"But you're here," Bella said finally, her voice firming up. "You survived. You got coffee thrown at you by a billion-dollar demon, and you're still standing. That makes you a fucking badass in my book."
Lina managed a weak, watery smile. "It just makes me feel like a loser."
"Well, you're not," Bella stated, as if it were a law of physics. "You're Lina Johnson. And you have an best friend who loves you wholeheartedly. So fuck him."
"Fuck him," Lina repeated, the words feeling good and solid in her mouth.
"Now," Bella said, slapping her thighs. "Your turn. Go wash the day off. You reek of despair and expensive coffee."
Lina laughed, a real laugh this time, and headed to the bathroom. The hot water felt like it was washing away the fear and the shame. She scrubbed her skin until it was pink, washing away the last phantom sensations of the day. When she was done, she felt raw but clean.
She stepped out, naked, reaching for the towel on the hook. Bella was already in bed, propped up on pillows, scrolling through her phone. She glanced up as Lina emerged.
And for a split second, Bella's gaze wasn't that of a best friend. It was a flicker of pure, unguarded appreciation. It traveled over Lina's body—the water sluicing down her shoulders, over the curve of her hips, the strong lines of her legs—and for a heartbeat, the look in her eyes was dark, deep, and decidedly not platonic. A flush of heat that had nothing to do with the shower crept up Lina's neck.
Bella blinked, and the look was gone, replaced by a playful smirk. She quickly looked back at her phone, a faint pink tinge on her own cheeks. "Hurry up and get dressed before you catch a cold. And don't think I didn't see you looking. My ass is still better."
Lina grinned, the moment of strange tension dissolving into their familiar, comfortable rivalry. She pulled on an old band t-shirt and a pair of cotton shorts. "Please. My ass has its own gravitational pull. It's a celestial event."
"Your ass is so big it needs its own area code," Bella shot back, laughing.
"Yours is so perfect it's boring. It's like a math equation."
"Boring? Men have written poems about this butt!"
"Bad poems, I bet. The kind that don't even rhyme."
They bickered back and forth, their laughter filling the small room, pushing the darkness of the day into the corners. It was their silly way of saying they loved each other and that they were both beautiful.
Finally, tired from laughing and from the long day, they turned off the lights and slid under the covers. The bed was small, forcing them to curl together like spoons. Bella's back was against Lina's front, her hair smelling of her own floral shampoo.
"Hey, Lina?" Bella whispered into the darkness.
"Yeah?"
"We're gonna be okay, you know?"
Lina held her best friend tighter, her safe place in the crazy world. "I know," she whispered back.
And for the first time since Daniel Viggo looked at her with his cold, empty eyes, she really, truly believed it.
- - - -
***back to the morning in Carter's office***
The door clicked shut, sealing the silence. The office felt different now - charged and stained, both by the coffee on the wall and what had just transpired. Daniel stood perfectly still for three full breaths, his back to Carter, staring at the space where Lina had been standing when he'd thrown the mug. The ceramic pieces glittered on the floor like broken promises.
That look on her face - the wide-eyed shock, the trembling lower lip - it was the same fucking look he'd seen three years ago. The same performative innocence that masked something much darker. His hands clenched at his sides, the memory hitting him like a physical blow.
Without looking at carter, he reached for his jacket, the movement economical and precise. The fine wool whispered as he slid it on, each motion controlled despite the anger simmering beneath his skin.
"Finish the Oblivion details with my assistant," he said, his voice flat, devoid of anything resembling remorse or even acknowledgment of the scene he'd just created. He didn't wait for a response. He didn't need one.
You fucking monster, Carter's mind screamed as Daniel walked away. In my own office.That was my employee. You humiliated a member of my staff in my own goddamn office. The urge to shout, to physically throw the man out, was a raw, screaming impulse in his veins. But it was immediately choked by a colder, more pragmatic reality.
Aurum Scents was successful. It was respected. But it was a minnow next to the leviathan that was Daniel Viggo's empire. The Oblivion deal wasn't just a contract; it was a golden ticket, a forty-million-dollar infusion that would elevate his company, secure jobs, please investors, and cement his own legacy. All of that, balanced against the dignity of one junior perfumery scout. The math was ugly, but it was brutally simple. He could replace Lina Johnson. He could not replace this opportunity. The anger curdled, then settled into a heavy, shameful acceptance in the pit of his stomach. Why would he, why should he, torch everything for her? Daniel didn't like her. That was reason enough. She was expendable. The deal was not.
