Chapter 305: Straight to Pretty People Jail

Aria pushed through the doors of the women’s restroom, immediately flipping the brass deadbolt lock shut behind her to secure their privacy.

Zoe was pacing the length of the marble floor. Her pastel-pink Chanel tweed jacket had been discarded onto a velvet chaise lounge. She was aggressively tugging at the edges of her platinum blonde lace-front wig, her chest heaving as she hyperventilated.

"I am going to prison," Zoe gasped, staring at her own reflection in the vanity mirror with wide, terrified eyes. "I’m going to be cellmates with a woman named Oga who stabs people with sharpened toothbrushes over commissary snacks."

"Zoe, stop pulling at the lace, you’re going to rip it," Aria said, walking over and gently swatting her best friend’s hands away from her hairline.

"I just committed financial fraud in front of some of the wealthiest people on the planet!" Zoe shrieked, ignoring Aria’s calming tone. "I screamed three million dollars! Three million, Aria! We have exactly one million on the card! Do you have a secret, underground vault filled with gold bars that I don’t know about?! Because otherwise, I’m going to fucking jail!"

Aria let out a long exhale, leaning her hips back against the edge of the sink.

"We don’t have two million dollars," Aria admitted, rubbing her temples as a dull headache began to pulse behind her eyes. "I literally have about four hundred dollars in my checking account right now."

Zoe dropped her head into her hands, letting out a muffled sob of despair. "I’m dead. We are both dead. The auction organizers are going to come looking for the deposit check in twenty minutes."

Zoe suddenly lifted her head, her eyes locking onto Aria with desperate, manic hope.

"Text him," Zoe pleaded, grabbing Aria’s arm.

"No," Aria said instantly, her posture going rigid.

"Aria, please!" Zoe begged, her voice cracking. "I’m sure he won’t mind at all! If you send him a text right now, he will wire two million dollars to you without even blinking!"

"I said no, Zoe," Aria stated, her voice hardening.

Aria pulled her arm out of Zoe’s grip. She crossed her arms tightly, her emerald eyes dropping to the floor.

"If I ask him for the money, it’s over," Aria explained, her voice dropping into a vulnerable whisper. "If Damien funds this, then Vale Entertainment isn’t mine."

"He wouldn’t care about the shares," Zoe argued softly. "He would just give it to you."

"But the world would know," Aria countered, looking back up, her eyes shining with unshed tears of frustration. "Zoe, look at how everyone already treats me. They treat me like a toy sitting on Damien Sinclair’s shelf. They think I’m just a pretty accessory he bought to piss off his grandfather. If I use his money to buy the company... I’m just proving them right."

Aria swallowed the thick lump forming in her throat.

"My mother built that company from the ground up," Aria continued, her voice trembling slightly. "Before Lydia and Raymond destroyed it, it was hers. I need this to be mine. I need to know that I earned it, that I fought for it, and that I secured it with my own two hands. If I run to Damien the second things get hard, I’m surrendering the only piece of independence I have left."

Zoe stared at her.

She saw the fierce, unyielding pride burning in Aria’s eyes. She understood. Aria had spent her entire life having her autonomy stripped away by her abusers. To hand her biggest victory over to her husband, no matter how much he loved her, would feel like a defeat.

Zoe let out an exhausted sigh, dropping her forehead onto Aria’s shoulder.

"Okay," Zoe murmured, wrapping an arm around Aria’s waist. "Okay. No Damien. But Aria... we have twenty minutes. How are we going to legally acquire two million dollars before security kicks down this door?"

Aria hugged her back, resting her chin on Zoe’s blonde wig. "I don’t know. Maybe I can call my bank and ask for a really, really big personal loan? Do they do same-day approvals for twenty-year-olds?"

Click.

Aria and Zoe froze perfectly still.

They both slowly turned their heads toward the row of private bathroom stalls lining the far wall.

One of the doors swung open.

Stepping gracefully out of the stall, adjusting the cuffs of her suit, was Vittoria Rossi.

Zoe stopped breathing. The blood completely drained from her face. She recognized the Italian millionaire instantly.

’We are so dead,’ Zoe panicked internally. ’She heard everything. We are going to jail.’

For a moment, there was tense silence. Aria was frozen where she stood, unsure of what to say or even do.

Vittoria walked over to the adjacent marble sink, turned on the faucet, and began washing her hands.

She looked up, meeting Aria’s wide eyes in the vanity mirror.

Vittoria offered a soft, warm smile.

"It is suffocating, isn’t it?" Vittoria murmured over the sound of the running water.

Aria blinked, completely thrown off balance. "Excuse me?"

Vittoria reached for a linen hand towel, delicately drying her fingers.

"Standing in his shadow," Vittoria clarified, turning around to lean casually against the edge of the marble sink. She looked at Aria. "Damien is a force of nature, Aria. He doesn’t necessarily mean to consume the women he is with, but he does it anyway. His power, his influence, his wealth... it is so massive that it effortlessly eclipses everything else in the room."

Vittoria tossed the linen towel into a small wicker basket.

"When we were together," Vittoria confessed softly, her gaze drifting toward the floor for a fraction of a second, "I felt myself disappearing. People stopped seeing me and my achievements. They only saw Damien Sinclair’s girlfriend. Every accomplishment I achieved was suddenly attributed to his influence."

She looked back up, her eyes locking onto Aria’s.

"I wasn’t brave enough then to do anything about it," Vittoria stated. "But listening to you just now... I see that you are refusing to be consumed."

Aria’s tense shoulders slowly dropped.

Vittoria was a woman who had stood in the exact same blazing spotlight Aria was currently standing in, and she understood the struggle of maintaining your own identity when the world only wanted to see you as an extension of a billionaire.

Vittoria reached into her leather clutch.

She pulled out a small, slim, black checkbook and a gold fountain pen. She uncapped the pen and began writing. "I respect a woman who refuses to be bought," Vittoria smiled.

Zoe’s jaw unhinged. She stared at the Italian millionaire as if she were a descending angel sent from heaven.

Vittoria paused, her pen hovering just above the signature line. She looked at Aria.

"I will front the remaining two million dollars to cover the invoice tonight," Vittoria offered. "It will be a silent, undocumented loan. No one will know I was involved."

"Why?" Aria finally managed to ask, her voice a breathless, stunned whisper. "Why would you do this for me?"

"Because I want to see you succeed, Aria," Vittoria answered smoothly. "But I do have one condition."