Chapter 3: Take Your Most Expensive Car

Aria's POV

Vivian was my friend.

She didn't wait for a second after I answered the call. "Aria. ARIA. Twitter right now — #CancelAria is number three on the national trending list, Stella posted a video on Instagram last night crying about how you've been harassing Julian and refusing to let go, and her fans have been screenshotting and clipping the whole thing all over DeuxMoi —"

I sat down on the edge of the bed. "I know."

"You know and you sound like that? That video has four million plays —"

"Viv."

"WHAT."

"Deep breath."

Two seconds of silence. She swore — one very specific, very English word — and then actually did it.

"Okay. I'm calm. Are you okay?"

Am I okay. No apartment. No fiancé. Stella currently nailing me to a public cross with her tears. Okay was doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

"I need to get to Lincoln Center," I said. "Margaret sent an internal notice."

"...She's going to fire you?"

"I don't know yet. But I'm going."

I hung up and opened Julian's messages.

"You're not being rational right now."

"We've known each other for twenty years. You owe me a conversation."

"I'm trying to protect you. Stella's family has resources you don't understand——"

I stopped on that last one. Read it again. Five seconds, maybe.

"You owe me a conversation."

Twenty years, and what he lands on is owe. Not sorry. Not I was wrong. Just: you're irrational, you owe me, you don't understand. Three messages and not a single one of them was an apology.

I opened his contact. Blocked. Delete contact.

Put the phone down and stood up.

That's when I noticed the bags in the corner.

Matte black, no logos, sitting quietly against the wall. A sticky note on the front of the first one, the handwriting quick and angular:

"For you. — O"

I opened the first bag. Deep burgundy — a fitted dress with clean shoulders and a skirt that moved with weight rather than against it. Not the kind of thing designed to make a woman look pretty. The kind designed to make her look like she's already won.

Second bag: matching shoes. I checked the size label out of reflex.

He remembered my size. Damn it, Orion.

But honestly? I had to hand it to him. The Sterlings never once came through for me like this. That irritation from earlier evaporated somewhere between pulling the dress out of the bag and holding it up to the light.

I was in a genuinely good mood by the time I changed. I checked myself in the mirror — took my time about it — and walked out of the bedroom like I owned the floor, heels clicking, skirt swinging.

"Orion."

He was at the glass wall, phone pressed to his ear, shirt sleeves rolled to the forearm. The sunlight hit the side of his face — the hard line of his jaw, the sharp brow — and he looked up when I said his name. He said a few low words into the phone and ended the call.

I was holding the hem of the skirt between two fingers, chin up, shoulders back. Showing him.

"How do I look?"

His eyes moved over me and stayed.

Even from across the room I could feel the heat in it.

The light was coming through the glass and hitting the corners of my eyes, and something in his expression shifted — quiet and certain, like he'd already decided something a long time ago.

She should always look like this. Proud. Bright.

His throat moved. "Beautiful."

That landed well. I felt my mood climb another notch.

"Are you free right now?" My voice came out lighter than I meant it to, a little teasing. "I'm giving you a very small opportunity to deepen our partnership. Take your most expensive car. Drive me to the orchestra."

He picked up his keys and headed for the door. "Let's go."

---

The car pulled up at the Lincoln Center main entrance. A small cluster of colleagues was outside.

I got out. Heard someone recognize me, then the drop in volume as the talking continued. I didn't stop. I didn't speed up. Shoulders back, chin level, walking in on those heels the same way I always did.

People were looking in the lobby. Some turned away. Some couldn't manage it. I caught a voice, low and fast: "...isn't that the one from Twitter —"

I didn't wait to hear the rest. I pushed through the door at the end of the corridor.

I heard Margaret's voice before I reached her office — not the controlled cold she usually ran on, but actual heat. I stopped just outside the door.

"Diane, I don't need you to tell me what she's capable of. This morning alone —"

Diane's voice, level and steady: "She hasn't done anything wrong. You know that."

"What I know doesn't matter. What Twitter says matters. What DeuxMoi says matters. And right now both of them are saying our principal cellist is a homewrecker who went after someone else's man —"

"Margaret."

"And we have a board meeting in forty-eight hours."

A short silence.

"She's not that kind of person," Diane said. "She's a real artist."

"I know that." Margaret's voice went tired. "That's exactly why I'm giving her the option to resign. It's cleaner. For everyone."

I put my hand on the door handle.

"Cleaner." I repeated it back at her. "Sure. Cleaner for you people, maybe."

I pushed it open and didn't close it behind me.

Someone in the hallway slowed to a stop. I was aware of it. I left the door open anyway.

Margaret looked up. Her expression broke for half a second, then locked back into professional. "Aria. Close the door."

I walked in and stopped on the other side of her desk. "Whatever you're about to say — I don't mind who hears it."

She studied me for three seconds. "You know why you're here."

"I do. And my answer is no."

"What?"

"I'm not resigning." My voice stayed flat and even. "I haven't done anything that warrants it."

Margaret shoved the folder in front of her to one side. "Aria, the board is demanding a statement. Do you have any idea how many complaint emails this institution has received in the last twelve hours?"

"You have a PR problem," I said. "So do I. But mine isn't my fault."

Silence.

She came back harder: "Julian Ashworth and Stella Sterling start filming this Netfliex reality show named Heart's Compass next week. Stella's fanbase —"

"Is going to keep coming after me on Twitter," I said. "I know. It'll get louder once the show starts. I know that too."

"Then you understand your position."

"I do." I stopped for a beat. "Which is why I'm going on Heart's Compass too."

Margaret stared at me for nearly three seconds.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"As a civilian participant," I said. "Stella and Julian run their little love story for the cameras, and I let the global audience watch and figure out for themselves who the actual homewrecker is."

"You're a cellist, not a reality star —"

"I've performed at Carnegie Hall seventeen times. I've done Lincoln Center global livestreams. A camera is not a problem for me."

She walked to the window and stood with her back to me. When she turned around, her expression was working through something. "A show like that requires a partner. Do you have one?"

"I will have."

"'I will have.'" She turned back around, and her voice had that specific quality of someone running out of the energy to be angry. "Aria, if you go on that show and it goes sideways, your career is finished. Not paused. Done."

"I know."

"And you still want to do this."

"Yes."

Diane made a quiet sound — not quite a cough. Margaret glanced at her, then back at me.

"If you don't have a partner, the plan is dead."

"I know."

"If any new negative story comes out of that show, I cannot protect you."

"I'm not asking you to protect me," I said. "I'm asking you to give me time."

She looked at me for a long moment. Then she sat back down, pushed the folder to the side, and said, "End of this week."

Diane exhaled softly beside me. I turned and she gave me one slow nod.

I winked at her.

The hallway had thinned out but not cleared. I walked back through it the same way I'd come in — same pace, same line, same chin.

Near the lobby I caught a voice behind me, low: "...honestly, if she really was messing around with someone's guy, why would she walk in here like that..."

Another voice: "Right?"

The corner of my mouth moved.

Good. Keep thinking.

I pushed through the glass doors and stopped at the top of the steps for a second.

A show like that requires a partner.

Someone with enough visibility, enough pull — and who would actually say yes.

One name came to me.

Orion

He's absolutely going to say "I told you so."

One hundred percent.

I was just about to find Orion when a suited figure cut toward me at speed. "Aria!"

I knew that voice. Knew it too well. The nausea I'd been holding down all morning came surging back the second I heard it.

I stepped aside before he could get close. "I don't know you, sir. Come any closer and I'll have you charged with harassment."