[POV Ariel]
Five years.
It had been five years since Ariel Newman vanished and Ari Winters stepped into her place, carrying nothing but a duffel bag, a dream, and the bitter taste of rejection still fresh on her tongue.
I should have left after the first year.
That was the original plan—stay long enough to gather intel, draft the kind of airtight pitch that would make my parents finally open their eyes and see me. Prove I could run a company like Wayne Publishing better than any boy they tried to crown.
But somewhere along the way, it stopped being about revenge. And started becoming about him.
Richard Wayne changed everything.
He didn’t just give me a desk and a nameplate. He gave me faith.
From the very first month, he challenged me, pushed me. He started giving me small projects, then full proposals. He called me into editorial meetings when I was still technically an assistant.
When I disagreed with him, he listened. When I pitched wild ideas, he didn’t shut them down—he sharpened them.
He looked at me the way I had once begged my own father to look at me. Like I mattered. Like I was more than a mouth with opinions and legs in heels.
Eventually, he started calling me into his office just to talk. Which is where I was now.
“Explain to me why the New York office still thinks print-exclusive is a good idea in this economy,” Richard muttered, flipping through a monthly report.
“They’re scared,” I said, settling into the chair across from him. “Print is what they know. They’ve built their reputations on it.”
He gave me a sideways glance. “You sound like you’re defending them.”
“I’m not. But I understand them. People dig in when they’re afraid of being made irrelevant.”
Richard grunted. “Well, they’ll be irrelevant and unemployed if they don’t adapt.”
I smiled, folding my hands in my lap. “We could pitch a pilot project—test cross-platform integration. Start small.”
He leaned back, eyes narrowing. “Make it your project.”
My brows lifted. “Seriously?”
“You’re the only one around here who still surprises me. Besides, I’m old. Let me delegate and look wise.”
I laughed softly. “You’re not old. You’re seasoned.”
“Careful. That sounds dangerously close to charming flattery.”
He reached for his espresso and took a sip, then winced slightly, hand twitching just enough for me to notice.
“You okay?” I asked, sitting forward.
He set the cup down carefully. “Just a little dizzy earlier. Haven’t eaten much today.”
“You skipped lunch again, didn’t you?”
“I don’t have time for lunch. That’s why I hired you—so I can work while you yell at me to eat salad.”
“That wasn’t in the job description,” I muttered, standing. “But lucky for you, I’m a multitasker.”
I walked to the kitchenette near the corner of his office and grabbed the protein bar I’d stashed in the cabinet weeks ago. When I came back, he was rubbing his temple, his breathing shallow.
Something dropped in my stomach. “Richard.”
“I’m fine.” But his voice was thinner now. “Just a little lightheaded.”
“No. Sit back.” I rounded the desk and gently pushed the protein bar into his hand. “You’re eating. Right now.”
He gave me a wry look, but didn’t argue.
I watched him closely as he chewed, arms crossed. “You’ve been pushing yourself too hard.”
He swallowed. “Occupational hazard.”
“Bullshit.”
His eyes flicked to mine, amused. “There’s my girl.”
I shook my head but couldn’t help the smile that pulled at the corners of my mouth. His girl. The phrase shouldn’t have meant as much as it did. But it did.
He leaned back slowly, gaze drifting to the photo on his desk—the one of him, his wife, and a younger version of a man I’d only seen in pictures.
Sloane Wayne. The son no one talked about.
Richard didn’t bring him up often, but when he did, it came like a quiet ache slipping between sentences. He never said much. Just enough to let me feel the space that absence had carved in him.
“Did I ever tell you,” he said now, voice low, “about the time Sloane skipped school to deliver newspapers for one of our distributors?”
I shook my head gently.
“He was ten. Wanted to see how the business worked from the ground up. Didn’t tell his mother or me. Rode his bike before dawn through the city. Nearly froze his fingers off. Came back with ink-stained hands and a million ideas about logistics.”
He chuckled, but there was something hollow under the sound. “He was brilliant. Still is.”
I stayed quiet. He didn’t need me to talk right now. He needed someone to hear him.
“After Vivienne died… and his poor fiancee Zoe...” His voice cracked on her name. “He shut down. Walked out. I tried everything. Letters, calls. He never answered. Couldn’t forgive me.”
My throat tightened. “Have you tried again lately?”
He shook his head, looking older than I’d ever seen him. “I don’t know if I have the right anymore.”
“Yes, you do.”
He blinked, surprised.
“You were a father who made mistakes trying to protect his family,” I said softly. “That doesn’t make you unforgivable. It makes you human.”
He studied me like he was trying to decide whether I believed it.
“I don’t think he’s as far away as you think,” I added. “He’s angry, but... he’s your son. Somewhere deep down, he misses you.”
A long pause.
“Maybe,” Richard whispered. “Maybe he does.”
I reached across the desk and laid my hand gently over his. His skin was cool, but his fingers curled slightly, holding on.
“You should call him,” I said. “Please.”
He didn’t answer right away. But something in his expression shifted—like a small crack in armor that had been welded shut for years.
And I didn’t know it yet, but that moment... that tiny nudge toward reconciliation... would be the fuse that lit everything. The calm before the storm.
The rest of the day passed in a blur of meetings and memos, but Richard’s words clung to me.
The man I worked for, the one who had pulled me up from anonymity and poured his wisdom into me like water into cracked soil—he was breaking. And I hadn’t even realized how deeply until today.
I rode the elevator down alone that night, lights flickering across the mirrored walls. As I caught my reflection—hair loose around my shoulders, blazer rumpled from the day—I didn’t see the girl who’d been dismissed at dinner tables and looked past in boardrooms.
I saw Ari. Not Ariel. Not a disappointment.
A woman who had built a life her parents would never understand, standing in the center of a world they told her she couldn’t have.
But I didn’t need their recognition anymore. Richard had seen me. And tomorrow, I would make sure he knew that I saw him too.