Logical enough

Ariel was looking at him now like she would love to wring his neck, but since she was always one to act with decorum in public, she went with him without a struggle.

And when the attendant tried to follow them, she smiled kindly at her and said,

“We’ll manage.”

They walked till they were out of earshot, and were concealed by a rack of suits when she turned around and yanked her arm out of his hold. 

“What the hell is wrong with you?” She whispered fiercely. 

“What the hell do you think you are doing stalking me, and acting like this in public? Have you not ruined my name enough?

It’s bad enough that I had the mistress tag when I was single. What do you think will happen if people start talking about this again now that I am married?”

Blaine watched her going on furiously, and it seemed like he was having a reality shift. 

Watching the same woman just a few years later, she looked like a completely different person from the one who was at the castle with him.

“I am not here to fight,” he said, calmly watching her. 

And she must have heard the genuineness in his voice because that immediately took the wind out of her, and she stood still, staring at him.

“Good. Now leave me alone.” She said more calmly, and was already turning around when he said.

“Why did you not tell me what happened that night? Why did you have to go through all that alone?”

She stopped, her back to him so stiff, and he knew it was all really true. 

This was f*cking true, and there in the store he fought to hide his tears.

“Did I give you any reason to not trust me?”

“Yes!” She turned around like some furious goddess, her emerald eyes dark as tar, her whole body taut, and he knew the whole store had heard her because she had screamed that word.

“How could you even ask me that?” She said more quietly now.

He was watching her in disbelief. “You did not trust me to protect you? Do you even remember how we met?”

“Of course I do,” she said angrily in his face. “I remember it every damn day and curse myself for being such a gullible fool. Of course, you would have done anything to get the clueless nerd in your bed, even buy Captain America’s damn shield to complete the hero look.”

“Ariel.” the word came out of his mouth in disbelief. Is this what she thought of him the whole time?

“Don’t call my name like that. I am Mrs Sullivan to you, or even better, chairwoman.” She was leaving again, and this time he grabbed her hand. 

He could not let her go.

“My patience is this close to breaking.” She said through her teeth, staring directly in his eyes, “Get your hands off me.’’

“Do you know why I was blind to the fact that you were nearly murdered under my own roof? Misconception,” he said in a low, urgent voice, staring in her eyes, searching for the reasonable woman, the practical one that applied logic to situations that he knew was somewhere in there. 

“I thought you were out for my money, so when you disappeared the only thing my mind could think of was that you had bailed since you got the 15% shares, and my son in your belly was the declared heir, so there was nothing to hang around for.”

He moved closer to her now as he saw the cloud of anger lifting from his eyes. 

“I believed that when the time to inherit came you would suddenly show up with our son to claim it all. There was no need for you to stay with a man who was hesitant to marry you.”

She smiled bitterly at this, “So you do admit you were hesitant to marry me.”

“That’s not the point, Ariel. You are doing the same thing now. The same thing I did that did not allow it to cross my mind for even one second, that you might have been hurt and forced to run away.”

“Have you found the person who did that?”

“What?”

“You obviously know what happened to me now. Have you found the person who did that to me?” She asked. “That’s a logical question to ask, right?” She smiled sarcastically. 

“You believed I was a gold digger, but I still think you are a proud prick who only cares about your inheritance and cannot see past your immediate surroundings.”

She wrested her hand out of his and walked away, and soon he saw her far out, exiting the glass doors with no shopping bags.

He balled his fist, frowning at the door that now stood clear. 

He could not get anywhere like this, and the police could only do so much with a cold case from two years ago where all the evidence had been wiped clean.

He could not even concentrate now till he knew what had happened to his son for sure. 

Who was the child Sullivan and Ariel were hiding? The one they brought to the hospital, the one Ophelia said was alive, and she had heard his voice just a day before.

As if on cue, his phone beeped, and when he started into the screen, it was an image from security footage. 

The image was blurry and taken from a distance, but he could clearly see Sullivan walking out of that children's hospital with a child that looked to be around Olivia’s age, in his arms. 

Blaine looked up.

His son could be alive. 

If Ariel had survived that, there was a chance that he might have too. 

He did not want to believe she had this child for Sullivan so soon. Sullivan would be flaunting him everywhere already. There was no reason why they would be hiding him.

And this was what may have given her the courage to scale down those walls that night.

Even as the housekeeper gave him the details earlier, he had been thinking about this: What could be anyone’s motivation to go down all those floors? It had to be to save their son.

He hurried out of the store, and told his guard at the door to pick any three suits he liked and charge the house.

“The police station,” he said to his chauffeur as he hurriedly got in the backseat.