Chapter 8

The sound of rapidfire typing filled the space as Aria tried to get her mind off her marriage and into her brand new job.

Aston had touched her, he had pulled her tightly into his space right in front of her son, and he had whispered in her ear in a way that probably seemed loving to Asher.

“Act right, Aria. If the boy tells Arthur how his parents don’t act like they love each other, how would our marriage be happy?”, he had asked, his breath ghosting her ear. He didn’t sound angry, but Aria had felt threatened by his words once again.

What was his obsession with keeping a happy marriage anyway?

“Miss Griffin?”, a petite young woman came to stand of Aria’s run down desk, out of all the other assistants’ desks around, assistants that didn’t start working the day before, her face hardened like she’d rather be anywhere else. Aria filed her husband somewhere separate.

It was rather hard to breathe around the woman, her perfume strong enough to choke Aria’s throat and sting her nose. 

“It’s Mrs actually”, she said with a small smile, trying to ease the woman in front of her. She didn’t exactly want to make unnecessary enemies. She had far too much of them already. Her smile had the opposite effect.

“Aria then”, she said imperially, tapping a sharp, blood red manicured nail on Aria’s desk like a vampire knocking to be let in and ravage the place. “I need you to deliver a few folders to the upper floors.”

Ah. Noted. One of Hartie’s minions it seemed. Hartie herself was a far too important director to do the dirty work of harassing Aria personally. 

Aria had peeped through her office the day before on her way back from Liam. It was full of literal trash. Wrappers everywhere and takeout containers all over her desk. The icon indeed. She couldn’t summon Aria to her office because she was still as messy as Aria remembered.

“That seems unprofessional, doesn’t it?”, Aria cocked her head to the side in derision. She was a low level assistant right then, but she was still the owner of Risher, and the granddaughter of Arthur Griffin. Aria hadn’t gone through everything she went through in life just to deal with disrespect from a blind follower.

Arthur would have her assasinated in frustration.

“You think you’re so important. You’re just an assistant.” She leaned closer, smiling insincerely at Aria. “Come to my office, pick up the folders, and take them where they belong.”

She didn’t give Aria a chance to respond, walking away while swaying her hips like she just did something. She swayed so hard that her hair in a ponytail swayed with her dramatically. Aria squinted.

It wouldn’t be considered disobeying if she didn’t go. She just didn’t know the woman’s office after all. Heh. The office games just begun.

She felt eyes on her and looked up to see her fellow assistants looking at her in disbelief.

“I don’t know if I want to say that was bold or that was stupid”, a blonde haired guy, Jason, was the first to speak up. “You don’t make Valerie mad, it’s just the rule around here”.

He sounded preppy, feminine, gay. Aria gave herself a mental slap. She couldn’t simply assume. But he also looked it. 

“Who is she then?”, Aria asked, her eyes sweeping across her two other colleagues. Their eyes simultaneously brightened and Aria shivered, in fear? Maybe. They looked feverish to inform, all three of them, like they were ready to burst into a musical number about how much of a witch Valerie was.

“Wait, wait!”, Melissa, the one that had rushed in late with a coffee tray exclaimed. “We can’t talk here. Let’s all…go get lunch at the cafetaria during our break or something!”

“Oh yeah that’s right!”, said Jen. “Fair warning, the food there is actually fucktastically horrible”.

Jen seemed awfully vulgar, leaning back in her seat and licking a lolipop nonchalantly. She looked older but acted like a troubled teenager. Aria liked her.

“Then let’s go somewhere else. My treat. You just point the way”, she said. 

“Okay, I think I might like you”, Jason said, squinting like she did.

Aria had the strong feeling that they didn’t know about her, or her relationship with the Rothschilds. The thought made her giddy. She was keeping it secret for as long as she co—

Her thoughts were interrupted by yet another person waltzing in through the door of their office. “Miss Griffin, Mr Adams needs you.”

Who the hell was Mr Adams? Why did everybody need her now?

As she followed the messenger, she felt a hand on her wrist holding her back. It was Jen.

“I don’t know why all these big names want you, but be careful, especially with Mr Adams”, her eyes were pleading. Aria was practically a stranger to her yet the woman was begging her to be careful?

“I’ll be careful”, she assured. Whoever he was, no one could be as scary as the man she just married. Her phone pinged as she got to the front of Mr Adam’s office, the messenger leaving her alone.

It was a text from Linda, her friend monitoring her store in France.

Linda never texted her. Something must have happened. Aria’s brows furrowed in worry.