From Valet to billionaire king

Aldous Vane

Edmund didn't sit. Neither did Rosalind.

"I'm not sitting down until someone tells me what's happening." Rosalind's voice shook now, fear and anger tangled together in a way Edmund had never seen from her in this house, not with her father. "Dad. Now."

Barnaby's jaw tightened at her tone. Edmund saw something pass behind his eyes, the same cold displeasure he'd seen aimed at waiters, at drivers, at anyone who failed to move at the pace he expected. He had simply never seen it aimed at his own daughter before.

"Sit down, Rosalind," Barnaby said again, quieter this time, which was somehow worse.

Rosalind sat. Not because she wanted to. Edmund could see it in the stiff, unwilling set of her shoulders. Some old reflex in her still answered that tone before her mind caught up to whether she agreed with it.

Edmund stayed standing.

"Mr. Thorne." Barnaby turned to him, using his last name for the first time in three years like it was a demotion. "I'll keep this simple, because I see no value in dragging it out. This is Aldous Vane. His father is Silas Vane, best friend to Cornelius Marston, one of the richest men in this city. Silas, and I have discussed a marriage between Aldous and Rosalind. We have been discussing it for several weeks, and tonight we intend to finalize the arrangements."

"Barnaby." Edmund kept his voice level through sheer effort. "Rosalind is already married."

"Not for much longer." Barnaby opened the folder and slid a document across the table. Divorce papers, the Whitfield family's law firm letterhead across the top, Edmund's name already typed into the blank where a signature belonged. "This is a generous settlement. More generous than a man in your position has any right to expect. Sign it tonight and walk away with more money than you'll see in the next decade of parking cars."

"Dad, stop." Rosalind's voice broke. "You can't just, this isn't a business deal, this is my marriage."

"Your marriage," Cordelia cut in, cool and clipped, the tone of someone reciting lines she'd rehearsed, "was a mistake we allowed you to make at twenty-four because we hoped you would grow tired of it on your own. You haven't. So we are stepping in, the way parents are supposed to when their child can't see what's good for her."

"I love him." Rosalind's voice cracked fully now, tears starting, angry and humiliated at once. "I don't care what you allowed. I chose him. I still choose him."

"You'll choose better once you understand what's actually being offered." Barnaby turned back to Edmund. "Sign the papers."

"No," Edmund said.

The word landed flat and final. Aldous, still seated, watched the exchange with the faint, detached amusement of a man observing a transaction he expected to close no matter the theatrics.

"No?" Barnaby repeated, as if the word itself offended him.

"I'm not signing anything." Edmund met his eyes and refused to look away first. "Rosalind is my wife. She is not a line item you get to trade because you found a better offer. If she wants a divorce, she can tell me that herself, in her own words, without you standing over her holding a folder like a debt collector."

Something shifted in Barnaby's face. Not embarrassment. Anger, pure and unguarded, the mask of civility dropping away entirely for the first time in three years.

"You don't get a vote in this," he said, voice rising, low and dangerous, and Rosalind flinched visibly in her chair. "You never did. I let this go on for three years out of patience I didn't owe you, and I am done being patient. Rosalind." He turned to her, sharp, commanding. "Tell him. Tell him it's over."

"I won't." Rosalind stood, chair scraping back hard, tears streaming freely now, but her voice held steady underneath them. "I won't say that, Dad, because it isn't true. I'm not signing anything, and neither is he, and I don't care how many lawyers you bring into this house."

"Rosalind." Cordelia's voice, sharp.

"No, Mom!" Rosalind's voice cracked into something raw. "You don't get to do this. Either of you. This is my life, not something you get to broker over dinner."

Barnaby's hand came down flat on the table hard enough to rattle the glasses, and the room went silent in the aftermath, even Aldous's faint smile fading into something more careful.

"You will not raise your voice in this house," Barnaby said, each word measured and cold. "Sit down."

Rosalind didn't sit. She stood there shaking, one hand pressed to her mouth. Edmund crossed the room to stand beside her, close enough that his shoulder touched hers, close enough that she could feel he wasn't going anywhere.

"We're leaving," Edmund said. "Both of us. Right now."

He reached for her hand. That was the moment the door to the hallway opened and two men in dark suits stepped into the room. Not family. Not lawyers. Men with the flat, unhurried posture of people paid to handle situations exactly like this one.

"Aldous," Barnaby said, not taking his eyes off Edmund, "I believe your men are here to help him find the door."