One glance was enough to tell me – this was a man who lived with demons.
Time had lent both maturity and hardness to his features, and I knew that Sebastian the boy was long gone. In his place was a man – one who seemed electrically charged with a caged intensity, his harsh beauty both terrifying and enthralling. As a boy, he’d been full of charm, ease, and good humor; before me now, I saw a man who rarely laughed and who chose his words with care, a man with walls so high no one could scale them to see inside his heart or mind.
When we’d first met eight years ago, he’d been somewhat guarded – it had taken months for him to really open up to me. Yet I had a distinct feeling that this older Sebastian wasn’t only guarded, he was an impenetrable fortress of solitude and self-containment.
It made me instantly sad. I mourned for the boy who once was, and for the part I’d played in his destruction.
I watched as his gold-flecked irises widened in shock as he recognized me.
His gaze roamed my face, lingering on the smattering of freckles on my nose before sweeping down my body in an almost predatory manner. Once, he’d known every curve and imperfection of my body more intimately than anyone. His hands had touched every secret part of me, unraveled me, set me on fire, and brought me to my knees begging for release more times than I cared to count. I’m not sure what expressions crossed my face at that moment – probably nothing good — but his own feelings were concealed from my view. Besides the initial shock I’d seen in his eyes, I couldn’t read him at all.
The silence stretched for an uncomfortable amount of time. I could sense Cara in my peripherals, looking from me to Sebastian, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from him. I was drinking him in, yearning for a flicker of understanding or recognition to appear in those bottomless eyes. But, when they finally finished their perusal of my body and his gaze returned to my face, I was discouraged to find nothing but flinty anger and indifference in their depths.
I averted my eyes, unable to bear him looking at me like I was a stranger or, worse, someone whose very presence was abhorrent to him, and turned to stare at Cara. I cleared my throat and broke the silence.
“Lux,” I said in a shaky voice. “My name is Lux Kincaid.”
“Well,Lux,” she sneered. “You should pack up your desk cause you’re pretty muchfuckedonce I call your boss. Right, baby?” she asked Sebastian.
I turned my eyes back to him fleetingly, wary of his response. His eyes hadn’t moved from me, and he didn’t answer Cara. He just stared at me with that intense, scrutinizing look, as though he were trying to see inside my mind. Vitali’sChaconneplayed out its final aching notes from the overhead speakers, the violin echoing into silence as I stared back at him. When the final chord faded, to my absolute horror, I felt my eyes well up with tears.
I couldn’t be here, looking at him – at what I might’ve had. It hurt too damn much. I was about to make a run for the stairwell when I heard the blessed sound I’d been waiting for – the chime of the arrivingelevator. Dashing the tears from my eyes, I spun around and stepped into the empty car. As I pressed the button that would take me down to the lobby, I was powerless to stop my eyes from wandering back to Sebastian.
Cara was hanging on his arm, pouting and whining about me, no doubt, but his hands hung limply by his sides and he made no move to comfort her. We stared at one other, two strangers bound eternally by a shared past of lies and broken promises, and I wanted to throw myself into his arms. I wanted to bawl like a baby and take it all back – all the distance and the hurt, the deception and shattered trust. I wanted to erase the past seven years and kiss him until he forgot how I’d destroyed us.
But I didn’t, and I never would.
Our gazes stayed locked, tears slipping silently down my cheeks, until the elevator doors slid closed and I collapsed back against the wall. I couldn’t seem toget enough air into my lungs, couldn’t quite bring the blurred elevator doors in front of my eyes into focus. Detachedly, I realized I was having a panic attack, but I was too overwhelmed to care much.
As the elevator began its descent away from Cara’s shrill voice and Sebastian’s inscrutable expression, my mind blanked of everything but one word, which I chanted internally like a deranged, hysterical mantra.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.