As if summoned by his grim resignation, the office door opened again. John, Daniel's impeccably dressed and unnervingly calm assistant, stepped inside, a tablet in his hand. His eyes didn't flicker to the coffee stain on the wall or the shattered cup on the floor. It was as if the evidence of the emotional nuclear blast simply didn't register on his radar.
"Mr. Hayes," Liam said, his voice a neutral, efficient monotone. "Mr. Viggo has asked me to finalize the Oblivion projections with you. Shall we begin?"
Carter nodded, the motion feeling stiff and foreign. "Yes. Of course."
- - - -
Daniel moved through the corridors of Aurum Scents not like a man who had just committed a petty act of cruelty, but like a king walking through his own castle. The air shifted around him. Conversations died as he approached, employees finding sudden, intense interest in their computer screens or the contents of their desk drawers. He was a storm front in a Tom Ford suit, and everyone instinctively sought shelter. His expression was a mask of impenetrable calm, but beneath the surface, a familiar, black anger was coiling.
The elevator ride to the underground parking garage was silent and smooth. He stood perfectly still, watching his own reflection in the polished bronze doors. But he wasn't seeing himself. He was seeing her. Lina Johnson. The look on her face. The wide-eyed, deer-in-the-headlights horror. The trembling lip. The sheer, unadulterated shock.
It wasn't the interruption. Interruptions were annoyances, dealt with swiftly and clinically. This was different. This was visceral.
It was that look. That was the trigger.
that innocent act. Standing there with coffee dripping down her front, looking so... victimized. It made his stomach twist. He knew what women who played the victim could do. The damage they could cause behind those innocent eyes.
The elevator doors opened to the private underground garage. His footsteps echoed like gunshots in the concrete space, each step precise, measured. He walked to where his car waited, a beast sleeping in the shadows.
The Rolls-Royce Black Badge Ghost waited like a panther - all sleek, dark menace. The matte black finish seemed to absorb what little light there was, creating a void of absolute darkness on four wheels. It was profoundly intimidating, a physical manifestation of his own disdain for the world. The suicide door opened without a sound, a whisper of engineering perfection.
He slid into the driver's seat, the door sighing shut behind him, sealing him in a tomb of perfect quiet. the world went quiet. Just the smell of expensive leather and his own cold anger. He sat for a long moment, hands resting on the wheel, his knuckles white.
Why?
The question hammered against the inside of his skull. Why did that girl get under his skin so completely? Why did the sight of her naive, innocent face make him want to break things?
He remembered her from the Oblivion pitch weeks ago. She'd been nervous, her hands fluttering as she talked about capturing the soul of a memory in a bottle. It was sentimental, weak, foolish. She had looked at him with those same wide, earnest eyes, trying to connect, to find a shred of humanity in him. It had made his skin crawl then, too.
And today. That fucking look of shocked innocence. As if the world had just revealed itself to be a cruel and unjust place. The performance of it was flawless. He knew that performance. He knew it better than anyone.
A face like that—a face of pure, manufactured harmlessness—had smiled at his mother three years ago.
Lina Johnson's face was a carbon copy of that betrayal. The same wide eyes, the same artless expression, the same fucking performance of vulnerability that hid a potential for monstrousness. He didn't hate her for interrupting. He hated her for existing. For reminding him. For being a walking, breathing trigger for a pain so vast and black he could never articulate it. Humiliating her wasn't about power over her; it was about trying to shatter the mirror she represented. If he could crack that facade of innocence, maybe the memory would lose its power over him.
The anger was a living thing in the car with him, a coiling serpent of rage and grief. He couldn't go home. His penthouse was a sterile, empty gallery of his own success. The silence there would amplify this feeling, turn it in on itself until it became unbearable. He would just sit there, in the perfect, cold emptiness, and drown in it.
His hands, moving almost of their own volition, started the car. The engine purred to life, a low vibration felt more than heard. He pulled out of the space, the dark car gliding up the ramp and into the afternoon light of Eldrida.
There was only one place where the silence wasn't a judgment. Only one person whose presence didn't feel like an invasion, but like a sanctuary.
The black Rolls-Royce moved with purpose. carrying its furious, broken king toward the only place he could ever call home.
He was going to his grandmothers.