Chapter 152: Discord
April may not have been overly sensitive to the emotional shifts of others, but she was far from so emotionally inept that she couldn’t detect the sharp, chilling drop in Xavier’s tone.
She stared at the empty space at the top of the stairs, her lips pursed into a thin, tight line.
"April," Alexander asked, his voice dropping into a quieter, more cautious register as he looked toward the empty landing. "Did you have a fight with Xavier?"
"Is that what this looks like?" she asked, dropping her gaze to look back at Alexander.
"Well..." Alexander rolled his eyes away, then brought them back to her face. He wasn’t entirely sure, but compared to how he had always seen Xavier practically worship this woman, the tone just now had been icy.
It was cold—almost entirely bland, like he was delivering a brief mandate to one of his entry-level corporate employees rather than speaking to someone he deeply admired.
"It does seem that way. But what do I know?" He threw his head back against the cushion with a sigh. "I might just be the one reading too much into it."
"We didn’t have a fight," April said flatly. "But his behavior is... odd."
It had started that morning, hadn’t it? The shift began the exact second she told him she couldn’t go see the gift he had prepared because of her driving lesson. She wondered if that was the sole reason. Was a simple scheduling conflict really that important to him? Important enough to make a man of his stature freeze her out over it?
As much as she didn’t want to get personally attached to her clients, she certainly didn’t want to have a strained, volatile relationship with them either. She still needed to use Xavier’s massive corporate influence and capital to front the global cooking competition in a couple of weeks. If they were at odds, executing her logistics would become incredibly awkward.
I should speak to him, she thought. During dinner, I’ll ask him what he doesn’t like, and then we’ll fix it.
But when dinner finally arrived, Xavier did not come down to the grand dining room.
The long mahogany table was set for two, but only April sat at her end. Before Samuel left, he quietly informed her that Xavier had requested his meal be served directly to his private study, as he had ’pressing corporate files to review before the morning market open.’
It was a blatant excuse. It was as if he didn’t want to look at her at all.
April stared at her plate, the food suddenly looking like something too large for her to finish. A distinct, stubborn discomfort began to coil in her chest.
She had acted so entirely nonchalant this whole time, and she desperately wished she could just remain that way—cold, detached, and focused solely on her survival even now. But she couldn’t. This strange, heavy knot in her chest was growing larger by the minute, and it simply wouldn’t stop bothering her.
All things aside, she was still human. She wasn’t a robot, no matter how much she tried to mimic one to stay detached.
Pushing her chair back, she got up from the table. She resolved herself right then to go and talk to Xavier in his study.
She walked up the grand staircase, her footsteps silent against the plush carpet of the upper hallway. When she reached the double doors of his private study, she stopped. She raised her hand and knocked once. Then twice.
"I don’t need my evening tonic," Xavier’s muffled voice drifted through the thick wood, sounding incredibly tired and thoroughly dismissive. "Head back to the kitchen."
He obviously thought she was the house maid bringing up his nightly tea.
Instead of knocking again to clarify, April simply reached down, turned the brass handle, and pushed the heavy door open.
"Mr. Reed," she said, her calm, flat voice cutting through the quiet of the room. "It’s late."
Inside the dimly lit study, Xavier was sitting behind his massive desk, illuminated only by a single green-shaded banker’s lamp. At the sound of her voice, his hand froze. His grip visibly hardened around his fountain pen, the metal nib stopping its soft scratching over the thick legal documents spread out before him.
He didn’t lift his head to look at her, keeping his sharp gaze fixed entirely on the papers.
"What are you doing here, Miss April?" he asked, his voice low, flat, and completely devoid of its usual warmth.
April did not flinch under his icy regard. Instead, she walked over with measured, quiet steps and stood before the massive desk.
"Do you remember the first day we met?" she asked, her voice steady in the quiet room. "At the party at the Morgans."
Xavier’s pen remained completely still against the document. "What is this about, Miss April? You are not one to reminisce."
"Actually, I am. I reminisce about quite a lot of things when my mind is not occupied with the present," she said smoothly. Without waiting for an invitation, she pulled back the leather chair opposite his and took a seat.
She dropped her hands onto her knees and stared directly at him with those cold, knowing eyes—the exact same unblinking gaze she had used to dissect his future the night she secured him as her premier ally.
Xavier felt the sudden, suffocating weight of her focus. A faint, defensive tension rippled across his shoulders.
"Did you... read my fortune just now?" he asked, a rare hint of vulnerability cracking his corporate armor, as if fearing she had seen a hidden truth about him that prompted this sudden confrontation.
She shook her head. "I didn’t. But I could if you want me to."
"No need," Xavier turned it down instantly, his response sharp and immediate, closing the boundary before she could peer into a truth he wasn’t ready to accept.
He finally raised his head, his dark eyes locking onto hers. "What are you doing here, Miss April? You come in here and try to talk about the past all of a sudden. I’m sure you have much more important things to do than that."
April stiffened just a tiny bit—it was a fraction of a movement that his eyes missed.
"It’s that tone," she said, her voice dropping into a flat, clinical observation. "It’s the exact same tone you used when you were talking to me at that party, like I was someone you needed to guard against. The same tone you had when you pinned me against the wall, entirely suspicious about the intentions of a stranger."