After Rebirth, I Became My Ex's Aunt-in-Law

Chapter 251: God’s Favorite Art Piece

In the master suite of the Sinclair Penthouse, Aria was seated cross-legged on the bed, propped up against a mountain of pillows. She was cradling an opened pint of Ben & Jerry’s Half-Baked ice cream against her chest.

She dug her spoon into the carton, extracting a ratio of vanilla ice cream and cookie dough, and popped it into her mouth.

She let out a contented sigh, watching her husband move across the room.

"Honestly?" Aria mumbled around the spoon, pointing it at him. "I feel like you held back earlier. When you kicked Bella out. I wanted more fire. You know? A little roar, roar, like a dragon."

Damien was standing near the foot of the bed, loosening his tie.

He let out a low chuckle, pulling the silk tie entirely free from his collar and tossing it onto a nearby armchair.

"You should have submitted a script revision in advance, Mrs. Sinclair," Damien replied smoothly. "I would have happily channeled a dragon for you."

He began to unbutton his white dress shirt.

Aria’s eating slowly came to a halt.

Damien slipped the shirt off his broad shoulders, revealing the hard, deeply sculpted expanse of his chest. The faint silver scars crisscrossing his ribs caught the low ambient light of the bedroom. He moved with a lazy, effortless grace, his muscles flexing and bunching under his skin as he unbuckled his trousers and stepped out of them, leaving him in nothing but a pair of dark boxer briefs.

’Oh wow...’

Aria’s brain flatlined.

The ice cream in her mouth began to melt. She was completely mesmerized.

Damien pulled a pair of comfortable grey sweatpants from his dresser drawer and slid them on. They hung low on his hips, the soft cotton highlighting the sharp, deep ridges of his V-line.

He turned to face her.

"They tore the SUV down to the chassis," Damien started, walking toward the side of the bed. "The vehicle was clean. It wasn’t bugged."

Aria didn’t hear a thing.

She was currently in an unblinking trance. Her eyes were glued to the waistband of his sweatpants, tracing the shadowed lines of his abdomen. She slowly pulled the spoon out of her mouth, her lips wrapping around the silver metal, sucking on it with a prolonged, shameless intensity.

Damien paused mid-sentence of whatever he was saying.

He looked at her. He looked at the spoon in her mouth. He looked at her glassy, emerald eyes fixated entirely on his torso.

Damien stepped up to the edge of the mattress. He lightly flicked her right in the center of her forehead.

"Ow!" Aria yelped, the spoon dropping onto her tongue. She blinked rapidly, her hands flying up to rub her forehead.

"My eyes are up here," Damien said, his voice a dry, amused deadpan.

"You can’t blame me!" Aria pouted, crossing her arms defensively. "You’re putting on a show right in front of me! I am morally obligated to watch!"

Damien shook his head, a smirk pulling at his lips. He reached over, grabbed a soft black t-shirt from the edge of the bed, and pulled it over his head.

"Focus, Aria," Damien commanded lightly, sitting down beside her.

"I am focused," Aria promised, nodding eagerly. "Super focused."

But the second he sat down, her eyes immediately betrayed her. They dropped from his golden irises straight down to his mouth. She stared at the kissable curve of his lips, zoning out again.

Damien sighed. "Should I put on a ski mask?"

"I’m sorry!" Aria groaned, throwing her hands over her face in frustration. "It’s not my fault! You are just ridiculously good-looking! It is difficult to pay attention to your words when you look like... that."

Damien frowned.

He stared at his wife. She wasn’t joking.

His eyes widened slightly.

"Wait," Damien murmured.

"What?" Aria asked, dropping her hands.

"It makes perfect sense," Damien muttered, running a hand through his silver hair, his jaw clenching. He looked at Aria, genuinely appalled.

"My face," Damien stated, "is causing underperformance. Underperformance costs my company money. I am a corporate liability."

Aria stared at him for two solid seconds, then she burst into a fit of wheezing laughter. She fell back against the pillows, clutching her stomach, nearly dropping her ice cream tub onto the sheets.

"Damien, you genuinely think you look like the average man?" Aria cackled. She reached up, cupping his face with both hands, squishing his cheeks together until his lips puckered like a fish.

"You literally look like a fallen angel carved out of marble," Aria teased, squishing his cheeks again. "Just make a silly face! It’ll ruin the illusion! Cross your eyes!"

Damien gently batted her hands away.

"I am not crossing my eyes," Damien grumbled. He leaned over, reaching for the nightstand. He picked up his wire-rimmed reading glasses and slid them onto his face.

"Does this help?" Damien asked. "Does it dull the distraction?"

Aria stared at him. The wire-rimmed glasses perfectly framed his golden eyes. They made him look like a dark, brooding, highly intelligent professor who definitely graded papers with a glass of scotch.

"No," Aria deadpanned, her heart doing a slight flutter. "That only works on Superman. You are just going to have to accept the consequences of being God’s favorite art piece."

Damien let out a long, suffering sigh, pulling the glasses off and tossing them back onto the nightstand.

"Fine. I will initiate a mandatory ’eyes-on-the-screen’ policy for all future board meetings," Damien decided. He shifted his weight, turning to face her fully, "But anyways, as I was saying before..."

"If the car wasn’t bugged," Damien continued, "then the device had to be carried into the cabin."

Aria took a small bite of ice cream, chewing thoughtfully as she hummed in agreement.

"I think it’s the pen Jade Evans gave to Richard," Damien said, his eyes narrowing slightly. "Who gives a man a pen after a make-out session?" he argued.

"A woman shooting her shot," Aria defended. "Her phone number was on the pen."

"It’s a prop designed to be overlooked." Damien argued. "I don’t trust her."

"You don’t trust anyone," Aria pointed out reasonably. "We cannot start pointing fingers until we actually have hard evidence. She’s a suspect now sure as this is our only lead, but innocent until proven guilty."

Aria didn’t think it was Jade, her gut was telling her it wasn’t her, and she always listened to her gut. Also, why would Jade want to sabotage her?

"Richard is trying to locate the pen," Damien stated. "Until it is cleared, you are to stay away from Jade Evans. Understood?"

Aria scooped another bite of cookie dough onto her spoon. "Okay, dad," she snarked, popping the spoon into her mouth.

The temperature in the bedroom dropped instantly to absolute zero.

Damien leaned forward, closing the distance between them until his face was mere inches from hers.

"It’s daddy for you," Damien commanded, his voice dropping into a gravelly whisper that sent a surge of heat straight to her core.

A blush exploded across Aria’s cheeks, flooding all the way down to her collarbones. Her breath hitched. She slowly pulled the spoon out of her mouth, a tiny, submissive smirk tugging at the corners of her lips.

"Okay, daddy," Aria whispered back, batting her eyelashes.

Damien let out a low, satisfied hum, his gaze lingering on her flushed face for a few seconds. Then, his golden eyes dropped down, landing on the pint of Ben & Jerry’s clutched tightly in her hands.

Damien raised a single, questioning eyebrow.

"You shouldn’t be eating that much sugar at this hour," Damien advised smoothly, leaning back slightly.

"Why?" Aria asked, raising a challenging brow. "You don’t want a fat wife?"