Watched
Aria
I was halfway through a piece of toast when Caden walked into the kitchen.
One look at his face and I put the toast down.
He had that expression — not the cold boardroom mask, not the unreadable stillness he wore at dinner. This was something underneath all of that. Something tight and controlled and barely so, the kind of look that meant whatever was coming out of his mouth next was going to rearrange something.
“Come with me,” he said quietly.
My mother was at the island behind me with her coffee and her phone, scrolling something, half present the way she was most mornings before her second cup. She didn’t look up.
“Everything alright?” she asked absently.
“Work thing,” Caden said. Smooth. Immediate. “I need Aria’s eyes on a document. She has a business background.”
