CHAPTER 11:The Things Left Unsaid
1112 Words
(BLAKE POV)
She was laughing.
That was the thing I couldn't get past.
The photograph was grainy — street camera, midday light. Luciano wasn't touching her. But she was turned toward him with her face completely open and I sat there staring at it trying to remember if I had ever seen her look like that.
I couldn't.
I put it face down on the desk and called him.
---
Luciano answered on the second ring.
"Blake."
"I'll keep this brief."
"Please."
"Olivia represents Sterling interests at board level. Any personal association with you creates a conflict I won't allow."
"She had lunch," he said. Unhurried.
"With my rival."
"With someone who asked if she'd eaten." His voice didn't shift. "There's a difference. You'd know that if you'd ever asked her yourself."
"Stay away from my wife Luciano."
"She's not your asset Blake,I've told you this before." "She never was."
He said the words and hung up.
I sat there with the phone in my hand.
She's not your asset,the words kept living a rent free on my head.
I picked up the photograph again. Her face turned toward him. That open expression I had no memory to match against. I had been married to her for six years and I could not find a single moment where she had looked at me the way she was looking at him.
I put it in my drawer and went home.
---
I pulled out Olivia's chair at dinner.
She looked at it for half a second before sitting. That half second said everything.
I poured her wine.
"How was the rest of your afternoon?" I asked.
"Fine." She picked up her fork. "It was productive."
"The Singapore resolution," I said. "The board has been asking about it for weeks. You handled it in forty minutes."
"The answer was already in the documents," she said. "Page twelve.”
"The board seemed pleased with how the meeting went."
"They had concerns. I addressed them."
I refilled her glass.
"Nathaniel's teacher called today," I said. "She said he finished his drawing project."
"She called me first," Olivia said. "He finished it three weeks ago. He didn't want to say anything until it was perfect."
"He didn't tell me."
"No." She picked up her fork again. "He wouldn't."
Nathaniel kept his eyes on his food and ignored us.
Aria reached over and touched Nathaniel's arm. "You should show Daddy your drawing after dinner," she said softly.
Nathaniel looked at her. Then at me. Then back at his food.
"It's not finished yet," he said.
"You told me it was finished," Aria said.
"I changed my mind," he said quietly.
Ok that's fine “aria said”.
I refilled Olivia's glass the second time.
"Thank you," she said.The way you thank a waiter.
She said it and was already looking somewhere else.
"Did Lawson say anything to you ?" I asked. "After the meeting."
"He said I should have a permanent seat at the table." She picked up her glass. "Not just when you can't make it.”
I looked at her.
"What did you say?"
"Nothing." She set the glass down. "I just thanked him and left.”
---
She was in the library after dinner.
Reading glasses on,her books spread across the table. Pen moving across the page.
I closed the door and sat across from her.
"I don't think it's appropriate for you to be seen with Luciano," I said. "Given the board tensions it creates an optics problem."
She set her pen down,took her glass off and looked at me
"Are you asking me as my husband," she said, "or as the man who staged his mistress's return to our home?"
"I'm not saying permanently," I said. "Just until things settle. The board is watching everything—"
"Blake." She didn't raise her voice. "You brought a woman into this house. Into the same house where your son sleeps. You sat across from me at dinner for months while she moved from the guest house into the main rooms." She looked at me directly. "And now you want to talk to me about optics."
"She needed somewhere safe," I said. "I couldn't turn her away."
"I know." Olivia looked at me steadily. "And I couldn't ask you to send her away that was never the problem Blake."
"Then what was?"
She looked at me for a long moment.
"That you never once asked me how I felt about it," she said. "Not once. In all these months."
I had nothing for that either.
She put her glasses back on.
"Is there something else you want to talk about aside this topic?" she said.
"I'm not asking you to stop seeing people," I said. "I'm asking you to be mindful of who. Luciano specifically has a position relative to this company that makes any association—"
"Blake." She set her pen down again. "You filed documents giving Aria Collins access to this house. To our son and our life." She looked at me. "You want to talk to me about associations."
"That's different."
"How."
I hope you don't forget you started everything,so don't play smart with me here.
I opened my mouth and stared at her
She picked up her pen.
"Close the door on your way out," she said.
I stayed in the chair and stared at her,she ignored me totally and turned a page
Didn't look up nor ask me to leave again.
I kept looking at her bent over her work. Not angry or hurt Just — done with the conversation while I was still sitting to hear something from her.
I have never felt ignored like that in my life,I got up and walked out.
I stood outside the closed library door.
The estate has gone quiet for the night's rest.Nathaniel in bed and Aria in the guest house,Madam Chen in her quarters.
Just me and the door and the specific feeling of a man who had walked into two rooms tonight and walked out of both of them with nothing productive
I went to my office.
I opened Luciano's file on my desktop.
Scrolled to the bottom and typed one line
Olivia Monitor page.
I sat back and looked at it.
The house was completely quiet around me.
My phone buzzed,it was my head of security
I opened the message. A list of file names transferred to an external encrypted server over the past two weeks. I scrolled through slowly.
Singapore correspondence.
Board communications.
Aria's guest house invoices.
My father's personal schedule.
I stopped.
Read it again from the top.
My hands sat completely still on the desk.
- Writer
