All Chapters of The Night My Best-Friend Ruined Me: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Aria's POV The silence of the morning was a lie.I sat on a park bench, the wood cold and damp against my legs, watching Leo chase a stray butterfly through the grass.To anyone else, it was a peaceful Sunday.To me, it was the aftermath of a massacre.My head was still throbbing from the gala, the echoes of my own voice ringing in my ears.I’d stood in the middle of that ballroom and called Adrian a coward in front of his entire world.I’d felt powerful in the moment, like I’d finally lanced a wound that had been festering for five years.But now, the adrenaline was gone, replaced by a hollow, gnawing dread.Adrian wasn't the type of man who took a public humiliation and moved on.He was a man who planned. He was a man who waited."Mama! Look! He’s fast!"Leo stumbled over a tuft of grass, his laughter bright and clear, cutting through the fog in my brain.He looked so happy. So normal.It made my chest tighten with a familiar, suffocating guilt.I’d brought him back to this viper's

Aria's POV The phone I'd used to receive Adrian's call was sitting on my kitchen counter, looking like a subpoena.I didn't need to read between the lines to know it was a trap. Adrian didn't do casual, and he certainly didn't care about discussing equipment requests on a Sunday morning.He has something else in that twisted mind of his.He’d seen us at the park, or his shadows had, and now he wanted to get close enough to smell the truth."You don't have to go," Julian said, leaning against the breakfast bar. He was watching me pace, his arms crossed over his chest. "We can tell him Leo has a fever. We can tell him the car won't start. We can tell him to go to hell.""And then what? He uses it as an excuse to tighten the leash even more? No."I stopped pacing and looked at Julian. "If I go alone, he’ll corner me. He’ll use his stupid high-pressure CEO routine to try and rattle me until I say something I can't take back.""Then I'm coming with you."Julian walked over, his expression

Adrian's POVThe air in the research wing was starting to feel toxic.It wasn't just the chemicals or the recycled ventilation; it was the sheer, suffocating weight of the failure pressing down on everyone.The team had hit a massive wall with the protein synthesis. The latest batch of results had come back as a string of zeros, and the frustration was a living thing in the room.I didn't care about the science. Not really.I cared about the fact that this crisis gave me every excuse I needed to be exactly where I wanted to be.In her space."The cost of these failed runs is hitting seven figures, Dr. Vale," I said, leaning against the glass door of her primary workspace. "As the person signing the checks, I have a responsibility to oversee the allocation of the new equipment you requested."Aria didn't even look up from the centrifuge she was calibrating."The equipment is fine, Adrian. The biology is being stubborn. If you’re worried about the money, go look at a spreadsheet in your

Adrian's POVI wanted to put Julian Cross through a wall.The image of him yesterday, smugly wrapping his jacket around Aria like he was marking territory, was playing on a loop in the back of my mind.He looked at me like I was the villain, and the worst part was the way Aria let him. She leaned into him like he was her only lifeline in a stormy sea.I hated him. I hated his protective stance, his "savior" routine, and the way he acted like he’d been the one there for her when the world turned cold.But mostly, I hated that he was right.I walked into the research wing this morning with my jaw set so tight it was a wonder I could speak.The lab was a pressure cooker today. The air felt heavy, vibrating with the frantic energy of thirty scientists who had hit a brick wall with the protein synthesis.Aria was at the center of the storm, her hair pulled back in a messy knot, a smudge of charcoal on her cheek."The stabilization isn't holding, Adrian," Marcus Thorne said, intercepting me

Adrian's POVThe tablet on my desk was glowing with the kind of evidence that made my vision tunnel into a sharp, white-hot point of rage.The photos were high-resolution, captured from across the street at some pathetic little café by the water.In the first shot, Julian was leaning across the table, his hand covering hers.In the second, he was smiling at her—that soft, intimate look that made my stomach turn into a knot of barbed wire.And then there was the third one.Aria was looking back at him, her expression relaxed, her guard completely dropped in a way it never was when I was in the room.The timing was too perfect to be a coincidence.We had a data breach at 3:00 AM—a massive leak of the protein sequences—and by the afternoon, the lead researcher was out having a celebratory coffee with her "partner."I slammed the tablet face down on the desk, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the empty office.She was playing me. Again.Everything—the fainting, the exhaustion, the cold