18
“She’s lying.”
Blaze caws, tilting his head on my shoulder. I’m walking through the forest right beside my house, the orange light seeping through the leaves lighting the way. The day is coming to an end soon.
“Why did she say that? She said it so fast, as if to keep me from saying anything else. She wanted to keep me away.”
Blaze caws twice, as if to agree with me. Or to say you are being stupid.
“She could have been puzzled by me kissing her like that, but… how do I tell her that it was the first thought when she started freaking out because I can’t stop thinking about kissing her? Constantly?”
Blaze takes flight, flying away as if he’s had enough of me talking about her for the past twenty minutes.
I sigh, kicking a twig out of my way as I emerge from the forest into a clearing.
I stand there, watching the sun fall from the sky, making the heavens bleed red. The mass of trees in front of me is silent, no sounds of cars or horns or people or anything.
Just Blaze’s caws, birds chirping, and the faint sound of the ripples of water that flows just under the dip beneath my feet. A small waterfall.
And me.
Alone with my thoughts as I try to make sense of Ambrose’s words.
“Blaze! Come back. I still need to—”
My phone rings.
As soon as I pick it up, I ask, “What does it mean when you kiss someone, and they immediately say it was a mistake?”
“Who even kissed you, Helia?” Aurora sounds baffled.
“That’s not the point,”
Aurora hums. “It probably means they want you to ignore it. Maybe they don’t want you to talk to them about it as they may feel guilty that they wanted it to turn into more. Or maybe they think it was done under wrong circumstances and—”
“Simple English, please,” I mutter.
Aurora laughs. “Okay, I’m no expert, but I think it means they were flustered and didn’t think their answer through, especially if they said it quickly after the kiss.”
I hum in reply.
So, Ambrose said that because she wasn’t thinking properly?
“How … has Ambrose been?”
I still, the sight in front of me disappearing for a second as the image of Ambrose and her bare face appears in front of me.
Wet hair, vulnerable, soft, fragile.
All these words I thought weren’t made for her, but the episode in the elevator today has me a little conflicted.
“She’s fine, the same firecracker she is. Always fighting tooth and nail against everything I throw her way.”
Aurora chuckles. “She’s always been like that, never one to lose. I’m glad. I hope she forgives herself one day.”
“For what she did in her past? Highly unlikely,” I comment.
Aurora is silent for a second. “You know?” Her voice is a soft whisper, as if she doesn’t want anyone else to know. Remo knows, too, so she doesn’t really need to hide it.
“Of course I know. Remo asked me to look after her when the news about the company hit the media in case she tried to make any false accusations or even build a case against us. I do research on my clients very well, Aurora.”
There is another pause.
“Does she know that you know? That you are aware, and the dislike you have for her is because of it?”
“No.”
Aurora sucks in a sharp breath, as if I admitted I killed someone, which isn’t really far from the truth.
“Tell her. Please tell her.”
I frown.
Aurora doesn’t elaborate on the topic. “Do you have time to come over to the office? I have some new pieces. I’d like them to be featured in Glamorous if you like them.”
That night, I watched Ambrose lay out a yoga mat and sit on it. She stretches, does stupid yoga poses, and then waters her plants in the same routine. And I keep watching, knowing she called our kiss a mistake and said to never let it happen again.
What will she say if she heard what I am thinking?
For the first time, I come early in the morning, too. I watch her pick out an outfit, but then she shakes her head and takes another one. She grabs one last one and then nods before going into her closet to change.
When I get home to change, I blindly pick the same colours. I don’t want to match with her, no. I hate her too much for that.
I only pick it because I like green.
When she meets me in the hallway at the office, she looks at my deep green suit with the white dress shirt beneath, then glances down at her own green suit and white shirt and shakes her head. We turn and head to the scheduled meeting, and I can’t help but steal glimpses at her. I catch other staff in the room noticing too.
She keeps glaring at them, and they look away, but it’s obvious that they can’t help their curiosity at the fact that we are matching.
I can’t keep my smile in, so I let it slip free the minute I enter my office.
Running a hand down my face, I grin at the humour of the situation.
The day passes until lunch rolls around and I can’t help myself.
“Ambrose?” I call her out, standing at the threshold of her office.
She looks up from her laptop, still in her office, regardless that it’s lunchtime right now.
