He knows more than he’s told you.
Aria stared at the message until the words ran together.
For a few seconds she forgot how to breathe.
The study seemed to get smaller around her.
The old photograph stayed on the desk.
Next to it was a letter from Elena.
Between them was Richard’s recorder, like evidence in a crime that no one had yet managed to name.
And Damien was standing a few feet away.
The man she’d loved for years.
The man she just divorced.
The man she was beginning to understand she had never really known.
Slowly, her eyes went up.
Is it true?
Damien didn’t say anything.
That would be fine.
Her chest constricted.
“Damien.
He looked at her.
I want you to reply to me.
Noah rose from the desk.
It was suddenly too private for anyone else to be there.
Damien stared at him.
Noah, gimme a minute.
Noah halted.
Then he nodded.
“I’ll go check the rest of the security system.”
He stepped out.
The door clicked to behind him.
There was a silence between Aria and Damien.
Not the comfortable silence of two who understood each other.
But it was not so.
It was the silence of two people on opposite sides of a truth neither was willing to confront.
Aria crossed her arms.
“”What do you know?
Damien looked at the photograph.
“Not enough.
Her face firmed.
It didnt say that in the message.
“I know,” I” You know more than you have told me,” it said.
Damien said nothing.
Aria gave a bitter laugh.
Sure.
She turned away.
“What am I surprised for?” Aria.
“No.” She raised her hand.
““Don’t.” “Don’t.” “Don’t.”
Damien stopped.
“For years, you’ve told me you didn’t know why our marriage happened.
“I didn’t.” “You told me it was an obligation.
It was.
“You said our families wanted it.” They did .
” “You said that was all there was to it.”
Damien’s lips pressed together.
“I thought that.
Aria looked back at him.
Did you think so?” “First.
Her heart sank.
First of all.
Damien ran a hand across his face.
I found something after you left the mansion,” I said.
“When?” The night after the gala.
Aria stared.
The night you gave me the divorce papers?
His silence was the answer.
Her voice lowered.
“You knew something was wrong already.”
There were inconsistencies, I knew.
“And you didn’t say anything.
”
I was trying to understand them.
You could have told me.
“I didn’t want you to be involved.”
Aria’s eyes flashed.
“Didn’t want to bring me in?
She stepped closer to him.
“I was in already, Damien.
I was your wife.
He winced.
The word sounded different this time.
Husband.
Wife.
A title that had once meant everything.
It felt like proof of how little she’d been told, after all.
“You don’t get to decide what truths I can bear.
“I know.” No you don’t.”
Her voice cracked.
“You don’t understand yet.”
Damien looked at her.
“”Then explain it to me.”
Again Aria laughed.
But this time it was without mirth.
“You want me to describe the feeling of realizing that my entire marriage might have been predicted long before I knew what marriage was?
She pointed at the paper on the desk.
“‘That I’ve inherited more than half the family fortune without knowing it?’
Her finger traced the photograph.
““That my mother may have died not as I was told?
Then to the tape recorder.
That someone made Dad vanish to keep him from telling me the truth?
Finally her eyes rested on Damien.
“And now I’m supposed to ask what you knew calmly?’
Damien said nothing.
Aria shook her head.
“Unbelievably.
She grabbed her bag.
I shall go.
Damien turned and headed toward the door.
“Not alone.”
She stopped.
I didn’t ask for permission.
“I won’t let you.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“There you go.”
“What?” The Damien Laurent I know.
He frowned.
“The man who thinks that to protect me is to control me.
“I’m trying to keep you alive.” And I’m trying to figure out why the man who promised nothing suddenly matters more than the company cares whether I walk out of a door.
His expression changed.
Don’t say that.
“Why?
”
“Because that’s not true.” Then prove it.
Damien came closer.
“I do care, because I should have cared from the first.”
The words were weighted.
Aria’s face softened for just a moment.
Then she turned her head away.
“Too late.”
Damien gulped.
He’d heard those words before.
But tonight, they ache in a different way.
He knew she meant them, so.
The woman who had waited for him to notice her for years had finally given up.
And now he was scared of what would happen when she stopped looking back.
Suddenly there was a noise in the hall.
They both spun.
Noah showed up again.
““Mr.
Laurent.
Damien straightened.
“What?”
Noah raised his phone.
“The security system saw something.”
Aria rose and walked right up to him.
“What?” Someone broke into the house before you got here.
How long before?” “Forty two minutes.
Damien’s face set hard.
