جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 40

CELESTE'S POV "Get out," Damien said. Adrian didn't move. "Damien…" "I wasn't talking to you either, Celeste." He kept his voice very low. "Adrian. Get out of my house." "This is your office, not your house." Adrian said."Don't correct me right now." Damian quickly repliedAdrian quickly looked at me once. I didn't bother looking back."I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have said it in front of her. I shouldn't have said it at all." "You said it," Damien said. "Now leave." He ordered "Damien, don't do this in front of her." "I'm not asking twice." Damien backed.Adrian left. I listened to his footsteps down the corridor, the elevator open and close, and then it was just the two of us and the sound of Damien breathing through his nose. "Damien." I called"Don't." "I didn't do anything." I replied"I know that." He said it coldly. "That's not what I'm angry about." "Then what are you angry about." "That he's been feeding you dinner for two weeks and I found out by walking

CELESTE'S POV "Celeste. Pick up. Pick up, pick up, pick up." My phone buzzed against the nightstand. Nadia's name, third time in a row. Six in the morning, grey outside the curtains. "Nadia, it's six in the morning." "Have you looked at your phone." "I'm looking at my phone right now. I'm talking to you on it." "Not the call. The internet. Open something. Anything." "What's going on." "Just open it." I sat up. Damien's side of the bed was empty, the sheets already cool. "Nadia, you're scaring me." "Good. You should be. Open your phone." I opened it. Four seconds to find. A gossip site's front page, a dozen reposts under it, my name sitting in a headline next to a word I never expected to see beside it. Me and Adrian on the office steps. His hand on my shoulder. My head tipped toward his. Both of us laughing. The noodle bag between us cropped clean out of frame, so it just looked like two people standing very close in the dark with nowhere to be. "That's not what it look

CELESTE'S POV"Sir, this way, quickly."Security moved us before the glass doors finished swinging shut, a hand at my back, another at Damien's shoulder. The noise from the street dulled to a murmur behind us, still audible through the marble lobby."Damien—""Not here.""You froze out there.""I said not here, Celeste."The hotel manager crossed the lobby toward us, tall, grey suit, headset still hooked over one ear, his face arranged into the particular calm of a man who'd already decided something."Mr. Chen. A word, if I could.""Not now.""It's about the room reserved for the press debrief. Given the footage claims, the board's asking whether—""Whether what.""Whether it's appropriate for Mrs. Chen to be present for the internal call. Given the nature of the allegations.""You mean whether I did it," I said. "You can just ask me. I'm standing right here."The manager's eyes flicked to me and away again, back to Damien, like I hadn't spoken at all."Mr. Chen, I only meant—""Look

VIVIENNE'S POV"Chen Industries archive request. Line two." I said "That's me.""Name on the account?""Not important. I'm paying triple your rate for discretion, so let's skip that part."A pause on the other end. Then a sigh, the sound of someone deciding the money was worth the irritation."Fine. What do you need.""Everything on Damien Chen. Pre-Chen Industries. Before nineteen years ago. Whatever's buried, I want it dug up.""That's a big ask with no name to search off.""That's the point. There's nothing to search off. I need you to find why."Another pause, longer this time."I'll call you back."She hung up before I could say anything else.My phone rang again forty minutes later."I can get you records access," she said. "Court filings, old registries, some archived press. It's not cheap and it's not fast.""How not fast.""Days. Maybe longer, depending what's actually there to find.""Fine.""One thing. If there's a reason nineteen years of a man's life doesn't exist on pap

CHAPTER 40 CELESTE'S POV "You've been at that same page for twenty minutes." I didn't look up. "I've been at this page for seven years." Damien set two mugs down on the desk, careful not to touch the notebook. "Which page." "The one with the number that never matched anything." He pulled the second chair around to my side of the desk. "You haven't sat that close to me since the reporters," I said. "I noticed that too." "Is that why you're here. To fix the distance." "I'm here because the light was on under the door at midnight and you don't leave the light on for nothing." "Talk me through it," he said. "From the start." "There's a payment. Small, by Harrington standards. Routed through a company called Ashford Holdings that doesn't show up anywhere else in seven years of records. One payment, one appearance, gone." "Shell company." "I thought so at nineteen. I couldn't prove it. I just had a hotel ledger and a bad feeling." "What made you keep it instead of writing it