Chapter 211: Chapter 212: Aria Meets Her Father
He nodded and moved on, and Aria returned to her rounds with renewed determination to stay present.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket at 2 PM. A message from Damien: Everything’s arranged. Private dining room at Alinea, 7 PM tonight. Alexander has confirmed he’ll be there. Marcus will have security positioned throughout the restaurant. You’re safe.
Aria read the message three times. Then typed back: Thank you. I don’t know if I’m ready for this, but I guess I’m going to find out.
His response came immediately: You’re ready. And if you’re not, we leave. No pressure to stay if it doesn’t feel right.
What if he’s wonderful? What if I like him?
Then that’s wonderful too. There’s no wrong answer here, Aria. Whatever you feel is valid.
She stared at that message for a long moment. Whatever you feel is valid. Sometimes Damien understood her better than she understood herself.
The afternoon passed in a blur of patients and consultations and paperwork. Aria threw herself into work with perhaps more intensity than strictly necessary, using it as a shield against the anxiety building in her chest.
At 5 PM, she left the hospital and found Seb waiting by the car as always. He opened the door without comment, his expression professionally neutral.
"Home first, Miss Chen? Or would you like to go somewhere else?"
"The estate," Aria said. "I need to change and mentally prepare. Also probably have a minor breakdown in private."
Seb’s mouth twitched in what might have been a smile. "I’ll get you there quickly, miss."
The drive to the estate gave her time to think. To really sit with what was about to happen and process the complicated tangle of emotions churning inside her.
Fear....that was obvious. Fear that Alexander would be exactly what her mother warned about. Fear that he’d be controlling or possessive or that meeting him would somehow damage the relationship she had with Mei.
Curiosity....equally obvious. Twenty-five years of not knowing, and now she was hours away from answers.
But underneath both of those, something else. Something that felt almost like grief.
Because meeting Alexander meant acknowledging that she’d grown up without a biological father. And while she’d had a wonderful childhood with a mother who loved her fiercely and a step father who loved her like his own, there was still something painful about recognizing what had been missing.
The car pulled up to the estate, and Aria made her way inside and straight to the bedroom. She stood in the closet for a long time, staring at her clothes and trying to decide what one wore to meet their biological father for the first time.
Professional? To establish that she was an adult with her own life and career?
Casual? To show she wasn’t intimidated or trying too hard?
She finally settled on something in between....dark jeans, a silk blouse in deep green, a tailored blazer. Professional enough to command respect, casual enough not to look like she was performing.
She was applying minimal makeup when Damien appeared in the bathroom doorway.
"You look beautiful," he said simply.
"I look terrified," Aria countered, but she smiled slightly. "How obvious is the panic in my eyes?"
"Only to me." He moved behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders, meeting her eyes in the mirror. "We don’t have to do this tonight. If you want more time...."
"No." Aria’s voice was firm. "More time just means more anxiety. Let’s get this over with."
"That’s the spirit," Damien said dryly. "Approach family reunions like dental surgery."
Despite everything, Aria laughed. "Honestly, dental surgery might be less stressful."
She finished her makeup, checked her appearance one more time, and turned to face Damien. "Okay. I’m ready. As ready as I’m going to be anyway."
He took her hand and they walked downstairs together. Marcus was waiting by the front door, his expression professionally alert.
"Everything’s in place," he said to Damien. "Security team is positioned. Your father arrived at the restaurant ten minutes ago and is waiting in the private dining room."
"He’s early," Aria said. Her stomach flipped with nerves.
"Probably as nervous as you are," Marcus offered. "For what it’s worth, Miss Chen....my team has eyes on him, and he looks genuinely anxious. Keeps checking his watch, straightening his tie. Not the behavior of someone planning anything hostile."
Aria nodded, absorbing this information. Her father was nervous. That made her feel slightly better....at least she wasn’t the only one freaking out.
The drive to Alinea took twenty-five minutes through evening traffic. Aria spent most of it holding Damien’s hand and breathing carefully, trying to keep her anxiety from spiraling into full panic.
"Whatever happens in there," Damien said as the restaurant came into view, "remember that you control this situation. Not him. If you want to leave after five minutes, we leave. If you want to stay for hours, we stay. You decide. Understand?"
"I understand."
The car pulled up to the restaurant entrance, and Aria’s heart started racing in earnest.
This was it.
After twenty-five years of not knowing, after weeks of flowers and messages and surveillance....she was about to meet Alexander Wei, her biological father.
And whatever happened next could change everything.
****
The private dining room at Alinea was smaller than the main restaurant space but no less elegant. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the city lights. A single table sat in the center, set for three with crisp white linens and gleaming silverware. Soft lighting created an atmosphere that was intimate without being oppressive.
And standing beside the window, looking out at the city with his hands clasped behind his back, was a man Aria had never seen before but somehow recognized immediately.
Alexander Wei.
He turned when they entered, and Aria’s breath caught.
She’d expected to see nothing of herself in him...expected that twenty-five years and her mother’s features would have dominated her genetics. But the moment their eyes met, she saw it.
Her eyes. The exact shade of dark brown, the exact shape. Her hands...long-fingered and elegant, currently clenched at her sides but identical in structure to his where they rested at his back. Even the way he held himself...straight-backed, contained, projecting confidence while clearly feeling nervous...mirrored her own unconscious posture.
This was her father. Not the abstract concept she’d been wrestling with for weeks, but a real person standing ten feet away looking at her with an expression of such raw emotion that it was almost painful to witness.
