Chapter 76: News
The car pulled away, tires crunching over the gravel as it headed down the long, tree-lined driveway.
Inside the quiet vehicle, the atmosphere shifted instantly. Niko was sitting on the fold-out seat opposite them, flipping through a tablet, his eyes scanning documents at a rapid pace while the rest of the legal team occupied the vehicle behind them.
Isabella sat completely still beside Aaron. Her hands were folded tightly in her lap, her knuckles pale. She was staring straight ahead, her eyes blank, her breathing short and shallow.
Aaron watched her for a long moment. He could see the tiny pulse fluttering at the base of her throat, the way her bottom lip trembled slightly before she bit down on it to keep it still.
He leaned in close, his shoulder pressing lightly against hers, and brought his mouth down to the shell of her ear.
"Are you going to break my arm during the flight," he murmured, his voice low and warm, "or are you going to breathe?"
The sudden heat of his breath against her skin made Isabella jump. She flinched violently, her head snapping back as her hands clutched at the edge of the seat.
"Stop doing that!" she gasped, her voice a sharp whisper, her face flushing crimson as she glared blindly in his direction. "My heart is already beating out of my chest, Aaron. You don’t need to help it along."
Niko looked up from his tablet, a small, amused smirk catching the corner of his mouth before he quickly looked back down, pretending to be deeply fascinated by a clause in paragraph four.
Aaron didn’t move away. He stayed right there, his mouth inches from her cheek, his tone dripping with quiet satisfaction. "It’s a courtroom, Isabella. Not a firing squad. You sit in a chair, you let Niko do the talking, and you hold my hand if you get scared."
"I’m not scared," she lied, her voice tight. "I’m... prepared."
"You look like you’re about to jump out of a moving vehicle," Aaron said softly, reaching out and wrapping his fingers over hers. He squeezed her hand, firm and grounding, until her rigid fingers slowly began to uncurl inside his grip. "It’s going to be fine. It’s a simple hearing."
Isabella let out a slow, shaky breath, her forehead leaning toward his shoulder just for a second before she pulled herself upright again. "Thank you," she whispered, so quietly only he could catch it. "For coming back with me."
Aaron didn’t answer with words. He just shifted his grip, lacing his fingers through hers, and turned his eyes out the window as the trees thinned and the city began to take shape in the distance.
By noon that same day, the news had already broken across two continents.
It didn’t start with a official press release. It started with a quiet leak from a clerk in the Manhattan family court, a quick phone call to a morning producer, and within three hours, the story had swallowed the news cycle whole.
In a brightly lit studio in midtown Manhattan, two news anchors sat behind a curved glass desk, a large graphic floating between them featuring photographs of Kian Carter, Isabella Kingston, and Aaron Kazarov.
"The Carter-Kingston divorce has officially taken a turn that few legal analysts expected," the female anchor was saying, her voice polished and professional.
"What was initially believed to be a quiet, behind-closed-doors separation between two of the country’s most prominent business families has now spilled into a public legal battle."
Her co-anchor leaned forward, adjusting his papers. "That’s right, Sarah. Earlier this morning, court records confirmed that Kian Carter has filed a formal contest against Isabella Kingston’s petition for divorce. This comes just weeks after rumors circulated that Mrs. Kingston had left the country following a high-profile public incident."
The screen shifted to a scrolling ticker of headlines from major news outlets and financial publications.
’CARTER-KINGSTON DIVORCE TURNS UGLY AS BILLIONAIRE CONTESTS WIFE’S PETITION’
’KIAN CARTER REFUSES TO SIGN DIVORCE PAPERS AMID INFIDELITY RUMORS’
’IS THE CARTER MARRIAGE REALLY OVER? INSIDE THE BATTLE FOR THE KINGSTON ESTATE’
Across the city, in high-rise office buildings, in quiet coffee shops, on subway trains, people were looking at their phones. Gossip blogs had taken the story and run wild with it. Comment sections were exploding with thousands of messages every minute.
Some people accused Isabella of being a cold-hearted heiress who had traded her husband for a richer man; others pointed out that Kian’s sudden desperate fight to keep a woman who had publicly left him was deeply bizarre.
’Why won’t he just let her go if she cheated?’ one top-voted comment read.
’He’s a billionaire. He could have any woman in the world. Why is he fighting for someone who doesn’t want him?’ another asked.
’Maybe he actually loves her? Or maybe he just can’t stand losing.’
In the corner office of Kingston Enterprises, Vivienne sat at her broad glass desk, a cup of lukewarm tea sitting forgotten beside her keyboard.
She was scrolling through a gossip forum, her eyes scanning the wildest theories with a slow, dark sense of satisfaction.
Vivienne leaned back in her chair, a cold smirk touching her lips. "Oof she’s not gonna like this," she muttered to herself, taking a slow sip of her tea.
Alice was probably tearing her hair out right now, realizing that Kian was dragging his feet not because of legal red tape, but because he couldn’t handle the thought of Isabella belonging to someone else.
And then there was Aaron Kazarov.
His name in the headlines had turned what would have been a standard celebrity scandal into a international sensation.
Photographs of Aaron were rare, but the press had managed to dig up two. One was a grainy, high-contrast shot taken outside a hotel in Paris six months ago; the other was a clear, striking photograph taken just a month ago at a small boutique in Finland.
In the picture, Aaron was wearing a dark, heavy overcoat, his hand firmly wrapped around Isabella’s waist as he guided her into the boutique.
He was looking down at her, shielding her body from the wind with his own, his expression sharp and protective. Isabella had her hand resting against his chest, her face pale, looking entirely dependent on his guidance.
The media took that single photograph and built an entire romance around it. They called him the dark Russian billionaire who had stolen the blind heiress from her golden-boy husband.
They dissected every inch of the picture, analyzing the position of his fingers on her waist, the way he towered over her, the absolute, cold authority in his posture.
By the time the sun began to set over the city, the narrative was set. It wasn’t just a divorce anymore. It was a war between two men who held vast fortunes, with a woman trapped right in the middle.