Chapter 5: I Didn’t Break. I Signed Everything Away
877 Words
Aria POV
He called four times.
I know because I counted. I watched every single one light up my screen and go dark without answering. On the fifth, I flipped the phone face down and slid it to the far side of the desk. Whatever Damon needed to say could wait. I was in the middle of something.
Damien's lawyer had just moved to clause eleven when a knock came at the office door. It was one of Damien's men — broad, quiet, the kind of man who only interrupts when something is actually wrong. He leaned in and said something low near Damien's ear. I watched Damien's expression the whole time. It didn't change. It almost never did. But his jaw shifted — barely, just once — and that was enough.
“Give us the room," Damien told the lawyer.
The door clicked shut.
I set down my pen. "What happened?"
He didn't answer immediately. He looked at me the way he had been looking at me all morning — steady, careful, like he was always one thought ahead and choosing what to give me and what to hold back.
“There's something going on in the east wing," he said. "Evelyn collapsed. She's being taken to the pack infirmary." I stared at him. "Collapsed?" "The healer is with her now." He paused. "Word travels fast in a pack house. My men heard before anyone thought to manage the information."
Something cold moved through me. Not concern — I was not going to sit here and feel concern for Evelyn. It was something else. The instinct that tells you when a situation is about to get worse.
“Is she okay?" I asked. Not because I cared. Because I needed to understand what I was dealing with. "She's stable." He held my gaze. "Aria. There's more."
Sable went very quietly inside me."Of course there is," I said. My phone buzzed against the desk. I had forgotten I'd left it there. Nora. Not Damon. Nora.
I picked up before the second ring. "Hey—"
“Aria." Her voice was tight in that specific way it got when she was trying to control something. "Are you sitting down?"
“Just say it, Nora." A breath. Then — "Evelyn is pregnant. Two weeks. It's all over the east wing already. Lena — some maid over there — she can't keep anything to herself and it's spreading. Damon doesn't know how to reach you so he called Reed and Reed called—" She exhaled. "Aria. Did you hear me?" "Yeah," I said finally, but my voice sounded far away even to me.
Nora went quiet for a second before speaking again. Softer this time.
"Whatever you're thinking right now," she said carefully, "don't let this destroy you more than he already has."
I closed my eyes.
Too late for that.
I heard her.
Two weeks pregnant.
I did the math without trying to. Two weeks ago was the night of our anniversary. The night I stood holding two champagne glasses while Damon found Evelyn across the room. The night everything started.The night he chose her."Aria," Nora said quietly. "Say something."
“I'll call you back," I said. And hung up.The office was very quiet.
Damien hadn't moved. He stood with his hands in his pockets watching me process the kind of information that rearranges everything — the past three years, every conversation, every reassurance, every time Damon said she means nothing, Aria.
She meant enough to leave a mark.
I looked down at the contract on the desk. The last page. The one with the final clause — the one that dissolved my bond with Damon permanently and irrevocably. The one I had been staring at for two days unable to bring myself to sign because some stupid, stubborn part of me kept whispering what if.
What if he came back.
What if he chose me.
What if I was wrong about all of it.
I picked up the pen.
Sable didn't stop me. For the first time in days, she was completely, utterly calm.
I signed.
Clean. Fast. Final.
I set the pen down and looked up at Damien. He was watching me with that unreadable expression of his — the one that gave nothing away but missed absolutely nothing. "I want them to feel every single thing I felt that night," I said quietly. "I want Damon to watch me walk into every room on your arm and remember that he had the chance to choose me and didn't. I want Evelyn to understand that there are consequences for walking back into someone's life and burning it down." I held his gaze. "Can you help me do that?"
Damien was quiet for a moment.
Then the corner of his mouth moved. Just slightly. Just enough.
“That," he said, "is exactly what you're paying me for. My phone lit up one more time as I gathered my things.
Damon. Finally. A text instead of a call.Aria we need to talk. Please. It's important. I read it once.Then I dropped the phone in my bag, picked up my copy of the signed contract, and walked out.
He should have thought about that before he made his choice.
- Writer
