บททั้งหมดของ Reborn To Break His Heart : บทที่ 31 - บทที่ 40

The office had been calm all morning, the hum of work steady. Aria had just finished reviewing her team’s latest projections when her phone buzzed. One glance at the screen made her stomach drop.NEWS ALERT: “Rumor: Aria Whitmore slept her way into Blackwood Holdings’ boardroom.”Her fingers froze above her tablet. The words burned. Slept her way into power.She scowled, a deep, cold heat settling in her chest. Her pulse quickened not from fear, but from anger. She had expected rumors, whispers, challenges but not this. Not a lie so vile it attacked her character, her credibility, her integrity.Ryan appeared beside her, catching the flash on her screen. “Aria… what the hell?”Aria didn’t answer immediately. She scrolled through the feeds, the articles, the social media posts. It was spreading fast. Editors, bloggers, and even some mainstream outlets had picked up the line. Comments flooded in some supportive, some vicious, some mocking.“This is… disgusting,” Ryan muttered, his jaw t

The office hummed with the usual late-afternoon energy, though Aria noticed the undertone of whispers growing sharper, heavier. Reports shuffled across desks, calls rang out, but her focus remained unbroken. She had survived rumors, legal threats, and corporate power plays. Today was different. Today felt… like a test.The elevator dinged, and before she could glance up from her tablet, the door opened to reveal a man she recognized immediately, Marcus Hale. His presence filled the room before he even spoke. A rival CEO known for poaching top talent, leaving companies in turmoil. And now, standing confidently in her collaboration suite, he looked like a predator sizing up prey.“Aria Whitmore,” he said smoothly, eyes scanning her like she was a rare piece of art. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”Her posture remained perfect, and professional, but her eyes narrowed. “I suppose that depends on who you asked.”Marcus chuckled softly. “Everyone in the industry talks. You’ve made quite a name

The elevator doors slid shut with a soft metallic sigh, sealing Damian and Aria inside. She shifted the files in her arms, exhaling.“This building is too tall,” she muttered. “Next time, let’s have meetings on the ground floor.”Damian chuckled. “You’re the one who insisted on coming up. Something about ‘seeing the space myself’?”“Don’t quote me.” She rolled her eyes, stepping to the far corner of the elevator.He leaned casually against the opposite wall, hands in his pockets, eyes lingering on her with that subtle, unreadable softness she had only recently learned to notice.The elevator hummed as it began its descent, smooth and normal.ThenPHOOM.A loud pop sounded overhead.The elevator jolted violently.Aria’s breath caught as the lights flickered, blinked twice… and died.Darkness swallowed them.Complete, heavy and pressing.“Damian?” she whispered.“I’m here,” he answered immediately.A faint emergency bulb flickered to life above them, dim and warm, just enough to outline

Aria executes a genius plan that humiliates Sterling publicly. Damian is visibly proud.The moment the clock hit 48 hours into her 72-hour deadline, Aria stood in front of the Blackwood Tower command room screens, her eyes sharp despite the exhaustion weighing them down. Lydia and three other analysts hovered nearby, waiting on her signal.“We’re sure?” Aria asked, scanning the final verification packet, her fingers trembling from caffeine and adrenaline. “The data reroute is clean. No traces leading back to us.”“Clean as polished steel,” Lydia confirmed. “Sterling won’t see this coming. Their entire forged trail is about to be exposed.”Aria nodded once.Good.This wasn’t just a counterattack.It was annihilation.She opened her laptop, typed the final command, and pressed EXECUTE.Lines of code flashed across the central screen. Digital pathways rerouted. The forged signature confirmation logs Sterling thought they had hidden began to copy themselves onto a secure Blackwood server.

Damian forces a dance to “protect her image.” Their bodies fit together too well. Their breathing syncs.He whispers: “You’re becoming impossible to ignore.”Aria had barely stepped back into the ballroom when the room sharpened around her.Eyes.Dozens of them.Some curious, some whispering, a few openly gossiping her dance with Marcus had clearly not gone unnoticed. She heard fragments float through the crowd like drifting smoke.“Hale looked very comfortable”“Blackwood didn’t like that at all”“Did you see the way he stormed off? Ok”Her stomach twisted. The last thing she wanted was to be the centerpiece of tonight’s gossip cycle.She scanned the room for Damian, expecting cold distance.But what she found instead was…worse.He was standing stiffly near the orchestra, shoulders rigid, his expression carved from ice. And the moment their eyes met, something sharp flashed across his face.Aria hesitated, unsure how to navigate this new version of him.Before she could take a step,