Chapter 64

Aria

A week or two passed after that. Unfortunately, any hopes I’d previously had of making up with Lily had slowly faded away, replaced by something closer to resignation.

I tried on numerous occasions, just little things to show her that I was sorry—smiling when I saw her, a quick wave here and there, even bringing in cookies to share with her—but every time, she would either look away or give me this tight, uncomfortable smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

It was hard to decide which was worse: the cold shoulders or the fake smiles.

As for the others, Brandon and Melissa began noticing that something was off, too. I didn’t think that they were onto the fact that I was Darren’s mate, but they were definitely starting to question his motivations behind hiring me. And they weren’t thrilled about the implications.

But despite Lily’s coldness and the others’ growing distrust, I wasn’t entirely without a friend. To my surprise, Tracy and I actually grew closer as time went on.

We would chat at lunch, even crack a few jokes together, and for all her poise, Tracy did seem to have a genuinely funny side. She was sweet and attentive—she would laugh when I made some wry comment about the piles of work she handed me, and there were always compliments.

“You’re really on top of things,” she would say, or “I like your initiative.” It felt good, mostly.

But there were days when she would drop a stack of paperwork on me that seemed almost insurmountable.

Sometimes it was just a lot of work, but a lot of the time it was work that was above my pay grade or out of my department entirely. More statistics, difficult marketing projects, and she even had me answering phone calls one day to field customer complaints when I had very little customer service experience, much to Melissa’s chagrin.

And yet, whenever I struggled and even admitted that I had no idea how to do the tasks she gave me—like when she asked me to code something for the website when I had absolutely no programming experience, and Brandon was the one in the web development department, not me—she would just smile.

“Oh, I didn’t realize it would be so tough,” she would say later, her eyebrows raised as if she were just as surprised as I was. I would smile back, hoping she didn’t notice how often I’d have to start over on things or double-check every little thing.

Not to mention that, with every project she gave me that was outside my department or pay grade, the others got more and more annoyed. After all, why was the human employee with no degree taking their projects away?

Darren’s assignments, by comparison, were so much easier. I never had trouble with them, really—never felt overwhelmed, at least.

But lately, I’d started to wonder if that was just him going easy on me. Maybe I’d been fooling myself by taking his simple tasks as signs of success when, really, he had just been tiptoeing around my lack of experience this whole time.

Maybe Lily was right. Maybe I didn’t belong here at all.

The guilt crept in slowly, coiling its way further and further around my heart. And every lunch with Tracy, every assignment I had to redo, every annoyed look from my peers made it even worse.

What was I doing here? The others had worked hard to get where they were, years of study and training, and here I was, an intern-turned-full-time-employee with zero qualifications, like I had cut to the front of the line and grabbed a spot that didn’t belong to me.

Maybe I should just go back to being Lucas’s nanny full-time, I kept thinking to myself. At least there, I didn’t feel like an imposter, didn’t feel this constant pressure to prove myself to everyone in the room. And Lucas didn’t hate me.

I couldn’t shake the thought as I tucked Lucas into bed one night. He gave a little yawn, then settled into his blankets, reaching for his stuffed shark as I brushed his hair back just the way he liked.

It was the one part of my day that felt normal. Calm.

But tonight, even that small comfort felt distant, like I was only half-there. My mind kept drifting, replaying the last few weeks on a loop. I was so lost in thought that I hardly even noticed Darren watching me from the doorway.

“Aria,” he said softly, crossing his arms as he leaned against the door frame. “You’ve been quiet tonight.”

“Oh, I’m just tired,” I said, managing a small smile as I kissed Lucas on the forehead and stood.

Darren just stared at me quietly. He waited until I left Lucas’s room, closing the door quietly behind me, before he spoke again. “There’s more to it than that. I can tell.”

I swallowed, looking down at my feet. My silent reaction was all Darren needed to tell that something was really wrong.

We made our way to the living room, and I sank down on the couch. For a moment, I wasn’t sure if I could even put it into words, but they tumbled out anyway. “I don’t know if this is working,” I murmured. “Maybe I should just… go back to nannying full time.”

Darren looked at me, surprised. “Why would you do that?”

I shrugged. “I don’t think I’m cut out for this job.”

“Where is this coming from? You’re gifted in this field, Aria,” Darren practically sputtered, which was rare for him. “And you’ve done well with everything I’ve given you—more than well.”

I laughed, but it was a hollow sound. “Yeah, but… maybe you’ve been giving me easy assignments on purpose. Maybe you didn’t want to challenge me too much.”

Darren raised an eyebrow. “If you’re saying you don’t feel challenged, I can give you harder assignments. It’s not an issue—”

“No, that’s not what I mean.” The words came out harsher than I meant them to. “It’s that I can’t even handle the harder ones. I mean… Tracy has given me some, and I’ve had to start over again and again. I’m… I’m an idiot, okay? I shouldn’t even be in this position in the first place. I won’t get anywhere without a degree.”

The room went silent. Darren just stared at me, his eyes wide as if he couldn’t believe what I had just said. And truthfully, I couldn’t believe it, either. I never spoke so poorly of myself or my lack of degree. Never.

“I didn’t know you wanted a degree that badly,” he finally said. “If that’s what you need… I’ll pay for night classes, Aria. Whatever you want.”

For a second, I just stared at him, unable to comprehend what I was hearing. But the feeling of relief that I might have expected didn’t come—instead, it just made the frustration boil over. This was exactly what I was trying to avoid.

“I never asked for special treatment just for being your mate!” I blurted out, jumping to my feet.

Darren looked at me as if he’d just been shot. I just stared at him, my chest heaving, hardly daring to believe that I’d just had an outburst like that. But it was true; all I ever wanted from the beginning was to be treated like everyone else. I didn’t want to be hated, and I didn’t want to be put on a pedestal.

All I wanted was a normal life. The sort of life that I was never afforded growing up.

But my words, though true, came out far sharper than I wanted them to. And before I could stammer out an excuse or an apology, Darren held up his hand to stop me.

“You’re clearly tired, Aria. I think you should take tomorrow off.”

My eyes widened. “But—”

“It’s not a suggestion,” he said. When his eyes met mine, they were hard and left no room for argument. There was a pain there, too. A pain that I felt in my chest, palpable and real. If I had the ability to sense the bond we shared in those moments, then I felt it like a blade twisting inside of me.

Tears pricked my eyes, but I didn’t want him to see me cry. So without a word, I grabbed my jacket and rushed out of the apartment.