Can you see them?” ““No.” Noah paused.
“But I found the access point.
where ever?
Noah turned to Aria.
Your father’s office.”
Aria frowned.
That don’t make.
If they knew Richard would leave something there, it does.
Damien narrowed his eyes.
Or if they knew we were coming after them.”
Aria glanced at the desk.
““Show me.
Noah handed the phone to Damien.
There was a recording of security.
The picture was blurred.
A figure in dark clothes came into the study.
Their face was covered.
They headed directly for Richard’s desk.
They did not look around the room.
They knew just where to go.
The stranger opened the lower drawer.
Pulled something off.
And then stopped.
Turning their heads to the camera.
The person appeared to stare directly into the lens for one second.
And then the tape was finished.
Aria’s skin crawled.
“They knew where the camera was.
Noah nodded.
Meaning they wanted us to see them.
Damien watched the footage again.
Once again.
And again.
Aria followed the figure’s movements.
There was something familiar in the way they walked.
Something done on purpose.
She couldn’t place it.
“Zoom in on the picture.
Is that possible?” Noah?
Try it.
He snatched the phone back.
Then his eyes moved to Damien.
“There’s something else.
What!” Someone tampered with the tape.”
Damien’s face dropped.
“How?” ““Somebody took a few seconds off.” “How many?” Twenty-three.
Aria squinted.
What happened in those twenty-three seconds?
“I don’t know.” “Can you get them back?
Noah hesitated.
“Maybe” Do it.
Noah nodded.
He went back to the laptop.
Aria observed him work.
Damien stood at her side.
They were silent.
After some minutes, Noah looked up.”I got something back.
He turned the screen over.
The missing footage was found.
The stranger stood beside Richard’s desk.
but this time something was visible in their hand.
A picture.
Aria leaned in.
Her breath hitched.
It was the same picture of a child.
Young Damien’s.
The one she’d discovered in her old things.
The one with Elena by his side.
The stranger laid the photo on the desk.
Then put something else up against it.
A little key.
Aria stared.
“”The key.”
Damien looked at her.
““Have you seen it before?
She nodded slowly.
“Richard showed me, I saw it years ago.
Why?
“I don’t know.”
She walked over to the desk.
Fragments of her memory came back.
An afternoon in childhood.
Her father’s study.
A little wooden box.
Richard telling her not to touch what she didn’t understand.
She had forgotten most of it.
Or maybe she had been made to forget.
Aria stopped suddenly.
““Wait.”
Damien looked at her.
What?
“I remember the box.
“What box?” My father had one.
Where?” “”I don’t know.
She shut her eyes.
Then I remembered.
The old store-room.
Damien whipped around to Noah.
Will you run through the house?”
Noah nodded.
Already doing this
Aria moved toward the hall.
Damien followed him.
She halted at the end of the corridor.
A door barred with a lock faced them.
She reached for the handle.
Locked.
Damien looked at her.
Is this it?
“I guess so.” “Have you got the key?” “No.”
Then she thought of the picture.
And the little key.
The one held in the stranger’s hand.
The one Richard had given her once.
She dipped into her bag.
Her fingers closed on something cold.
She drew it out slowly.
The key.
Damien stared.
And you had it?
I didn’t know what it was.
She put it to the lock.
It twirled.
The door swung open.
Dust hung in the air.
The room was dark and small.
Boxes, old and new, lined the walls.
Aria came in.
She knew a few of them.
Photos from childhood.
School transcripts.
Family papers.
Gifts old.
But one box was on the floor by itself.
Black.
No markings.
Her heart started to race.
She dropped to her knees.
Damien knelt beside her.
“That’s the one.
Aria opened it.
Inside a folder.
And below that, a second photograph.
She grabbed it.
Her hands started to tremble.
Elena.
Not so with young Damien.
This time she was beside Aria’s mother.
Both the women smiled.
And there was a young girl named Aria between them.
But the back had some writing upon it.
Aria flipped it over.
Her mother’s hand.
When she finds out the truth, tell her she was never abandoned.
Aria’s eyes welled up with tears.
She pursed her lips.
Damien looked at the picture.
“Your mama knew.
Apparantly…””About everything ?
” ““I don’t know.
She opened the file.
The first page was a list of financial records.
The second contained legal papers.
The third made Damien freeze completely.
It’s a document from Laurent Holdings.
There were three signatures at the bottom.
Victor Laurent.
Richard Vale
Elena Laurent.
Aria looked to Damien.
