Chương 6
“I should have asked you instead of telling you.”
“That’s what you think happened?”
His expression changed.
“What?”
“You think the problem was the seat?”
He opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
Good.
Because if he still thought that, there was nothing left to discuss.
“Aaron,” I said quietly, “the seat was just the moment everyone could see.”
He looked down.
“I know.”
“No.”
My voice remained calm.
“You know you embarrassed me.”
His fingers tightened around his glass.
“You don’t know what it felt like to spend years watching you slowly decide I was an inconvenience.”
The words were out.
I had not planned them.
Maybe that made them more honest.
Aaron looked like he wanted to defend himself.
I saw it happen.
The instinct.
The preparation.
Then something stopped him.
“I didn’t mean to.”
I looked at him.
“That’s the problem.”
He frowned.
“What?”
“You keep talking about what you meant.”
I leaned closer.
“You never talk about what happened.”
The waiter came by.
Neither of us ordered.
The interruption was awkward.
Normal.
Human.
The waiter walked away after a few seconds, probably sensing that this was not a conversation meant for an audience.
Aaron rubbed his forehead.
“I thought you were happy.”
The sentence surprised me.
“Happy?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you had everything.”
I stared at him.
There it was.
The belief underneath everything.
He thought comfort erased pain.
He thought money replaced attention.
“You gave me a beautiful house,” I said.
“Yes.”
“You gave me expensive things.”
“Yes.”
“But you stopped giving me yourself.”
His face changed.
Just slightly.
But enough.
Because that was the first time I saw him understand.
Not agree.
Not accept.
Understand.
Then his phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
I saw the name.
Jasmine.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Aaron rejected the call.
The action was small.
But it told me something.
He had never rejected her calls before.
“I’m not here to talk about Jasmine,” he said.
“Maybe you should.”
His jaw tightened.
“I told you.”
“I heard you.”
I looked at the phone on the table.
“You told me she was just an employee.”
“She is.”
“Then why did she ask Melissa about my access to company documents?”
His expression changed.
Only for a second.
But I saw it.
Fear.
Not anger.
Not confusion.
Fear.
“How do you know that?”
I almost laughed.
Because that was the first real answer he gave me all day.
Not a speech.
Not a defense.
A reaction.
“Why does that surprise you?”
He looked away.
“Alyssa.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“You don’t get to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Say my name like it solves everything.”
The silence between us became heavier.
Finally, Aaron whispered, “I didn’t know she was asking questions.”
“But she was.”
“Yes.”
He looked at me.
“And I should have noticed.”
That was the first time he admitted something without trying to protect himself.
It should have made me feel better.
It didn’t.
Because regret was not the same as repair.
“Did you know she had connections to investors before you hired her?” I asked.
His eyes narrowed.
“What are you talking about?”
That answer felt genuine.
For the first time, I believed he might not know everything.
I watched his face carefully.
“You really don’t know.”
He shook his head slowly.
“No.”
The restaurant suddenly felt colder.
Because if Aaron was telling the truth, then there was another possibility.
Maybe he had not chosen Jasmine because he wanted to replace me.
Maybe someone had been guiding him toward that decision.
Someone who understood exactly what he wanted to believe.
His phone buzzed again.
This time, he did not look at it.
“What is happening?” he asked.
I studied the man across from me.
The man I loved.
The man I no longer trusted.
“The question isn’t what is happening.”
I picked up my bag.
“The question is how long it has been happening.”
I stood.
“Alyssa.”
I stopped.
His voice was quieter.
“I never wanted to lose you.”
I looked back.
The old version of me would have stayed.
She would have sat down.
She would have comforted him.
She would have made his pain more important than hers.
But that woman had spent four years disappearing.
“I believe you,” I said.
Aaron looked surprised.
“Then why?”
I held his gaze.
“Because wanting something and protecting it are not the same thing.”
Then I walked away.
Outside the restaurant, my phone buzzed again.
A message from Melissa.
I opened it.
There was a photograph attached.
A meeting room.
Aaron sitting at a table.
Jasmine beside him.
And across from them was someone I recognized immediately.
Someone who had no reason to be there.
My own father’s former business partner.
The man who had once tried to buy my family’s company.
Under the photo was one sentence.
Alyssa, Jasmine was never trying to take your husband.
She was trying to take what your husband built.
I stared at the photograph until the screen dimmed.
The restaurant noise faded into the background.
A couple at the table beside me laughed about something I could not hear.
A server carried a tray of drinks past the window.
A bus stopped at the corner and released a crowd of strangers into the afternoon.
Everything looked normal.
That almost made it worse.
Because my life had just shifted again, and the world had the nerve to continue.
I called Melissa.
She answered before the second ring.
“Did you see it?”
“Yes.”
There was hesitation in her voice.
“I wasn’t sure if I should send it.”
“You did the right thing.”
“I don’t know if I did.”
I leaned against the brick wall outside the restaurant.
“Melissa, who is that man?”
She took a breath.
“His name is Victor Hale.”
I knew the name.
Everyone in my family’s business circle knew the name.
Victor had been my father’s closest partner for almost fifteen years.
May you like
Then one year, everything changed.
There had been disagreements about expansion.
