บททั้งหมดของ SHE WAS NEVER HIS MISTRESS : บทที่ 21 - บทที่ 30

DOMINIC'S POV I knew about Aria Sinclair before she ever looked up from her laptop. That's the part I don't say out loud. The part I've been arranging other things around so I don't have to look at it directly. But it's there, underneath everything. It started with Isabella. We'd been over for two years when she called me out of nowhere on a Tuesday evening, her voice carrying the energy of someone who had information and had been waiting for the right person to give it to. Isabella collected information the way other people collected art. She knew its value and knew when to spend it. "You remember Flynn Thornfield?" she said. I remembered Flynn Thornfield like an active wound. Two years ago he'd acquired a company called Bridgepoint, a logistics startup I'd spent eight months building a partnership with, using timing that was too precise to be accidental. The deal closed forty eight hours before our partnership agreement would have made the acquisition impossible. Forty eight h

FLYNN'S POV Sienna's neighbor knew her name. That's what did it. I was leaving her apartment Tuesday morning when the woman next door came out with a stroller and said, "Morning, Sienna, is Catherine keeping you up?" like it was the most natural thing in the world. Sienna laughed and said every single night and they talked for two minutes about sleep schedules while I stood in the hallway holding a bag of groceries like I nowhere urgent to be. She had a neighbor who knew her name. She had a life here. Small, new but entirely hers. The legal window had closed three weeks ago. Sienna had told people she existed. The careful architecture of timing and protection that had cost me my marriage was already obsolete. All that remained was Aria somewhere across the city believing I'd had an affair. I drove to Sarah Mendoza's office without calling ahead. I parked on the street and went in, “Hello Good day. I am here to see Saeah Mendoza." I told the receptionist. “Good day sir. Do you

ARIA'S POV I almost cancelled four times. First was at 9 AM, I woke up and remembered what I'd agreed to, and my stomach did something that had no business happening over dinner with a man I actually think I liked. I typed half a cancellation text and deleted it. Second was at Noon I thought about it again while eating lunch alone at my desk. Third was at 3 Pm. When I stood in front of my closet and suddenly the whole thing felt enormous. Not the restaurant and definitely not Dominic. Just the fact of going and getting dressed for someone. I picked up my phone, typed the message, read it back and deleted it. In the cab on the way there I had the driver's name and route memorized because I was staring at everything except my own reflection in the window. He'd picked somewhere in Northeast, a restaurant I'd walked past a hundred times. I heard the food was good but it was really sophisticated. With all the dress code anxiety and reservations held under a name that would feel stran

ARIA'S POV Elena stood in the middle of my apartment with her arms crossed and said nothing for almost two full minutes. I'd learned not to rush her silences. She looked at the canvases completely, without the social pressure to react quickly. The ugly orange and gray one above the headboard. The three newer ones leaning against the wall, still drying. The half-finished piece on the easel by the window. Finally she pointed at the newest canvas. "This one." "What about it?" "You started to smooth it out here." She indicated the upper left corner where I'd gone back in and softened an edge I'd initially left rough. "Don't." "It looked unfinished." "It looked true." She turned to look at me. "You have something to say in these. Something I see very rarely. And every time you get close to it you sand it down because it makes you uncomfortable." She said it without cruelty. Just observation. "Stop being afraid of what comes out when you stop managing it." I looked at the canvas. The

ARIA'S POV"I'm tired of restaurants," I said, and Dominic looked at me across our coffee shop table and said, "Then come to mine. I'll cook."And just like that. I accepted. Didn't think it through though. No big gesture, no making it significant. Just an open door offered like it was the most natural next thing, which maybe it was, and I said yes before I'd thought about what yes meant.I thought about it the entire cab ride over.His building was on the waterfront side of the Pearl District. Floor to ceiling glass on the outside, a doorman who nodded at Dominic by name, an elevator that opened directly into the penthouse. I knew, intellectually, that he had money. The coffee shop, the restaurants, the way he moved through the world without friction, it was all there if you were paying attention.But knowing and walking into it were different things.The elevator doors opened and I forgot what I was about to say.The penthouse was floor to ceiling windows on three sides, the whole c