AIDEN'S POVI was neck-deep in work when Carson strode into my office, his face unreadable, but something in his eyes putting me on guard."She's back in town," he said without preamble, crossing his arms as he stood before my desk.I froze, pen poised above the signature. I didn't have to ask who he meant. "Tessa?"He nodded. "She's back. Figured you'd want to know."I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, clenched my jaw, and played cool. "Not that I care. All I want is to bring out the truth."“I can read you, Aiden. You care about her more than you admit to yourself, but I've seen the way you look at her. And now you're just gonna sit here, acting like you don't wanna see her?"They were words that stung, and he knew it. But I couldn't let myself get dragged back into that, not after everything. "What do you want from me, Carson?Carson shrugged, coolly. "I'm being serious this time. I am only telling you this because if you aren't going to take a chance with her, I am. I was only hol
CHLOE'S POV.The throb of the bar pulsed low and insistent around me, an echo of the anger simmering in my veins. I tossed off another shot, the fire sliding down my throat, doing little to dull the ache twisting in my chest. Aiden's everlasting suspicions kept me on a knife's edge while Damien … he'd tossed me to the sharks, as though I meant nothing to him. And It was all because of her.My fingers seemed to dig deeper into the glass of their own accord at just the memory of Tessa, the nails entering into the palm.She'd walked right into our lives like some kind of big-eyed fool and stolen everything I'd worked for, everything I deserved."Mind if I join you?" A low, soft voice spoke beside me. I hadn't even seen him sit, my brain was knotted up with my own anger. I looked up-my way of clearing my vision by blinking-and found a man with a gentle face, hair as dark as night, an easy smile seeming to denote he wasn't here by accident."Do what you like," I growled, turning back to my
DAMIEN'S POVI immediately knew this would be my chance to give her a lesson as my men told me she was at her parents' house, where nobody could interfere.It was the moment I pulled up to that small, outskirts-of-town house that I reached for the door handle myself, instead of waiting for anyone else to open my door.The two men rushed to me before i moved toward the house with worried looks on their faces.“What is it?” I asked them, raising my eyebrows at them.“About Tessa…” one man scratched his head. “She's no longer here. She left for the city two days ago.”I clenched my fist and shut my eyes tightly before opening them to glare at the two morons in front of me.“Why didn't you tell me sooner?” I kicked one of them in the leg and her yelped in pain.The other quickly replied, “We missed her when she left. We are so sorry, sir.”I let out a sigh. “Her parents are in, right?”“Yes, just her mother.”I entered the house with my jaw clenched and eyes cold. I drank in the tidy liv
TESSA'S POVSoft, gold morning sunlight crawled through the hotel room window and poked me from sleep. I could feel its warmth against my skin, but only barely. My mind felt knotted, as it had for some time now, from betrayal and ache. I thought I ran away from it, but it seemed to be one of those shadows I haven't yet learned how to outrun.The knock at the door brought me out from that reverie. I rose confused and peered through the peephole. Carson was standing outside the door. His face was somber, very unlike him. I opened the door to him, my voice not quite free of nervousness. "Carson? Is everything alright?"He stepped in, his face serious, but a spark danced in his eyes. "Tessa, I think you need to hear this. It's important," he said, reaching into his pocket to pull out his phone, holding it up.My brow furrowed. What could be so urgent? Carson pressed a button and a recording began to play. The voice poured out of the speaker and my heart clenched."I loved Damien for years
AIDEN'S POVThe message from Carson came in right as I was buttoning up my shirt, getting ready to head into work. I unlocked my phone, expecting yet another update on our latest investigation, but what I got stopped me dead in my tracks.An audio recording.I hit the button, and Chloe's voice crackled in over the speaker in an instant-mumbling words spewed from her tongue laced with jealous venom.‘I loved Damien for years, did all for him, all… She just took him away! And to put the cherry on top, she didn't even care. Fine, I framed her. I leaked those documents and made it seem like it was all Tessa's fault. I wanted her gone, and Damien… he helped me cover it up. He wanted her out as much as I did.’The words echoed inside my skull, each one more jagged than the last. So it was true. Chloe's jealousy, her all-screwed-up obsession with Damien, had driven her to take down Tessa's career, and Damien had been more than happy to help. They'd both manipulated everything to make her loo
TESSA'S POV“M-Mom?" My voice shook a whispered tremble. I had the phone clutched tightly to me, my nerves stretched taut. "Mom, what's wrong?"One of those endless pauses disjointed the line between us with the sounds of her shaken breaths. I almost felt the pain, the distress bleeding through the phone into my stomach, where it was somersaulting.“Tessa," she finally said, her voice scarce above a whisper, "it's. it's him. He came here.""Who? Mom, what are you talking about?"There was a moment of silence, then she drew in a shuddering breath. "Your brother."The inability to breathe in that one second was smothering. The room closed in on me, every word echoing in slow motion.“My brother?" I managed, my voice a strained whisper as I reached out and grasped the edge of the table to steady myself. "But I… I don't… he came to the house?""Yes," she said softly, fear and sadness lacing her tone. "He… he came with some men. They… they trashed the place, Tessa. He said things… horrible
