CHAPTER THREE: He Bought What I Had Left

ARIA

Three weeks after the wedding, and I still flinch at every unexpected sound.

I’m in the chair beside my father’s bed in the hospital, my own eyes half-closed, when his fingers move against mine.

I don’t trust it at first. I’ve imagined it before, the twitch that always turns out to be nothing. But this time, I am wrong. Because his eyes flick open.

“Dad.”

My voice cracks on the single word. I am on my feet immediately, both hands wrapped around his.

“Dad, can you hear me?”

His mouth moves slowly. “A…ria.”

I press his hand to my face and let the tears flow. “I’m here,” I whisper, “right here, Dad.”

It takes him a long time to ask the question I have been dreading. For a second, I wish he could forget it ever happened.

“Did he… leave you?”

I could lie. For one tempting second, I consider it. Sparing him, sparing the look I know is coming.

I can’t do it.

“He married Victoria,” I say, “the next week.”

Something breaks behind his eyes as if he suddenly remembers something. “The loan,” he manages, “I caused this. I shouldn’t have borrowed money for the wedding.”

“Dad, please stop,” I am almost crying.

“I wanted them to see you were enough. I made it worse.”

“You only did what a loving father like you would do. You mean the best for me, Dad, and I will forever cherish it,” I caressed his hand, “we will pay it.”

He doesn’t believe me. I can see it in his face, the guilt already settling in. But he’s too tired to argue, and his eyes close again, and I sit there a long time after, memorizing the sound of his breathing.

As the day passes, I realize hope is expensive. Because the hospital bills keep piling with each passing day. The bank calls twice a day. I sit at the kitchen table one night and cry until I have no tears left.

There’s only one thing left worth anything.

The house.

I know how much my father suffered to build that house. He holds it in high esteem as the first house he built with my mother’s hands beside his, back when they had nothing.

After she died, he couldn’t even bring himself to live there, as every second reminded him of her. Yet, he sees it as the only connection between him and her. Even after Sinclair Group once offered to buy it for a million dollars, he turned them down without blinking.

“We have to sell,” he says the next visit before I even brought it up.

“We will find another way.”

“There isn’t one, Aria. I’ve done the math.”

I hate to admit that he is right. It breaks my heart.

“Uncle,” he says, “my younger brother has been calling all day, but he doesn’t have that much money. We have to just sell.”

Two days later, the property agent calls. I can hear the excitement in his voice before he even gets the words out.

“I’ve found a buyer.”

“Who?”

He hesitates, “Sinclair Group.”

The floor seems to tilt under me.

“They’ve wanted that land for years,” he says, “your father refused them before, but given the circumstances now—”

“I won’t deal with them.”

I end the call before he can say anything else.

I drive to the hospital that evening and tell my father everything. He is quiet for a long moment. Then he says what will unsettle me throughout the moment.

“We don’t have a choice, Aria.” He swallow. “They’ve always needed that land, and now, they can have it.”

His fingers tighten around mine.

“The bank has issued a final demand. 48 hours.”

I nod because I can’t speak. It breaks my heart, but this is the only way out.

I choose my clothes carefully the next morning when I go back to Sinclair Group. I try hard not to think about it, but everything there reminds me of me in the wedding dress that day.

The lawyer is already waiting by the time I arrive.

“I’m Aria,” I introduce myself as if I am new, “I am here as regard the property the company indicated interest in.”

He extends his hand for a handshake. “Sure, but the CEO wants to see you.”

I am sweating on my palms suddenly. “Is there any problem?”

“Not at all. The property is one with strategic value, and he wants to see you personally.”

I swallow and follow him with a dragging foot.

Damian is already at his desk when I am let in. He looks up, for one second; something unguarded crosses his face and disappears as fast as it came.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

The question lands somewhere soft and undefended in my chest, somewhere I thought I’d sealed off three weeks ago.

“I’m here about the property,” I say quietly.

He inhales. “Sit.”

For ten minutes it’s numbers and documents, value per acre, projected development cost, the back-and-forth rhythm of two people who were once something inseparable. It’s almost like before.

Then the silence catches up to both of us at the same moment.

“Why did you come yourself?” he asks. “Not the agent.”

“My father needs the money fast.”

His jaw tightens, something flickering underneath the posture. “How bad is he?”

“He is recovering,” I say flatly.

“It must have been that bad.”

I don’t respond.

 “You know why I did what I did.”

My voice shakes now, three weeks of holding it together crashing now. “I never did, Damian. You never gave me the chance to.”

“You know exactly what you did.”

The wound splits open exactly where it never healed. I feel dizzy suddenly. I grip the desk to stay upright.

“When last did you eat?” His voice changes instantly to something that isn’t business anymore.

“I’m fine.”

“No. You’re not,” he’s already reaching for his phone. “Water. Now.”

“I don’t need.”

“Whatever happened between us,” he says, quieter, “you don’t need to collapse in my office.”

For one second, it’s him. The Damian from before the envelope, before Victoria, before any of it. Something in me that I thought I’d buried three weeks ago resurrects.

Then I picture Victoria’s hand curled around his arm, and the thought is gone as fast as it came.

Damian invites the lawyer in for the paperwork. I sign the papers with a heavy heart.

At the door, he calls my name. I turn.

“Take care of your father.”

I don’t answer. I don’t trust what would happen if I tried.

That evening, a photo arrives on my phone with no message attached to it. Damian and Victoria, leaving an event, her hand curled possessively around his arm.

I stare at it for a long time, reminding myself that I had not truly healed, no matter how steady  I tried to be in that office.

I’m still sitting with the image glowing on my screen when my phone rings.

I look at the name on the caller display, and everything in me goes still.

Victoria.