Chapter 261: Chapter 263: What Needs To Be Done
ARIA’S POV
She knew he was watching her before she even opened her eyes.
It was something she’d never be able to fully explain....just this awareness that settled over her skin like warmth, the feeling of being looked at by someone who wasn’t trying to hide that they were looking. She lay still for a moment, eyes closed, and let herself feel it.
Then she smiled.
"Good morning," she said, opening her eyes.
Damien was propped on his elbow beside her, still in the clothes he’d fallen asleep in, his hair slightly undone from sleep, looking at her with that expression he only wore when he thought she couldn’t see it. The one that made her chest do something complicated every single time.
"Good morning," he said.
She studied his face. The shadows under his eyes. The particular quality of his stillness that wasn’t rest.
"Did you sleep at all?" she asked. "Because I can tell you’ve been watching me for a while."
Something shifted in his face...caught, almost. He leaned down and kissed her, slow and unhurried, the kind of kiss that had nothing to prove.
"You know me too well," he said against her mouth.
"I really do." She reached up and touched his jaw. The stubble was heavier than usual, which meant he definitely hadn’t slept. "Damien...."
He kissed her again, and this time she let him, her hand sliding down from his jaw to his chest, and then lower, her fingers moving toward the waistband of his trousers, finding the shape of him through the fabric....
He broke the kiss.
He looked down at her with eyes that were doing absolutely nothing to hide what was going on behind them....the hunger of a man who had been keeping his hands to himself for two weeks and was running low on reasons to continue.
"Stop it, Aria," he said. His voice had dropped an entire register. "You know nothing good comes from you teasing me."
She did know that. She knew it very specifically, actually....she had a detailed memory of exactly what happened when she pushed him, the consequences of it, how those consequences had felt.
"Fine." She rolled her eyes and settled back against the pillow. "Then tell me what Marcus found. You said tomorrow. It’s tomorrow."
Something in his jaw shifted....the thing she’d caught last night, the small give of a man who had been holding something and now had to put it down.
He pulled her into his side. Her head found the space on his chest that had become entirely hers over months of this, his arm coming around her, and for a moment he just held her there.
****
He kept his voice even.
That was the thing he’d learned about telling Aria difficult things....she didn’t need him to soften it or build up to it or wrap it in reassurance way
So he told her about Victoria’s transfer to Harold. The fifty thousand dollars wired from a device registered to V. Ashford at an address in the city. What Marcus had found, the trail he’d followed, And the conclusion it led to.
Aria was very still the entire time.
When he finished she didn’t say anything immediately. She lay against his chest and he could feel her breathing, slow and deliberate, the way she breathed when she was processing something.
"Victoria has been in Australia this whole time," she said finally.
"Since shortly after the warehouse."
"Living quietly."
"With her mother. Yes."
"And now she’s funding Harold." She paused. "Because she doesn’t have enough of her own plan yet. She needs him moving first."
Damien looked down at the top of her head. "That’s Marcus’s assessment as well," he said.
"He’s right." She was quiet again for a moment. "Harold alone is desperation. Harold with Victoria’s money and whatever she’s been building in Australia for eight months is...." She stopped. "That’s different. That’s patience."
"Yes."
"Victoria is patient in a way Harold never was." Her hand moved slightly against his chest, "Harold comes at you directly. He’s angry and he makes mistakes because of it. Victoria...." Another pause. "Victoria grew up watching her father play long games. She knows how to wait."
Damien tightened his arm around her slightly.
He’d had the same thought when Marcus had put the file in front of him. The thought that Harold Ashford was a problem.
"Marcus is tracing the shell account," he said. "He’s also monitoring Harold’s movement, The moment he surfaces anywhere, any transaction, any movement at all....."
"You’ll know."
"Within the hour."
She nodded slowly against his chest.
Then she said, quietly: "So what will you do? When he’s found."
He looked down at her.
The morning light was coming in through the curtains and it caught the side of her face, and he thought about the hospital bed, and the monitor, and the two weeks of watching her breathe through a glass panel because they hadn’t let him in the room immediately and those had been the longest minutes of his entire life. He thought about Harold Ashford....who had tried to take her from him twice, who had looked at Aria as a problem to be solved, an obstacle between his daughter and a business arrangement....and he came to a conclusion.
He tightened his hold on her.
"I’ll do what needs to be done," he said.
Aria was still for a moment.
Then she lifted her head and looked at him the way she did when she was deciding whether to push or let something be. He met her eyes and didn’t offer her anything else because there wasn’t anything else to offer. That was the honest answer. That was the only answer.
She held his gaze for a long moment.
Then she put her head back down on his chest and wrapped both arms around him and didn’t say anything else.
Damien;s phone rang minutes.
"I have to take this," he said.
"umm."
He pressed a kiss to her forehead, untangled himself carefully, and stood up from the bed
"Marcus," he said, his voice shifting into something low and even. "What have you got."
He moved out of the room, and the door closed softly behind him.