AIDEN'S POVChloe sat pale-faced before me, lips parted, words apparently caught in her throat. I watched her close for anything resembling regret, a shimmer of guilt in her eyes as the recording replayed her confession. But she just stood frozen, wordless."Nothing to say, Chloe?" My voice cut through thick tension, keen and cold. "Nothing at all?”She fidgeted uncomfortably, her head low as she stared at her hands. Therein lay my answer, and that served only to fan the rising tide of anger inside me."Do you even know what you have done?" I enunciated each word, suppressing my anger. "You manipulated, you lied, and you almost destroyed somebody else's career-all for what? A man's love? A feeling of being in control?”"Aiden, I-", she began, the quake in her voice flat-lined when I sliced her off."I don't wanna hear it," I growled low, leaving no doubt as to the steel in my voice. "You framed Tessa. You knew damn well what you were doing and you did it anyway."She swallowed as her
TESSA'S POVMy hotel room was quiet when I came back, but definitely not my head. I replayed in my head over and over the drive back from my parents' house. Just couldn't get the picture of her tear-marked face out of my brain, nor the fear in her eyes. She had tried to wear a brave smile, but I knew it-the damage was done, to their house physically and to our lives emotionally.I reached instinctively for my phone, clicked it on to News, trying to get my mind off things. Immediately, one headline leaped out: Company Scandal Erupts as Chloe Under Investigation for Leaking Sensitive Documents.I scanned the details-my heart pounding in my chest. Chloe plastered on the cover of every tabloid, her face frozen somewhere between anger and humiliation. Every word in article upon article had spelled out justification over her betrayal in its own way.I leaned my head back against the chair and blew out a deep labored breath that I hadn't realized I was holding. Finally,But the farther I scr
TESSA'S POVSunlight streamed through the huge window panes of our house onto the invitations laid across the dining table. I sat with a pen in hand, writing down final guest names, while Aiden leaned against the counter sipping his coffee."We could just elope, you know," he joked, the corner of one lip tugging upwards with a mischievous smirk.I turned a mock glare his way. "After all this planning? Not in your life, Aiden GRAY. We're doing this properly."He laughed, setting his mug down as he ambled over to me. "Properly, huh? That's why you've been vetoing half my suggestions?""You wanted a firework display during the vows!" I reminded him, laughing.“And what’s wrong with that? It would’ve been epic.” He leaned down, pressing a kiss to my temple. “But fine, no fireworks. As long as you’re there, it’ll be perfect.”It was what he said that always made my heart flutter, and the words this time were not an exception. It was one of those weddings that put me into anticipation and j
AIDEN'S POVMonths melted away.Weirdly, life went on since it all came crashing down. It had been months since Damien's death, Chloe leaving the city, Tessa and me over his grave saying our goodbyes. Time didn't heal everything; that it never could. But the space it gave. to breathe, rebuild, and put pieces of our lives back into place-was something all of us had desperately needed.That, with me and Tessa, gradually slipped into rhythm, and whatever in our daily life had disappeared with time turned into the time worth living. The daily morning coffee on the balcony, the late evening lying on the couch curled up, making small talks about the future-this had become a routine thing with us. Indeed, chaos seemed to bypass us somehow, yet the shadows took one corner of my mind with the coming night.But as I watched Tessa, humming to herself and arranging flowers in the sitting room, it suddenly hit me-the ton of bricks they say are always used in such situations. I loved her; I had alw
AIDEN'S POVI did not want to come here. I had told myself that I wouldn't-that some things quite simply were not worth a second chance. But here we were. Tessa stood beside me, her hand in mine, as we walked through the cemetery toward Damien's grave. The wind was cold, a bite into my skin, but nothing compared to the chill now setting into my chest.There it lay, the newly turned soil, the headstone, and the blunt inscription stating his name: "Damien Gray." Seemed so … normal. No great sentences of poetically flowing verbiages, no flowery platitudes of an exaggerated regard. A plain, uneventful name to denote an end of the life so full of promise to me and torn by just so many things… in particular by myself.I had stopped in front of the grave, said nothing. All these emotions warred in my brain, jumbling anger, guilt, sorrow. And it wasn't just because of what happened to him. It was for everything, things that could have gone differently, which I should have done."Do you think
