SILVER BLOOD The unexpected touch

ARIA "Tell me you did not just watch that on your laptop in public." I heard the voice before I saw who it belonged to — low, dry, cutting through the quiet hum of the VIP lounge like a blade. I didn't look up. I couldn't. My eyes were locked on my phone screen and my brain was doing that thing it does in a crisis, where it just keeps replaying the same image on a loop, trying to make it make sense. It wasn't making sense. On the screen: my car. My black Range Rover, parked in the long-stay lot of Thornfield Airport. And inside my car, my fiancé of three years and my younger sister, clung together in a way that turned my stomach to stone. She sat on him, half naked while he thrusted her pleasurably. I would never have known. I had a flight to catch. I'd been gone a week on a business trip and I was heading home, and I would have walked straight back into that life without ever knowing. But my car's motion sensor had pinged my phone the moment someone climbed inside, and I'd turned on the remote feed out of habit. Just habit. That's all it was. Now I couldn't unsee it. I closed the feed. Set my phone face-down on the table. Picked up my glass of water. My hand didn't shake. I was almost surprised by that, that my hand didn't shake. Then I dialled. "Yes, I'd like to report an incident." My voice came out even. Clipped. Almost bored. "Someone is making unlawful use of private property. I also have footage of the individuals engaging in explicit activity inside the vehicle. It is my vehicle, and this is in exchange for a piece of jewellery that was a gift to me. So that would make it theft and solicitation. And prostitution. I'm happy to send the recording." From the table behind me, I heard someone choke violently on a drink. I kept my eyes forward. I finished the call, put my phone in my bag, and stood. When I turned around, I gave the two men at the next table a short, composed bow. Because my mother had drilled manners into me before she'd drilled anything else, and apparently that particular reflex was unkillable. "I apologise for the disturbance," I said. "That wasn't appropriate for a shared space." The one who'd choked… sandy-haired, good-looking in a rumpled way — waved both hands at me. "Please. Don't worry about it." He looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh and failing. I nodded and turned to leave. I made it two steps. The floor tipped. A cold rush swept up from my feet to the back of my skull, and my knees stopped working in that specific, humiliating way they do when my blood sugar bottoms out. I had eaten nothing since five in the morning. It was now past eight at night. I braced for the floor. It didn't come. Instead, an arm, solid as a beam, catching me across the waist. A chest against my back. I felt heat, like someone had lit a fire behind a wall of muscle. And a voice, right above my ear, low and entirely unhurried. "Are you okay?" I opened my eyes. Got my feet under me. Turned around. And looked straight up into the face of the other man from the table, the one who hadn't choked, hadn't laughed, hadn't said a single word. He was , I didn’t want to be dramatic about it, but he was startling. Dark hair, darker eyes, a jaw that could have been drawn with a ruler. The kind of face that gave nothing away because it had decided, long ago, to give nothing away. He was watching me with an expression I couldn't decode, which was unsettling enough, but what really unsettled me was that his hands were still on my waist. He didn't let go. He was just holding me. Like it was the most normal thing in the world. "I'm fine," I said. "You went white." "Low blood sugar. It passes." I stepped back. His hands fell away. "Thank you." He looked at me for a moment. Something in his expression shifted. Barely, like a shadow moving across still water, and then it was gone. "You're the woman from the gate," he said. I blinked. "What?" "Gate fourteen. You were ahead of me in the queue." I hadn't noticed him. I thought back. No, I had noticed him, actually. I'd noticed and immediately looked away because looking at him felt like staring into a light source. "Right," I said. "Well. Thank you again. I'm boarding now." I picked up my carry-on and walked out of the lounge at a pace that was brisk without being a run, head up, shoulders back, and did not look behind me. I was not going to think about the way his hands had felt. I was absolutely not going to think about that. Two hours later, the plane landed in Ashford and I turned my phone back on. It detonated. Fourteen texts, three voicemails, two missed calls from numbers I recognised. I stood at the baggage carousel and watched the notifications stack up and didn't open a single one. Then my father's name lit up the screen. I let it ring twice. Breathed in. Answered. "Do you have any idea —" He didn't even give me a hello. His voice hit me like something thrown. "— what you've done? You called the police on your own sister. Your sister, Aria." Behind him, my mother's voice , high and wet with outrage: "She's always been jealous. Always. Why wasn't it her who got lost —" I gripped the handle of my suitcase until my knuckles ached. "Dad." I kept my voice level. "Did you know? Before today, did you know about Marcus and Lena?" The pause was three seconds long. That was all the answer I needed. "Marcus came to us," he said finally. "He explained. He told us that three years ago he genuinely believed you were the one who saved him, that it was a mistake. That it was Lena all along. He only stayed engaged to you out of guilt, Aria. He didn't want to hurt you." I laughed. It came out wrong. Well, too hollow. "He came to our door," I said. "He told me I was his mate. I told him he was wrong. I said it three times. He wouldn't hear it. And now I'm the one who lied?" "The two families will make an announcement. The engagement transfers to your sister. It's the right thing —" "Dad." I stopped walking. "Who are you planning to give Weston Holdings to?" Silence. Long, specific, telling silence. "Come home. We'll find you a suitable match —" "Dad. Who are you giving the company to?" The line went dead. I stood in the middle of the arrivals hall with the carousel grinding behind me and the overhead lights humming and people streaming past on all sides, and I held the dead phone against my ear for longer than I should have. Then I lowered it, picked up my bag, and called Nadia. I had a plan to make.