Semua Bab Mr. CEO, You Lost Me Too Late: Bab 61 - Bab 70

CHAPTER SIXTY ONETwo O'ClockAria's POVThe morning of the show was the calmest I had felt in weeks.Not because the nerves were gone. They were there. But underneath them was something steadier. Afeeling that had been there since Thursday morning when I stood alone in the empty venue and let the collection go.The team arrived at nine.From that point it was all just work. Dressing rooms. Looks on their rails in order. Models rotating through hair and makeup. Bisi doing final fit checks with the focus of someone who had been building to this moment for eight weeks and was not going to let a single thing through that was not correct.The seventh look had a seam pulling slightly at the hip.It should not have been possible. Nothing had changed since the last fitting. But bodies are not dress forms. They move and shift and do what they want.Bisi looked at it for thirty seconds.Fixed it in four minutes.The model looked in the mirror afterward."Done," she said."Done," Bisi agreed, a

CHAPTER SIXTY THREEThe Week AfterAria's POVI did what Dr. Mensah told me to do.I rested.Monday and Tuesday I stayed home. Slept past seven for the first time in months. Sat in the south facing study in the morning light and drew things that had nothing to do with the collection. Let the house hold me the way it was learning to.The reviews came in on Monday morning.Alex brought his phone to me in the study without saying anything. Set it on the desk beside me and went back downstairs. Let me read them alone.They were good.Not every single one. Nothing worth doing gets unanimous response. Two had reservations I could respect even if I disagreed. But the ones that mattered were the kind that shift things. The kind that change the temperature of a career.One of them used the phrase earned clarity.The same words Adeyemi had used in his article before the show.I read that twice. Put the phone down. Looked out the study window at the tree.Earned clarity.I thought about everythi

CHAPTER SIXTY FIVEThe WitnessAlex's POVThe clinic witness took the stand on Tuesday morning.Her name was Dr. Adaora Mensah Cole. Not the same Dr. Mensah who saw Aria. A different one entirely. She had worked at the fertility clinic for eleven years before resigning. She had been the one who processed the falsified results.She had not known they were falsified at the time.That was what she said first, quietly and clearly, before the prosecution had asked her anything. The judge let it stand.Alex sat in the gallery beside Clara and watched her take the oath and settle in the witness chair and fold her hands in her lap with the particular composure of someone who had been carrying something heavy for a long time and had finally put it down.The prosecution took her through it methodically.The results that had come through the internal system already amended. The payment trail that had appeared weeks later when she was reviewing billing discrepancies. The name attached to the acco

CHAPTER SIXTY SEVENThe StandAlex's POVMargaret took the stand on Friday.The defense had not been required to call her. She had insisted. David had told Alex this the night before, quietly, over the phone, in the tone he used when information was significant and he wanted to make sure it landed properly."She wants to speak," David had said. "Her counsel advised against it. She overruled them."Alex had not been surprised.His mother had never in her life allowed a room to reach a conclusion about her without her participation.She walked to the stand the way she walked into every room. Upright. Deliberate. The particular pace of a woman who had decided long ago that how you entered a space was half of what the space thought of you.She took the oath.She sat.And for the first time since the trial began she looked directly at Alex.He held her gaze.He did not look away and he did not give her anything to read in his expression. Just held it. The way his father had taught him to h

CHAPTER SIXTY NINEClosingAlex's POVMonday was closing arguments.The defense went first.They had built their case carefully over ten days and they delivered the closing the same way. Methodical. Measured. They spoke about a mother's love and the complexity of family and the distance between intention and consequence. They asked the jury to consider what Margaret had believed she was doing rather than what she had done.Alex sat through it.It was competent. He could see that. The defense had done what a defense was supposed to do with the material it had.The material was not strong.Ms. Afolabi stood for the prosecution closing at eleven fifteen.She did not raise her voice once.She went through the evidence the way you go through something that does not need emphasis to be devastating. The falsified clinic results. The payment trail. The financial crimes. The editorial interference. The private arrangement placed in a marriage contract without the knowledge of either party bein