Aria's POV
"Naomi, I'm fine. I promise. Just go back to work, okay?" I said, keeping my voice low so that the receptionist who had been throwing glances at me wouldn't overhear.
"Fine? FINE? Aria Wynter, you are not fine and we both know it. That woman has no right to….."
"Naomi," I said firmly.
She paused, and I could hear her breathing heavily on the other end.
"Go back to work. I'll call you later." I added softly.
She grumbled something under her breath before finally agreeing. I slid my phone back into my bag and exhaled slowly.
I stood in the hallway outside Ms Thompson's now-locked office and stared at the door for a moment. The polished nameplate read Head of Human Resources in bold gold letters. I almost laughed. All that preparation, all those nights rehearsing answers in front of my mirror, and it had come to this….a locked door.
I turned around and began walking toward the elevator, gripping my bag strap a little too tightly.
Don't cry. Not here. Not in Ashford Holdings.
The elevator doors slid open just as I reached them and I stepped inside, pressing the ground floor button. I caught my reflection in the mirrored walls. My lipstick was still perfect, my hair still neat. On the outside, I looked absolutely put together.
But on the inside, I felt like a deflated balloon. This was supposed to change everything. The elevator hummed as it descended. I closed my eyes briefly.
Mom's coffee shop. Dad's smile when he doesn't have to worry about bills. Naomi is not coming around smelling like roasted coffee beans after a twelve-hour shift.
I opened my eyes. I wasn't done yet.
The elevator doors slid open at the ground floor, and I stepped out into the grand lobby. The marble floors gleamed, and the air smelled faintly of expensive cologne and ambition. People in tailored suits moved purposefully in every direction, each of them looking like they belonged here.
I was almost at the exit when I heard it.
A commotion near the main entrance.
Two men in dark suits were walking briskly, clearing a path through the lobby as people parted instinctively. And in the centre of it all, walking with the kind of quiet authority that didn't need to announce itself, was Clark Ashford.
Up close! Like, really up close this time. He was something else entirely.
His jaw was sharp, his posture impeccable, and those ice-blue eyes were currently fixed on something on his phone screen. He was taller than I expected. Broader. There was something almost cold about the way he moved, as the air around him obeyed him.
I told myself to keep walking.
My feet….., apparently, had other plans.
I walked right into him.
My bag slipped off my shoulder, its contents spilling dramatically onto the pristine marble floor. My folder of documents, my pen, my lip gloss, my little emergency snack bar that Naomi had shoved in this morning — all of it scattered at the feet of Clark Ashford.
Of all the people in this building.
"I….I'm so sorry" I breathed, dropping to my knees immediately to gather my things.
There was a brief, loaded silence.
Then one of his bodyguards stepped forward. "Watch where you're…."
"It's fine." Clark's voice cut through, deep and even.
I looked up and found those ice-blue eyes looking directly at me. Not with irritation. Not with amusement either. Just...looking. Like he was trying to place something he couldn't quite name.
I quickly looked away and gathered the last of my things, stuffing them back into my bag as I stood up.
"Sorry", I said again, quieter this time, before moving to step around him.
"You were here for the interview." It wasn't a question.
I stopped. I turned back slowly. "Excuse me?"
He was still watching me with that same unreadable expression. "The secretary position. You were one of the candidates."
I blinked. Had he noticed me outside earlier? Or did the receptionist report every single applicant to him?
"I was," I said carefully. "But apparently punctuality is a matter of life and death here, so." I stopped myself, pressing my lips together. Aria. This is Clark Ashford. "It didn't work out." I finished more calmly.
Something shifted in his expression; so briefly I almost missed it.
"Come with me to my office. Now!" he said. Then he looked back down at his phone, the conversation apparently over.
I stood there for a second, blinking. "I…pardon?"
But he was already walking away, his security trailing behind him. One of the suited men turned back briefly and handed me a small card. "Present this to him when you meet him, Miss...?"
"Wynter," I said slowly. "Aria Wynter."
The man nodded once and turned to follow his employer.
I stood in the middle of the Ashford Holdings lobby, card in hand, utterly thrown.
What just happened?
I looked down at the card. It was a simple matte black card with the Ashford Holdings logo embossed in gold. No explanation. No context. Just an invitation that had been handed to me as casually as someone might hand over a pen.
I should have been thrilled. And I was…..somewhere beneath the confusion.
But as I pushed the button on the elevator and stepped into it, a warm air, a strange feeling settled in my chest.
Something I couldn't quite explain.
Like I had just stepped into something much bigger.
Meanwhile…..
Clark's POV
I didn't look up from my phone as the elevator carried me to the executive floor, but my mind was no longer on the quarterly projections on my screen.
Aria Wynter.
The name had registered the moment I saw her file in the stack of interview candidates this morning. I had made a point of learning everything about the Wynter family a long time ago. Every detail. Every weakness. Every move they made.
I had a plan. I had always had a plan. What I hadn't planned for was seeing her.
I had searched tirelessly for her but never expected her at my doorstep.
She was nothing as I expected. I had expected someone shaken by the downfall of her family's name. Someone defeated. Someone easy to manoeuvre.
Instead, she had stood in my lobby with tears threatening at the corners of her eyes, and still managed to speak back to my head of HR with a steadiness that surprised me.
Apparently, punctuality is a matter of life and death here. The edge in her voice had been quiet. Controlled. But it was there.
I slid my phone into my pocket as the elevator doors opened.
"Sir." My assistant Daniel fell into step beside me immediately. "Your meeting at two o'clock with the board has been moved to three o'clock since you have a meeting with Ms Aria."
I nodded once.
"Seeing her is important."
"It really is," I said flatly, walking into my office.
I moved to stand before the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the city. From up here, everything looked ordered. Manageable. Small.
I thought about Selene's parents and a hint of guilt pinched my chest.
If and only if she hadn't saved me….all of this wouldn't be happening.
About everything her uncle Evans had told us. About the Wynter name and what it had supposedly cost us.
I had built this plan carefully. Brick by brick. And Aria Wynter walking into that lobby today was exactly where I needed her to be.
She will sign the contract. I thought. And she will never see it coming.
I turned away from the window. Whatever I had felt standing in that lobby — that brief, inexplicable pause when she looked up at me from the floor — it meant nothing. It was irrelevant. I had a job to do.
And I always finished what I started.