t add too much importance to it. I told myself I would find time one of these days to go to the estate and see him, then, he can say whatever he had been calling about but office works and the constant calls from Ivanna about the ngagement preparations updates had eaten the time I had been planning to use for that.

Through the glass wall of my office, I could see the accounts floor below. A clear sightline from the tenth floor corridor window to the open-plan fourth floor, the angle steep enough that the desks were visible but faces were not, just the tops of heads and the general shape of people at their work.

But I knew which desk was hers, it had always being registered in my brain.

Second row, near the window. She had moved the small plant that had been on the corner of the desk on her first day to the windowsill beside her, where it got better light. I had noticed early but didn’t mention it to her because mentioning it would have required explaining that I had been paying attention to the placement of a plant on a desk four floors below my office, which was not a professional information I would like to offer.

I hadn’t gone to the accounts floor since Monday of the week. Not because there was nothing work-related that required it, of course there’s always an account that requires reconciliation. But mostly because of the memo that was sent on the previous week Friday. Without telling me, I know the specific emotional damages that would have caused her, even when I’m not sure if I could use those choice of words yet.

***

I went down at fifteen minutes to close of work, when the floor was thinning toward the end of the day and the remaining people were the ones with their heads down on final tasks.

She was still at her desk. The plant was on the windowsill catching the last of the afternoon light. She was reviewing something on her screen with the focused quietness of someone who had found the end-of-day pull useful rather than trying to escape it.

I walked in, all heads bent on their desk the moment they saw me, most pretending to stay focused on what they were working on, but the moment I walked pass them, I could feel them raise their heads. I don’t care anyways.

I stopped beside her desk.

She looked up. And there was this polished and entirely convincing version of hers I was originally drawn towards. Then, the professional warmth of a new employee acknowledging her CEO at the end of a working day.

“Mr. Beaumont,” she said, the honorific stressed between us like a door she had decided to close and lock from the inside.

“Still here?” I asked.

“Just finishing up,” she replied.

The way she said it made it seem as though she was occupying space she needed to vacate rather than sitting at her own desk doing her official work.

“Take your time,” I said. And then, because I needed to say something that wasn’t just a professional filler: “How are you finding the Chelton cross-reference?”

“Nearly done, sir,” she replied. “I’ll have it on Marcus’s desk first thing on Monday morning.”

“That’s good,” I said in the absence of any other words. “You’re doing well.” I patted her back gently.

I could hear gasps from others in the room, Aria herself couldn’t hide the surprise. She glanced at her shoulder and back at me in a second, looking at me with the questioning expression of a person waiting to find out if the action had been work-related, inclusuvevof the reason for the visit.

“Thank you, sir.” She said, the moment she realized herself back. “Would you like me to do something for you, sir?” Stressing more on the honorifics.

I looked at her, I understand the exact words those lips refused to say.

“Nothing,” I replied. “That will be all. All of you should have a good weekend.” I straightened my shoulder and was already walking toward the door.

“You too, sir, I heard them all chorused.

I walked back to the elevator, got in and pressed the button for the tenth floor, the elevator door closed while I stood in the mirrored interior looking at a man who had spent the last few weeks finding reasons to be in the heart of a woman while simultaneously failing to do the one thing that would have made the reason honest.

The engagement party was in three weeks.

Ivanna had the centerpieces sorted. Over two hundred people attendees had been confirmed.

Is there a way to back out? I doubt it this time.

The elevator dinged open on the tenth floor. I got out and walked straight to my office. I needed to talk to Arthur. I needed to clear my head.

This engagement of a thing have to wait.