Chapter 15
Liam observed her closely, his fingers tapping across his glass. “Do you need to go back?”
The inquiry was flippant, but she heard the weight behind it.
Go back? To what?
To a man who had damaged her beyond repair?
To a life where she was always second choice, second priority, second best?
Aria shook her head, a slow smirk curling her lips. “I don’t go backward, Liam.”
Liam chuckled, raised his glass in a silent toast. “That’s my girl.”
She exhaled, finally allowed herself to relax into her seat.
No, she didn’t go backward.
Adrian’s world was over.
And hers was just beginning.
Meanwhile, across the city, Adrian Marsden sat in the ruins of everything he had lost,
His apartment was dark, the only light emanating from the city beyond the towering glass windows.
His phone sat beside him, the screen blank, a painful reminder that she wasn’t coming back.
He had sent the message knowing she wouldn’t respond.
And then, when the silence drew on, pressing into his ribs like a crushing weight, he realized exactly how much he had hoped.
Hoped for something.
A sign. A hesitation. A cause to believe that what they had wasn’t totally over.
But she had eliminated him.
Deleted him like he was never there.
His throat clenched as he went for the glass in front of him, taking a slow sip of the whiskey that had long lost its fire.
How had it come to this?
He had previously ruled everything. Power. Control. Her.
But she had stolen it all. And the worst part? She had never looked back. A harsh laugh escaped his lips. She had been right. Love didn’t endure treachery. And he had no one to blame but himself.
The jet touched down cleanly, the weight of the wheels on the asphalt jolting Aria slightly forward.
A new country. A new life.
This was the fresh start she had battled for.
As she stepped off the plane, the warm breeze stroked against her skin, bearing the aroma of something unusual.
Liam walked beside her, hands in his pockets, his countenance enigmatic as he glanced across at her.
“Are you ready?” he inquired.
Aria inhaled deeply, letting the moment settle.
A new city. A new empire. A new Aria Laurent.
She looked to Liam, her lips softening into the kind of smile that only came when you knew the past could no longer touch
“More than ever.”
And with that, she took her first step forward–toward a future that belonged to no one but her.
The metropolis before her was fresh, unknown, and infinite,
you.
As Aria Laurent stepped out of the sleek black automobile, the warm air wrapped around her like an embrace- -a dramatic contrast to the chilly walls she had left behind in New York. This was a fresh start. A world unaffected by her past.
No more shadows of Adrian Marsden. No more rumors of betrayal, grief, or regret.
Just her.
And everything she had constructed from the ashes.
Liam walked behind her, easily at ease, his clothes crisp, his presence steady. He had been the one constant in this new chapter of her life. The one who had never asked for more than she was willing to give.
“You look like someone who’s already won,” Liam observed, tucking his hands into his pockets as they approached the enormous building in front of them.
Aria smirked. “That’s because I have.”
And she had.
She had shattered the man who once held her heart in his hands and crushed it without a second thought.
And yet, when she glanced up at the glass building that now bore her name–Laurent Global Investments she knew something.
Winning had never been about damaging Adrian.
It had been about reclaiming herself.
And she had completely.
Back in New York, Adrian Marsden has become a ghost of the man he once was.
The once–praud billionaire who had commanded respect in every room he entered now sat in his empty apartinent, surrounded by ineitioties that refused to che He had developed an empire.
