Hate Me Closer

Chapter 6: No Going Back

Chapter 6: No Going Back

The gala was two weeks away, and the donor ledger was the key to everything.

Nadia had explained it twice: "The Ledger story hurt him, but audits clear people. What doesn't clear is a leak of the private donor ledger — names, amounts, the quiet deals. If Park publishes that, the donors run, the board panics, and Vale's reputation bleeds out in public. It's the kill shot, Aria. After this, there's no rebuilding."

Aria had nodded. She'd agreed. She'd planned it for a Friday night, when the tower would be empty.

She hadn't planned on her hands shaking as she slid the USB drive into Dorian's computer.

His office was dark, the city glittering beyond the glass. She'd waited until eleven, until the cleaning crew finished the thirty-eighth floor, until her own courage stopped negotiating. The ledger file was exactly where Nadia said it would be — Dorian was meticulous, and meticulous men were predictable.

The copy bar crawled across the screen. Forty percent. Sixty.

The elevator dinged.

Her blood turned to ice. She yanked the USB free — seventy-three percent, enough — and shoved it into her pocket as the office door opened.

Dorian stood in the doorway, jacket over his arm, phone in his hand. He stopped when he saw her. The silence stretched, thin as wire.

"Aria." His voice was very quiet. "What are you doing in my office?"

"I left my notes." The lie came out smooth, rehearsed. "The final seating chart. I thought I'd left it—"

"At midnight." He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. "In the dark. At my computer."

"It was on. I was just—"

"Don't." One word, low and sharp, and she went still. He moved closer, slowly, like he was afraid she'd bolt. "Whatever you're going to say next, don't. I've had a week of lies, Aria. Not from you. Not tonight."

Her back hit the edge of his desk. There was nowhere left to go, and suddenly she wasn't sure she wanted to.

"What do you want from me?" she whispered.

"The truth." He was close now — close enough that she could see the exhaustion in his face, the shadows under his eyes that hadn't been there a month ago. "Just once. Who are you when you're not performing?"

I am the woman who's going to destroy you, she thought. I am the girl who cried in your elevator seven years ago.

What she said was: "You don't want to know."

"Try me."

And then his mouth was on hers.

It wasn't gentle. It was seven weeks of tension detonating all at once — his hands framing her face like he couldn't bear any distance, her fingers fisting in his shirt, pulling him closer instead of pushing him away. He tasted like coffee and midnight and every bad decision she'd ever wanted to make. She kissed him back with all the fury and grief and want she'd been choking down for years, and for one endless moment there was no plan, no revenge, no past — just heat, and hunger, and him.

Somewhere in the haze she registered the framed photograph on his desk — the one he'd turned face-down that night in the storm — and understood, with a clarity that terrified her, that she was kissing the only person in the world who knew exactly what her grief felt like. The enemy's door had opened, and she'd walked through it willingly.

Then reality crashed back.

She tore away, breathing hard, lips stinging. His eyes were dark, his chest heaving. They stared at each other across six inches that felt like a canyon.

"This can't—" she started.

"I know."

"If anyone—"

"I know."

She fled. Past Margot's dark desk, into the elevator, down forty-one floors with her heart trying to escape her ribs. In the taxi home she pressed her forehead to the window and watched the city blur. Streetlights smeared into gold ribbons. She'd always loved this city at night. Tonight it looked like it was bleeding.

The USB drive burned in her pocket like a coal.

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At 2 a.m., she sat on her living room floor — the same spot where she'd sent the first email — and plugged in the drive. Seventy-three percent of the ledger. Names, amounts, private notes. Enough to detonate.

Nadia: "You have it?"

Aria: "I have it."

Nadia: "Send it to Park. Tonight. Before you talk yourself out of it."

Aria opened the anonymous account. Attached the files. Typed three words: "You were right."

Her thumb hovered over send.

She thought of his mouth on hers. His hands in her hair. The way he'd said try me, like a dare, like a prayer.

She thought of her father, staring at nothing in his study.

She pressed send.

The email vanished. Done. The kill shot, fired. In the morning, Simone Park would have everything she needed to burn Dorian Vale to the ground.

Aria sat in the dark and touched her lips, still swollen, still humming.

No going back. Not from the theft. Not from the kiss. Not from any of it.

She'd crossed every line tonight — and the terrifying part, the part she couldn't say even to herself, was that she wasn't sure which crossing scared her more: the crime she'd committed against him, or the way she'd felt in his arms, like a woman finally, finally coming home to the last place she should ever be.

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End of Chapter 6