The tension in the meeting room was thick enough to suffocate everyone present but Alan and Eliott. Clyde felt sick with guilt — by selling his shares to Eliott, he'd helped him become the majority shareholder in his own father's company, and he knew there'd be no forgiving that once the truth came out. He kept his eyes fixed on the table, unable to meet anyone's gaze.
Only Aria sat there with entirely different things on her mind. Rather than worry about her father or the family business teetering on the brink, she was fixated on Eliott, undressing him in her imagination, fantasizing about the two of them together, regretting all the fuss she'd made before — when Eliott had never once spared her a glance from the start, and never would.
Eliott paid the others no mind; they were insignificant to him, barely worth the space they occupied. His attention was fixed entirely on Alan.