TESSA'S POVChloe sat up against the mountain of pillows that propped her back. Her skin was a dull white; those alert features dulled by exhaustion and pain. When her gaze locked with mine, something flickered over her face-shame, perhaps? Regret?"Tessa," she husked out, her voice husky, yet steady. "I didn't expect you to be here.”"I did," I said, stepping inside. The door clicked shut behind me, and the soft hum of machinery in the room served to fill the brief moment of silence.A minute swept by with neither of us speaking. I had absolutely no idea where to begin, while Chloe seemed to fish for the right words. Then she spoke.“I'm so sorry," Chloe said, her voice breaking. She looked down at her hands, which were twisting the hospital blanket over and over in a nervous fashion. "For everything. For what I did to you. For what I let Damien do.”Her words were like a wave, and all the anger and hurt I'd been trying to bury surfaced. I crossed my arms, my voice sharper than I mea
AIDEN'S POVIt all boiled down to me standing against cold brick outside of a hospital. The sharp night air almost nipped my skin but couldn't take away what had been brewing inside of me since the night Damien was finally gone.Dead.The word reverberated in my mind, hollow yet heavy. He had not reached the hospital. Just a few minutes later, when the ambulance had speedily gone away from the warehouse, the police confirmed that my brother was no longer alive. In the pit of my chest, a tussle between relief and guilt twisted itself into this sensation, which has made me so ill.I stared upwards, trying to make sense of the darkened sky. It was a path he'd chosen, wasn't it? He'd refused every olive branch, clung to his rage, and let it consume him. Still, a part of me couldn't help but ask: What if?The sound of footsteps pulled me from my reverie. Tessa came forward, her face ashen, eyes red-rimmed from crying. She wrapped her arms around her middle, as if holding herself to protect
AIDEN'S POVThe ropes chafing my wrists were heaved into the painfully darkened room by two of Damien's men. My rib cage was racing, pounding within me like a war drum, as my eyes coursed over every inch, scanning the space for her. The echoes of my footsteps rattled through this large, high-ceilinged area, joined by the smothering tension in the air.Then I see her.“Tessa!” screams my hoarse voice in desperation while seeing her tied around the chair, white faced, and tear streaks covering it, her arms bound behind her back, a gag over her mouth, muffling her cries while her big terrified eyes remained fixed on mine, imploring for help.It came finally with the breaking of the silence from Damien's cruel laughter. "Well, well, your Prince Charming is finally here.""Let her go, Damien," I said, shaking all over with anger mixed with fear.Damienne cocked his head to one side, his face a mockery. "And miss this little family reunion? I don't think so.”Damien started to circle me wit
TESSA'S POVThe stench of that dark room shredded through my senses. My wrists throbbed, sore where the coarse ropes had lacerated into the skin, and with each weak inhalation, it was like the final one that could break this tenuous will hanging by a thread.I was not going to back away from him, not from Damien after what he pulled on Aiden, on me, and our lives.Standing in the doorway was a mountain of a man, with a great scar running down his cheek, scraping his boots on the floor and yawning and weighing his weight on one side. He had been left to watch me; now or never was the time to try anything that came into my head.I pulled carefully, testing the looseness of the rope binding my hands, my heart racing in my chest. Hours of subtly working at this knot had finally paid off; it gave way just enough for me to slide my wrists free.I glanced over to the guard, who now had his head leaned back against the wall, his eyes shutting.Go, Tessa. Now.Summoning every last shred of cou
AIDEN'S POVThe house was creepily silent when I went in-the kind of silence that twisted my gut. Something was off because it was too still, too empty."Tessa?" I called out, dropping keys on the counter. Nobody answered.My eyes scanned around the living room, the kitchen-nothing. My chest had already tightened as I tried again, louder this time. "Tessa? Marcus? Garret?"No response.And then I saw it-her phone. It lay on the counter, cracked at the screen, looking like she had dropped it there in haste. Tessa would never leave her phone lying anywhere.Now dread set in as my heart began racing, strode toward the security room for some answers, though my gut already told me otherwise.I burst through the door into the room to find Marcus and two other guards huddled around the monitors."Where the hell is Tessa?" I growled low, an edge to my voice that could cut through glass.Marcus slowly turned to me, white as marble, and seemed to fish for his answer. "Sir… we were reviewing the
TESSA'S POVIt wasn't until we stopped before Aiden's building that the car came to rest; it was my safe refuge now turned into a sanctuary in which the fears inside my head seemed to nestle. Those were instances from two weeks ago, haunting in my mind like some unsavable storm-accusations which memory just didn't seem willing or able to rid itself of."You're home," Aiden whispered, and immediately his voice was an anchor of solace amidst my rioting thoughts.Turning back to him, I pushed a small smile. "Home," I echoed, though the word felt wrong. Was I ever again safe?Aiden climbed out first, coming around and pulling my door open. His firm hand reached inside toward me, steady and reassuringly strong. "Come on; got you.I hesitated, staring at his hand. For a moment, the hospital was safer. Out here, the world was too big, too dangerous. But I chased the fear away, telling myself Aiden would never let anything happen to me.I took his hand and he led me out of the car."Take it e