Aidan walked out of LUXE and kept walking to his car.
Jane fell into step beside him.
“Aidan—”
”Don’t.”
”Baby, I just want to explain —”
”Jane.” He stopped walking.
Turned to look at her.
His voice was low and tight in the way of someone who had a great deal to say and was choosing very carefully what to release and what to keep.
“You have ruined everything.
You went into a sick child’s hospital room.
That wasn’t enough, you stood in that conference room and you opened your mouth and said —” He stopped.
Pressed his jaw together.
“You called her helpless.
You said she left broke and helpless.”
”It was a joke—”
”It was not a joke.” His voice dropped even lower.
“Evelyn tore up a contract worth more than most people will see in ten lifetimes because of what you walked in and did.
Because of what you said.
Because of what… you are.” He looked at her.
“Do you understand what that deal meant for the company?
Do you have any idea what I have spent the last weeks trying to build?”
”Of course I —”
”Because it doesn’t seem like it.
It seems like you came to Milan for an entirely different reason and used my business as the excuse.”
Jane’s expression shifted.
The easy charm dropped slightly.
“And what reason would that be?” she said, arms crossed.
“You tell me.”
A pause.
“I came for my husband,” Jane said.
“Is that not allowed?”
”You came to check on something that scared you,” Aidan said.
“And you made a mess of everything in the process.”
She looked at him for a long moment.
Then she took a step toward him.
“You want to talk about making a mess?” Her voice had gone cold now.
The charm was completely gone.
“You have been in this city for weeks now and you have barely called me.
You have been going to that hospital.
You have been watching that woman —”
”Don’t.”
”— like she still means something to you.
Like you didn’t dump her at the slightest opportunity.
Like I don’t exist.
Like six years of marriage means nothing the second she walks back —”
”I said don’t want this—”
Jane’s hand came up fast.
He caught her wrist.
Not hard.
Just stopped it.
His hand around her wrist in the middle of a street in Milan with people walking past them like nothing was happening.
They looked at each other.
Her chest was rising and falling quickly.
His face was completely still.
He let her wrist go.
“Go back to wherever hotel you’ve been, Jane,” he said quietly.
Then she straightened up.
Smoothed her coat.
Put the face back on; the composed, collected, completely controlled face.
“Fine,” she said.
She walked away.
When Aidan got to his hotel, he tried calling Evelyn.
It rang out, but nothing.
He tried again.
Voicemail.
She probably blocked him, he thought.
He put the phone face down on the hotel desk and looked at it for a moment.
Then he turned back to the laptop.
The termination files had arrived.
Formal, clean, exactly what she had promised — his legal team notified, the contract nullified, the whole thing unwound in less than four hours with the efficiency of someone who had prepared for the possibility that it might come to this.
He opened the files.
He read them slowly.
The partnership would have been exceptional.
He had known it from the first time he reviewed LUXE’s numbers; the brand, the customer base, the trajectory, all of it exactly what AS Tech needed for its luxury expansion.
It would have opened markets that would have taken him three more years to crack otherwise.
It was, objectively, one of the cleanest acquisitions he had ever put together.
And Jane had walked into the room and taken it apart in under ten minutes.
He closed the files.
He leaned back in the chair.
He was not just angry about the deal.
He knew that.
He was angry because he had stood in that conference room and watched Evelyn’s face when he saw the trauma hit her.
He had recognised it in her eyes and he had known, with the sick certainty of a man finally paying attention, that he had put it there.
He had put that look on her face.
Six years ago and it was still there.
He picked up his phone.
Tried one more time.
Voicemail.
He set it down.
******
Jane went back to her hotel furious.
Her phone was in her hand.
“Tell me you have something,” she said when he answered.
Her intel’s pause said everything before the words did.
“The medical records are more protected than I anticipated.
The hospital has flagged the file for additional security — someone requested it.
It’s going to take longer.”
”How much longer.”
”A week. The source of this chapter is g.com.
Maybe more.”
”That is not acceptable.”
”Mrs.
Smith —”
”A week is not acceptable,” she said again.
Her voice was very quiet.
“I need to know if that boy’s paternal history matches what I think it matches.
I need it confirmed.
In writing.
From a source I can use.
Find another way in.
I don’t care what it costs.”
”There are legal risks if —”
”I didn’t ask about legal risks.
I asked for results.”
She hung up.
******
Evelyn put Leon to bed at eight.
Before that, he ate his dinner.
He had a bath.
He put Gerald on the pillow and pulled his blanket up and let her tuck him in without the usual negotiation about how he was too old to be tucked in even though he was six.
She turned the light off.
She was almost at the door when he said —
”Mommy.”
”Mm.”
”Why don’t you like him?”
She turned around slowly.
She could just see his face — serious, waiting, the way he looked when he had been thinking about something for a while.
“Who?” she said.
Though she already knew.
“Aidan.
The man from the lobby.” He said the name carefully.
“He’s my friend.
But you’re always cold to him.
You’re not cold to anyone else.”
Evelyn stood in the doorway.
“It’s complicated, baby.”
”Is it because he did something bad to you?”
She looked at her son.
“Grown up things are complicated,” she said.
“It’s not something you need to worry about.”
”I’m not worried,” Leon said.
“I just don’t think he’s bad.” A pause.
“And he came back to see me.
Even when you told him not to and he gave me his compass.”
Something moved through her chest at that.
“Go to sleep, baby,” she said softly.
“Okay.” He turned over.
Tucked Gerald under his chin.
“But Mummy.”
”Yes.”
”Just because someone did something bad before doesn’t mean they’re bad forever.
My teacher said that.”
She stood in the doorway for a moment.
“Your teacher is very wise,” she said.
“I know.
Goodnight.”
”Goodnight baby.”