His Obsession

Chapter 6: What Ethan Knows

Amelia found Ethan Blake in the break room on the 41st floor, feet up on a chair that clearly wasn't his, scrolling through his phone with the kind of ease nobody else in this building seemed to have.

He looked up when she walked in and grinned like he'd been waiting for her.

"The infamous Miss Carter," he said. "I was starting to think Adrian was keeping you locked in a supply closet somewhere."

"Close. Filing room. Multiple nights this week."

"Ah. The punishment files." Ethan swung his feet down and gestured to the chair across from him. "Let me guess. You broke a rule."

"Several, apparently." Amelia sat, glancing toward the door out of habit before she remembered Adrian was in back-to-back meetings until four. "Can I ask you something? Off the record?"

"With Adrian, everything's off the record. It's practically a company motto." He studied her for a second, humor fading slightly into something more careful. "This about the file you weren't supposed to see?"

Amelia's spine straightened. "How do you know about that?"

"Because Adrian mentioned it. Which, for context, he never does. Adrian doesn't talk about assistants. He talks to them, in short sentences, usually about spreadsheets." Ethan leaned back, arms crossed, watching her like she was a puzzle he was slowly starting to enjoy. "He asked me if I knew a Daniel Carter. Out of nowhere. Middle of a meeting about supply contracts, completely unrelated. That's not normal behavior for him."

Amelia's heart thudded. "What did you tell him?"

"That I didn't recognize the name. Which was true, until you just confirmed it's your father." Ethan's grin returned, sharper now. "Interesting."

"It's not funny."

"I didn't say it was funny. I said it was interesting." He uncrossed his arms, leaning forward, voice dropping slightly. "Look…I've known Adrian since we were nineteen. Business school, before either of us had money or a company to run. I've seen him go through a dozen assistants in three years. He fires them for breathing too loud. He's never once asked me about one of their families."

Amelia felt something cold settle in her chest. "So what does that mean?"

"I don't know. That's the honest answer." Ethan's humor dropped away completely now, and for the first time since she'd met him, he looked genuinely serious. "But I know Adrian took over the company fast. Faster than anyone expected. His father died in an accident…car accident, out on the coast road, almost four years ago now. Adrian was twenty. Barely finished with university. One day he's a business student, the next he's running one of the biggest companies in London."

"That sounds sudden."

"It was sudden. Some people said too sudden." Ethan chose his next words carefully, like he was picking his way across something fragile. "There were questions. About the accident. Nothing ever came of it officially. But Adrian changed after that. Shut down. Built all these rules, hired security he didn't need before, stopped trusting basically everyone except Victoria and me. And even we don't get all of him anymore."

Amelia's throat felt tight. "You think the accident wasn't an accident?"

"I think Adrian thinks that. I've never asked him directly…he'd never answer me anyway. But four years of watching a man build higher and higher walls around himself tells you something." Ethan met her eyes. "And now, out of nowhere, he's asking about your father. In the same breath as a company he never talks about outside boardrooms."

The break room felt suddenly too quiet.

"Ethan," Amelia said slowly, "do you think my father was involved? In whatever happened to Adrian's dad?"

"I don't know, Amelia. I really don't." He said it gently, like he could see how much the question cost her. "But I know Adrian well enough to say this…if he's protecting you from something, it's not because he doesn't care. It's because he cares more than he knows what to do with. That man does not do gentle. He does control. And control means keeping people away from anything that could hurt them."

"Or away from anything that could hurt him."

Ethan considered that. "Maybe both."

Amelia walked back to her desk in a fog, Ethan's words circling in her head. An accident that maybe wasn't. A father who died four years ago. A man who never asks about assistants' families…except hers.

She was still turning it over when she noticed the folder sitting on her desk that hadn't been there an hour ago.

Plain. Unmarked. No note.

She opened it carefully, glancing toward Adrian's closed office door, half-expecting Mrs. Grey to appear out of nowhere and snatch it away.

Inside was a single newspaper clipping, yellowed slightly with age, folded in thirds like it had been kept somewhere for years before someone put it here.

BLACKWOOD FOUNDER DIES IN COASTAL ROAD ACCIDENT

Investigation Ongoing

Below the headline, a photo of the wreckage. And beside the article, in the margin, someone had written a single line in careful, slanted handwriting Amelia didn't recognize.

‘Ask your father what he was doing that night.’

Amelia's blood went cold.

She looked up sharply, scanning the office floor…Mrs. Grey at her desk, unaware; two junior assistants by the printer, uninterested; Adrian's door, still closed.

Whoever had left this hadn't wanted to be seen doing it.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. A text from an unknown number, no name attached.

Don't trust everything Adrian tells you. He's not the only one hiding something.

Amelia stared at the screen, her hands trembling slightly around the phone.

Someone in this building…or close to it…knew exactly what she'd been asking about. And whoever it was wanted her digging.

The only question was why.