CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Aria’s POV

I held myself together for the rest of the workday.

That was the thing about humiliation delivered in polished, plausibly deniable packagi, it won’t give you a clean plate to react to.

Ivanna hadn’t shouted. She simply sat down in a chair she wasn’t invited to and dismantled me with the kind of precision that left no visible damage on the surface.

Aah! I just wish she had shouted and made a scene. I would have shown her a bit of my younger self then.

“Hahaha… what would you have done?” My thoughts queried.

Nothing… absolutely nothing… but still.

I sent the Harrington discrepancy report to Marcus at exactly four twenty-eight.

Then I collected my bag, said a brief goodnight to Priya, who looked at me with the warmth of someone who had heard everything and was choosing not to be the one to bring it up.

I casted her a melancholy look. “What is wrong with this one.”

I took the elevator down without stopping.

***

Bryan was already home when I arrived.

He was back from Arthur’s since midday, already in his pajamas despite it being six in the evening.

He was on the living room floor with his building blocks, constructing an ambitious project, at least to him.

He looked up immediately I entered, his bright face filled with happiness of a child whom his parent’s arrival was still the best part of the day.

“Mom. Look.” He pointed at the structure. “It’s the Beaumont estate.”

I set my bag down and looked at it, a sprawling, asymmetric arrangement of blocks that bore no architectural resemblance to anything I had seen at the estate

The boy will not kill me with laughter.

“Oh my!” I said, “it’s so good, baby. Exactly like the Beaumont estate.”

He studied my face, putting enough attention to let me know he knows my face and the words didn’t carry the same meaning.

“Are you sad?” he asked.

I looked at him for a moment, at the frank, uncomplicated accuracy of him. He’s just five years old but his level of reasoning is on the high side. I respect that a lot.

“Someone was unkind to me today,” I said.

His little brows pulled together.

“Who dare act unkind to my mother. Tell me, Mom.”

He stumped his little feet.

I almost laughed.

I had learned early that Bryan responded better to honesty than to managed versions of things, and that children who were told the truth developed a better compass for it than those who were protected from it entirely.

“What did they say?”

“Well! They reminded me, in front of other people, that I used to have a less important job than I have now,” I said. “To make me feel small.”

Bryan frowned. “That’s mean.”

“It is,” I said.

“Did it work?”

I looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“Did they make you feel small?” he asked.

I sat down on the floor beside him and thought about the question honestly for a moment, then I looked at him.

“For a little while,” I admitted.

He reached out and held my hand in his tiny own.

“You shouldn’t, Mom,” he said. “Next time, you tell them ‘I deserve my worth.’ Because you deserve it.”

I looked at him. The way he said those words calmly and maturely, like he wasn’t just five years old. Tears of satisfaction pricked my eyes.

Proud mother’s moment. I know I’m raising one of the perfect gentlemen. One who won’t treat women like they worth nothing.

I put my arm around him and pulled him briefly against my side.

“When did you get so smart, my boy?” I asked.

“Ugh! Really Mom? I’ve always been smart,” he said. “You just don’t always ask me things.”

I laughed — properly, for the first time since ten-fifty-five that morning when Ivanna’s smile had sat down in Xavier’s office and made itself comfortable.

***

By eight-thirty in the evening, Bryan was already asleep.

We had had dinner, taken his bath and listened to the full architectural rationale behind the block estate over a meal he ate with the selective enthusiasm of a child who had opinions about vegetables. Bryan had always being selective about vegetables.

By the time I had tucked him in and came back to the sitting room, the evening had already moved into its quiet end-of-day shape.

I made tea I didn’t particularly want and sat on the couch with it and finally let myself think about the event of the day earlier properly.

What does she mean unexpected uses for people.

Even though she was practically right, must she say it to my face.

Tahh!

Even though!

It’s true that Xavier had known me through a contract job and had offered me a job that nobody in the building would have predicted instead. But that was because he believed I’m capable of the new position.

You don’t just look down on people because you’re at a higher social status.

She should thank her stars I’m a mom now and I respect my son. I would have given her what she deserves.

I was still sitting with those thoughts when I heard a knock came on the door.

I wasn’t expecting anyone. I put the mug down and went to the door and looked through the peephole.

Xavier Beaumont was standing in my corridor.

I stood very still for a moment, my hand on the door, processing the fact of him. He was still in his suit he wore to work today.

Why is he here?

Aah! I don’t want any problem.

What if that his lousy girlfriend traced him again.

Or I shouldn’t open the door for him?

No, that’s too harsh, he may sack me tomorrow and I can’t afford that.

I opened the door reluctantly.

He looked at me for a moment under the dim evening light. “I owe you an apology,” he said. “What happened in my office today was unacceptable and I should have stop her. I’m sorry.”

Wait! Is that why he came all the way here? Just to apologize?

“You don’t need to come to my home to apologize for someone else’s behavior,” I said.

“I know I don’t need to,” he said. “But I’m here because I wanted to.”

The corridor was quiet around him. The building’s evening sounds drifted from elsewhere, he looked at me with some unguarded directness I guess he doesn’t use in formal settings.

It’s like this is becoming than just boss to employee relationship. I’m not too daft to get that, but I don’t want to complicate things. The Beaumont family has been of a great help to me, I won’t want to misuse this rare opportunity I had with such high class family.

I looked at him and thought about Bryan’s question.

Did it work? Did they make you feel small?

Then, I looked at the man standing in my corridor, genuinely apologetic for the words he didn’t say.

I know these moves.

“No,” I said quietly. Answering Bryan’s question rather than his apology. “It didn’t work.”

What? Aria!