All Chapters of SHE WAS NEVER HIS MISTRESS : Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

ARIA'S POVThe ring’s rock caught the light from the streetlamps on the drive home.I kept looking at it. Not obsessively but because it was new. I was still getting used to it. After a long while of not having anything worn on that finger deliberately as it reminded me of things I did not want to remember. I was still trying to take it in, making sure it was really there.The pear-cut stone sat on a simple band, resting on my finger with a strange sense of belonging, as though it had always known where it was meant to be.”The gala was still familiar in my chest. The sales we made, Vincent's face,the room full of people who had stood in front of my work.I was quiet on the drive home.Dominic didn't try to fill it. He sat beside me in the back seat and let me have my space while Marcus drove. We got inside at midnight.He hung his jacket, I set my bag down, sat on the couch and looked at the ring again.Dominic sat beside me."Talk to me, honey," he said. I think he sensed it. It wa

ISABELLA'S POVThe apartment was beautiful in a way that felt like an accusation when you were alone in it.I'd chosen everything in it carefully. The furniture, the art on the walls, the shade of the curtains that caught afternoon light and made the whole room look like something worth photographing. I'd built this space the way I built most things, with taste, intention and the understanding that the right environment shaped the right life.But tonight, it just felt empty.I set my bag down, changed out of my clothes and poured wine even when I knew I wouldn't drink it. I stood in the middle of the living room in silence and felt the day settle over me. Dominic's face across his desk this morning. The control in it and the warning underneath it. I sat on the couch.My mind drifted to him at twenty eight.Before the money had fully landed and before the confidence became the permanent outer layer it was now. There had been a version of Dominic Ashford that existed before all of this,

ARIA'S POVI arrived ten minutes early to lunch.The window table was open so I took it, ordered water and looked at the menu I didn't need as I already knew what I was having. I'd been looking forward to this all week since she sent the message. Isabella was the kind of company that required actual presence, the kind of woman who engaged with what you said rather than waiting for her turn to speak. I didn't have many people like that.She arrived, we ordered, and I talked about the gala, the sales, Clara's excitement, the look on Vincent's face when we sold the fifth piece.I talked with my hands the way I always did when something mattered. I was happy and I didn't have to be careful about it.Then Isabella put her fork down. She needed to tell me something about Dominic.Something shifted in the air. Not dramatically. Just a small, perceptible change in the quality of the room.I put my fork down too. I kept my hands still and my face where it was and listened.She told me first ab

JORDAN'S POVI'd had the feeling for weeks.Not a specific feeling. Not that I could point or name it. More like the low grade awareness you got when something in a room was slightly off and you couldn't locate the source but you kept looking anyway.It had started at the girls' day out. Isabella's face when Aria talked about Dominic. The smile that was the right shape but doing something complicated underneath it. I kept it at the back of my mind. Then the text from Aria the night of the gala. He's everything, Jordan.That “everything” bothered me.Perfect is not a word that applied to people who were actually real. Real people were specific. They had things that were good, things that needed work, histories that were complicated and patterns that repeated. Nobody who was real was everything. Everything was what you said about someone when you hadn't found the edges yet or when you'd found them and chosen not to look directly.Ryan was clearing the dinner plates when I said it."So

ARIA'S POVI cleaned the apartment before he arrived.I realized I was doing it halfway through wiping down the kitchen counter. The cloth moved slowly over a surface that was already clean. I stopped, put the cloth down, and stood there for a moment.This is not about comfort.This is not something you clean your way through.I left the rest of it, sat on the couch and waited.He arrived at seven exactly, punctual as always. I opened the door and saw him with a bottle of wine in his hand. A specific bottle—a Willamette Valley Pinot I had mentioned once, in passing, three months ago. It was kind of a small detail most people would forget, but he remembered. He always remembered the little things." Hey honey, I brought this,” He said, slightly raising the bottle. “I remembered," he smiled, that had been one of the first things I noticed about him.I took the bottle, set it on the counter and didn't open it.He came inside, and I heard him pause behind me. He noticed right away that som