[POV Ariel]
It started with a locked drawer.
One I hadn’t noticed before—the lower left side of Richard’s desk, near the floor, hidden behind stacks of carefully organized blueprints and outdated revenue ledgers.
Sloane and I had spent the last two hours scouring the old Wayne estate archives, desperate for any paper trail that might link Marco Visconti’s shell companies to their original sources. It was exhausting. Frustrating. And deeply personal.
I knelt down, brushing dust from the keyhole. “You’ve got the keys he left behind?”
Sloane crouched beside me, tugging the ring from his back pocket and flipping through it. “Most of them are for the vault and safe upstairs… but—wait.”
He found a smaller brass key, long and thin like it belonged to something from a different century. It slid into the lock with a soft, satisfying click.
The drawer creaked open.
Inside, tucked beneath a sealed folder and a velvet-covered box, sat a leather-bound journal.
Old. Worn. Richard’s initials etched faintly into the cover.
Sloane froze beside me. We didn’t speak for a moment. Then—very carefully—I reached for it.
We read it in the penthouse library, sitting across from each other with the journal between us on the ottoman, like it was sacred.
The first entries were logistical—meeting notes, editorial direction, complaints about the marketing team’s obsession with clickbait. Familiar. Grounded.
But around halfway through, the handwriting changed—tighter, faster, more personal.
March 11th.
She’s brilliant. Sharp as a blade and twice as deadly if you underestimate her. She calls herself Ari Winters, but I know who she is. Ariel Newman. Theodore’s daughter. I suspected by week three. Confirmed it today through a discreet check of her Columbia records.
My breath caught. My eyes flew to Sloane’s, but he was already staring at me.
“I thought he never knew,” I whispered.
He didn’t speak. Just turned the page.
I should confront her. Fire her, perhaps. But I won’t. I’ve seen the fire in her. She’s nothing like them. She stays late. Listens when others don’t. When she challenges me, it isn’t for power. It’s for better ideas. She reminds me of someone I used to be before the world turned cruel.
She wants something more than approval. She wants to matter. I know that feeling too well to ignore it.
My throat tightened.
June 7th.
Marco Visconti won’t stay in prison forever. I can feel it. We were fools to think our debts would stay buried. The Newmans once tried to do business with the Viscontis. A different branch, different name. But it’s the same bloodline. They don’t forget insults. Don’t forgive betrayal.
And when they come back… they won’t just come for me. They’ll come for everyone who ever touched my empire—including her.
I can’t protect her as an employee. But maybe as family.
Sloane leaned forward slowly. “He… knew. The whole time.”
“And he didn’t tell anyone.”
We turned to another page. Then another.
October 2nd.
Sloane doesn’t see it yet, but he needs someone like her. Someone who’ll challenge him without cruelty. Who sees past the armor. I never wanted to force him into marriage. But if I could bring them together—for both their sakes… it might be the one good thing I leave behind.
She doesn’t need him. That’s what makes her right for him.
And he doesn’t trust easily. That’s what makes her dangerous to him. Because he will.
I didn’t realize I was crying until Sloane reached over and gently brushed a tear from my cheek with his thumb.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.
Later that night, the journal sat on the nightstand between us. A quiet artifact of all the things Richard Wayne never got the chance to say out loud.
I stood by the window in one of Sloane’s shirts, the hem brushing the backs of my thighs, the city humming low outside the glass.
He leaned in the doorway of my room, silent.
His voice was quieter than usual. “He didn’t just manipulate us.”
“No.”
“He believed in us.”
I turned toward him. “And he tried to protect us. In his own twisted, backward way.”
Sloane walked to me slowly. Carefully. “I hated him for so long. For pushing me, controlling me, planning my life like I was one of his business assets.”
“He did the same to me.”
“But this…” He shook his head. “This wasn’t about legacy. It was about love. For both of us.”
I stepped forward, heart pounding. “You think that makes it okay?”
“No,” he said softly. “But it makes it forgivable.”
The air between us shifted again.
I don’t know which of us moved first. Maybe it didn’t matter. Because the moment our hands found each other, everything else fell away. This time, there was no urgency. No sharp need to erase pain or silence anger.
Just softness. Understanding.
His mouth found mine with quiet reverence, like he wasn’t just kissing me—he was saying something. ‘You’re not alone. You never were.’
I kissed him back with every ounce of fear and longing I’d ever buried.
We made our way to the bed like it wasn’t even a decision. Like gravity had finally stopped resisting us.
Every button he undid felt like a confession. Every inch of skin he touched was like a promise. He moved slowly. Because this wasn’t just passion anymore.
It was surrender.
He worshipped every curve like he was memorizing me. Like he’d been waiting not just to touch—but to mean something.
When I gasped his name, it wasn’t just release—it was trust.
When he whispered “You’re not just a clause in a contract,” it broke me.
And when we reached for each other again, bodies intertwined beneath the city lights and the weight of a thousand unspoken things, it didn’t feel like escape.
It felt like an arrival. After, he held me, not like a possession or like protection. But like he didn’t want to let go.
“I still don’t know how to be good at this,” he murmured against my hair.
“Neither do I.”
“But I want to try.”
I looked up at him, heart raw and open. “So do I.”