Your father signed this.
He took the paper.
His eyes flicked over the page.
What’s that?
“A transfer agreement.” “For what?”
Aria pointed.
The Valmont Trust
Damien went pale.
He continued to read.
Then his eyes fixed on a sentence.
He read it again.
“No.” Aria’s heart was pounding.
““What?”
Damien didn’t answer.
“Damien.”
He gave her the paper.
Aria looked at it.
The agreement required that control of the Valmont family trust eventually pass to a designated heir.
But they had kept the heir’s identity secret.
Aria’s eyes skimmed the page.
And then she saw the last condition.
Her blood ran cold.
“What is this?”
Damien’s voice was hardly a whisper.
I don’t know.” “You said that before.
“I really don’t.
Aria glanced at him.
There was another handwritten note in the document.
Transfer will be done for marriage arrangement completion.
She curled her fingers around the paper.
The wedding.
Damien stared at the words.
“Yes.” “So it was real planned.”
He denied it not.
Something inside Aria broke.
Not because she was in love with Damien.
It was not because he had divorced her.
But because the one thing she believed was hers alone, the choice to marry him, may never have been hers.
She glanced at Damien.
Did you know?
”No.” “Not of the trust?” “No.” “Not this agreement?” “”No.” “What did you know then?”
Damien was silent.
A change crossed Aria’s face.
And there it was, again.
That break.
That split second hesitation.
The one who told her he was holding something back.
“You know something.”
Damien looked away.
Damien.
He closed his eyes.
I found a file.
“What file?” About you.
Her heart stopped.
“’When?’ ‘That was a few weeks before the gala.”
Aria gazed at him.
The Investigation?
He nodded.
“You knew someone was checking me out.” “Yep.
And you didn’t tell me.” I had no idea who they were.
You knew enough to tell me.
“I thought it was about the company.” And now?
Damien looked at her.
“”I think it was connected to your identity now.”
Aria’s breath grew shallow.
“”What was in the file?
Damien hesitated.
Damien.” “‘Your name wasn’t meant to be in the Laurent records,’ it said.
She frowned.
What does that mean?
I don’t know.” “You keep saying that.
““Because that’s the truth.
She moved in.
Now tell me what you know.
Damien looked into her eyes.
““I know someone has got into my dad’s private files.
When?” “Before we were married.”
Aria’s eyes widened.
And?
The file only had one instruction.
What instruction?
Damien’s voice went down.
“Marry Aria Valmont.
There was silence in the room.
Aria looked at him.
The words reverberated in her head.
Marry Aria Valmont.
Not save her.
To not love her.
Not even to protect her.
Marry her.
As if she were an assignment.
It was as if Damien had been chosen for a purpose.
She took a step back.
Damien went to reach her
She walked out.
“Don’t.” Aria.
No.
Her eyes filled with anger.
You ought to have told me.”
“I was going to.” “When?” “I didn’t know how to.
You’d had years.
I understand.
You had a million chances.
I know.
And every time I asked why you married me you looked me in the eyes and made me believe that I wasn’t important.
Damien’s expression hardened.I didn’t think you were not important.Then why did you make me feel that way?’
He had no reply.
Aria looked away.
She had wanted one thing of him for years.
To know she mattered to him.
Now she knew she had always mattered.
But not for the reason she had wanted.
There was a noise outside.
A metallic click, sharp.
Damien whirled around immediately.
Noah.
Not a response.
He walked toward the door.
Aria did the same.
They walked down the hall.
Noah was out.
His laptop was open on the study desk.
On the screen appeared one recovered image.
The unknown.
But the picture had changed.
Across it had been written words.
YOU WERE NEVER MEANT TO DISCOVER THE TRUST.
Damien’s face set.
Another line formed.
BUT having said that…
The screen blinked.
And then the last message came in.
ASK DAMIEN WHAT HE DID THE NITE ELENA WENT MISSING.
Aria stopped dead.
She slowly turned toward Damien.
He didn’t move.
His face turned completely pale.
She looked at him.
“What happened that night?”
Damien did not speak.
Aria took a step forward.
Damien.”
His eyes found hers.
And for the first time since she had known him she saw something in the Ice King’s face that she had never seen before.
Guilt.
Actual guilt.
Her heart sank.
“You know.”
Damien opened his mouth.
But before he could say anything the lights went out all around the house.
The screen went dark.
Then Damien’s phone buzzed.
1 message.
From an unknown number
If Damien tells her the truth, Elena’s dead.