Too Late Mr. White! I'm Married To Your Rival Now novel Chapter 261

Aria's POV

After sending the lawyer off, I couldn't resist texting Lillian immediately: "Babe, the lawyer got me $33,000 in compensation! And he got you over $2,000 too!"

Lillian, who was pretending to work at her office, let out an involuntary gasp when she saw my message.

"Everything okay over there?" her coworker asked, clearly thinking she'd had some brilliant marketing epiphany.

"Yeah, just stubbed my toe," she texted back. I could practically see her rubbing her nose awkwardly—her classic tell when she's lying.

Her coworker's voice came through in her next message: "Damn, I thought you'd cracked our new product campaign already!"

"As if! Still researching!" she'd replied.

Once she'd gotten rid of her nosy colleague, Lillian's excitement exploded across my screen: "HOLY SHIT!!! That's what Aiden's lawyer can do! LMAO I can just picture that arrogant store owner's face when he got the legal notice! I'm blocking his number RIGHT NOW!"

My mood had lifted considerably after listening to Gary's breakdown of the case. "Already blocked him," I replied, feeling a strange satisfaction at cutting that final tie.

"Damn straight!" Lillian shot back.

I glanced at the clock on my apartment wall. I could still get in two hours of piano practice before dinner. "Heading to practice now!" I texted.

"Go get 'em, maestro!" was her immediate response.

I set my phone down, the screen still glowing with Lillian's message, and made my way toward the baby grand piano that dominated my living room. The smooth, polished surface gleamed under the afternoon light streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Running my fingers lightly across the keys, I felt that familiar calm settling over me—this was my sanctuary, my escape.

The excitement of winning the legal battle against that smug store owner still buzzed under my skin. Thirty-three thousand dollars. The amount wasn't life-changing for someone like me, but the principle of it—that's what mattered. Nobody gets to take advantage of me anymore. Not after what I'd been through with Liam.

My fingers found the opening notes of Chopin's Nocturne in E-flat major. The melody flowed from my fingertips, filling my apartment with its melancholy beauty. Each note I played washed away a little more of the tension that had been building since the whole store incident started.

The Reiners weren't poor by any standard. Vicki's family had built a moderately successful lumber business years ago, though the protagonist had heard through industry connections that they'd been struggling lately. Bart's family did slightly better with their manufacturing business, pulling in around five or six million annually, though he shared that with his brother.

When they married, Bart's parents had contributed substantially—six hundred thousand for the house, an eighty-eight thousand dollar gift to Vicki, and roughly a hundred thousand for their wedding. Vicki's family had countered with a sixty-thousand-dollar Mercedes and ninety-nine thousand in cash. On paper, they'd started their marriage with nearly a million dollars between them—not exactly hardship.

But New York real estate eats money like nothing else. They'd sunk three hundred thousand into the down payment for their luxury apartment, then spent another fortune renovating it. Their monthly mortgage payments ran around twenty thousand, while their combined income barely covered that.

The restaurant had been their attempt at generating additional income—a "trending hotspot" that just needed some initial buzz. They'd poured practically everything they had left into it.

Now facing their legal action, they claimed they couldn't afford the settlement. But that wasn't entirely true—they just thought the amount was unreasonable. They hadn't expected them to stand their ground with immediate legal action and public exposure.

She smiled as she drew her bow across the strings, hitting a particularly satisfying note. Some people need to learn the hard way that actions have consequences.

Her phone buzzed again with another notification. She glanced at it briefly, then returned to her practice. The matter was being handled exactly as it should be.