Chapter 6: Her Walls Were Built for a Reason

Seraphina’s POV

I watch Aurelius’s face transform from gentle understanding to cold professionalism in the span of a heartbeat.

Of course. Business comes first. It always does.

“Scarlett.” His voice is cold, controlled, nothing like the warm tones he’d been using with me moments before. “I believe my assistant made it crystal clear that I’m in a meeting.”

Scarlett’s laugh is like champagne bubbles, sharp enough to cut glass. Her eyes sweep over me with the kind of dismissive assessment I remember from high school mean girls, cataloging and finding me wanting in the space between one breath and the next.

“Oh, this little thing?” She gestures toward me like I’m a piece of furniture she might consider moving. “I’m sure she won’t mind stepping out while we discuss the Henderson acquisition. It’s rather… time-sensitive.”

This little thing. The casual dismissal hits like a slap, but what hurts more is the way Aurelius doesn’t immediately correct her. For a moment—just a moment—he hesitates, and in that hesitation I see every broken promise, every man who chose convenience over commitment, every reason I learned to protect my heart behind walls.

Marcus hesitated too, remember? Right before he decided I wasn’t worth the effort.

“Actually,” I say, standing with the kind of practiced grace that comes from years of refusing to be diminished, “I was just leaving.”

Run, Seraphina. Run before he shows you who he really is when it matters.

But as I reach for my portfolio, my sketch falls out again. Scarlett’s predatory gaze locks onto it immediately.

“How charming,” she purrs, snatching the paper before either Aurelius or I can react. “Little doodles. Is this what passes for art these days?”

The sketch that Aurelius had held with such reverence, that he’d seen as capturing light in dark places, looks small and amateur in Scarlett’s manicured fingers. She examines it with the kind of theatrical disdain that suggests she’s performed this particular cruelty before.

“I’m sorry, that’s confidential,” I say quickly, reaching for the paper.

“Oh, but is it?” Scarlett’s smile turns predatory as she holds it just out of my reach. “This is exactly the kind of… amateur hour… that could embarrass someone in Aurelius’s position. Imagine if the press got hold of this—‘billionaire’s New Plaything: Aspiring Artist or Professional Escort?’”

The words hit so hard. Plaything. Amateur hour. Professional escort. Each phrase designed to make me feel small, worthless—exactly as disposable as Marcus had made me feel four years ago.

This is why you don’t let people in, that familiar voice in my head whispers. This is why you keep the walls up. Because the moment you show someone something real, something that matters to you, they’ll use it as a weapon.

I watch Aurelius, waiting for him to defend me, to tell Scarlett she’s out of line.

Wait for it. Here comes the betrayal.

But Aurelius doesn’t hesitate this time. He moves like lightning, plucking the sketch from Scarlett’s fingers with a fluid motion that suggests years of dealing with predators.

“That,” he says, his voice carrying enough ice to freeze hell, “belongs to someone worth more than your entire company’s quarterly profits.”

Someone worth more. The words wrap around my almost shattered confidence like armor, but I can’t let myself believe them. Not yet. Not when Scarlett is still here, still smiling like she knows something I don’t.

“Really, darling?” Scarlett’s voice drips with false sweetness. “Because I heard some interesting rumors about why you’re suddenly interested in… charity work.”

The pause before charity work is deliberate, loaded with a presumption that makes my skin crawl. She’s not just talking about the foundation gala, she’s talking about me. Suggesting that my presence in his life has something to do with charity.

You’re his charity case, Seraphina. His good deed for the year.

The thought hits like a knife between my ribs, sharp and precise and devastating in its cruelty. Because isn’t that exactly what this could be? The wealthy man helping the broken woman, not because she’s worth saving but because saving her makes him feel noble?

Marcus made me feel like a charity case too, remember? All those patient months, all those understanding smiles, maybe he wasn’t waiting for me to be ready. Maybe he was just enduring me until something better came along.

“The only charity here,” Aurelius says, his voice deadly quiet, “is the patience I’ve shown your incompetent company over the past six months. But since you seem determined to burn bridges, let me be crystal clear: the Henderson deal is off. Permanently.”

Scarlett’s confident mask slips for the first time since she entered the room.

“You can’t be serious. That deal is worth—”

“Nothing to me if it means doing business with people who think casual cruelty is acceptable.” He hands me back my sketch with the same reverence he’d shown it before. “Some things are worth more than money, Scarlett. You’ll understand that when you grow up.”

Some things are worth more than money. The words should make me feel triumphant, validated, chosen. Instead, they make me feel exposed and dangerous and terrified that I’m reading more into his defense than actually exists.

He’s protecting his investment, that cynical voice insists. Men like him don’t throw away business deals for women like you unless there’s something bigger at stake.

“This isn’t over, Aurelius,” Scarlett says, her façade of sophistication cracking to reveal something ugly underneath. “You have no idea what you’re giving up.”

“I know exactly what I’m giving up,” he replies, not taking his eyes off me. “The question is: do you know what you just lost?”

Scarlett leaves with the kind of dramatic exit that suggests she’s had practice storming out of rooms, but her departure doesn’t bring the relief I expected. Instead, it leaves me alone with Aurelius, and after what just happened, it feels like the most dangerous thing of all.

“Seraphina.” His voice is soft now, gentle in a way that makes me want to run even faster than Scarlett’s cruelty did. “I’m sorry you had to witness that.”

“It’s fine.” The lie tastes bitter, like ashes. “Business is business.”

“That wasn’t business.” He steps closer, and I force myself not to retreat, even though every instinct screams at me to maintain distance. “That was someone trying to hurt you to get to me, and I should have anticipated it.”

To get to me. The phrase suggests I matter, that hurting me would actually affect him.

“Why would she want to get to you?” I ask, because focusing on his problems is safer than examining my own.

His jaw tightens, and for a moment I see past the controlled exterior to something that looks like old pain, familiar regret.

“Because five years ago, I chose someone else over her. Someone who needed me more than she wanted me.”

“She’s been trying to destroy me ever since,” he continues. “My business relationships, my reputation, anything she can reach. But this is the first time she’s tried to hurt someone I—” He stops, the unfinished sentence hanging between us like a bridge I’m too afraid to cross.

Someone I what?

“I should go,” I say instead, reaching for my portfolio with hands that shake only slightly. “This morning has been a long one.”

But as I walk toward the door, sketch clutched in my trembling hand, I can feel Aurelius watching me with an intensity that suggests he knows exactly what’s at stake.

I pause at the door, hand on the handle, caught between the safety of running and the terrifying possibility of staying. Behind me, I can feel him waiting.

My phone buzzes with a text from an unknown number:

Pretty sketch, charity case. Hope you enjoyed the show. —S

The message is accompanied by a photo—me and Aurelius in his office, him kneeling in front of my chair, both of us looking vulnerable and intimate and completely unaware we were being watched. The timestamp shows it was taken through the glass walls an hour ago, during our initial conversation.

She was watching. Recording. Planning.

And now she has ammunition to destroy not just me, but possibly Aurelius’s reputation.

I turn back to face him, holding up my phone so he can see Scarlett’s message, and watch his face harden into something that looks like barely controlled fury.

“She’s not done,” I say.

“No,” he agrees, his voice carrying the kind of quiet menace that suggests Scarlett Ashford has no idea what she’s just started. “She’s not.”

But neither are we.