I am hit with a second of breathlessness when her eyes meet mine. She hasn’t tried to avoid me today. In fact, she’s acting like nothing happened. Fuck that.
I have proof that she didn’t want to let go, and the tingling in my lips won’t stop.
“Eat your lunch in my office. I need you to look over a few things.”
I’m not doing this because she has looked lonely in her office the whole time she has been working for me. I am doing this to keep an eye out for her.
“Why?” She watches me, wary.
I shake my head and head to my office.
“Tell me why first. I’m not just going to sit in your office, wasting my time.”
Minutes later, she is indeed sitting in my office, grumbling and giving me the stink eye. Clearly I won the argument there.
“Why do you always wear green?”
I run a hand along my jaw as I wait for her answer. She doesn’t reply. She just keeps looking at her screen.
“I’m talking to you.” My voice is level, my eyes focused on her.
They aren’t leaving her. I take in my fill of Ambrose as she swipes her hand through her hair to push it back off her shoulder.
She slowly tilts her head, and her eyes glide over to me.
The moment they connect with mine, the second I feel them look deep into my own, my heart dips into my stomach and this weird feeling inside of me expands. I shouldn’t feel this way.
“Why? Am I not allowed to?” Her voice is crisp, feminine, clear, and full of the confidence she always has.
It makes me smile.
“I was wondering what makes you constantly wear green?”
It can’t be because of my eyes. I watched her before we even met, and she wore this colour quite often.
Her eyes don’t stray from mine as she answers.
“I just like it.” She shrugs, no lie evident on her face.
“Right.” I nod, forcing myself to look away before she notices that I am watching her.
But I physically can’t look away from the goddess in front of me. Divine is the only word to describe her sharp beauty, her knowledge, her power, her confidence, her strong aura that pulls me to her.
My mind reels back once more to our kiss.
The next day, the moment I step into her office to ask her to join me in my office for lunch, my eyes glide back to her lips.
“In my office for lunch, Ambrose.”
She twists her mouth in disagreement, and I want to grab her chin and make her look at me, to see her fight and defy me so she can keep control of the situation.
Today, she’s wearing a skirt paired with a top that has a straight neckline and wraps around her breasts and an oversized blazer. My eyes are quick to try to find my emerald of the day, but I don’t see it.
She walks past me with her laptop in hand, leaving a trail of her perfume. My eyes shut on their own, feeling her presence reach inside me, deep enough to evoke one emotion.
Want.
She sits on the sofa in front of me, but I can’t find anything emerald today. Nothing.
Getting up, I grab the budget projections the accounting team has produced for the HR department and walk over to Ambrose.
I stand above her, and she looks up.
Her eyes capture me and send me into a daze.
Deep. Powerful.
What is going on with me?
“Do you think this is a good enough budget?” I hold out the papers.
Maybe she is wearing emerald earrings. I can’t see her ears, as her hair is down.
She grabs the papers and studies them.
My hand reaches out. I don’t think twice. I haven’t been thinking at all since our elevator kiss.
All I see, hear, and even smell is Ambrose, and it’s killing me slowly.
This obsession is growing bigger than it is supposed to.
Using my finger, I lift the curtain of blond hair, softly placing it behind her ear, revealing emerald stud earrings. They are surrounded by smaller diamonds. She has two more lobe piercings and one in her cartilage.
My eyes fall on Ambrose, who has frozen, her lips parted.
She’s watching me.
Her eyes are soft. In wonder, almost.
But I can only focus on my finger gliding over the shell of her ear. My heart pounds. Each throb demands for me to capture her plump lips in a kiss.
Why does that thought make my heart race? More than being in a car chase. More than the rush of being in power, of holding something over someone and watching them wither in fear.
Why is this feeling so much stronger than anything I have experienced before?
“What are you doing?” Her voice is still strong, but I hear the faint quiver.
“Are you scared, Ambrose?”
She scoffs.
My hand trails down her neck until I let it drop. My gaze returns to her.
“And why would I be?” She crosses her arms, lifting her chin, but I see her eyes fighting to stay on mine. She holds my gaze for several moments before her gaze dips to my lips.
I grin.
“That’s my girl,” I murmur, my eyes drooping lazily, watching her.
She blinks, faltering for a second.
“You should be scared, a small fair warning.” I wish my words were a lie.
I wish they were false, and that she didn’t need to fear me. But as I walk away from her with my pulse thrumming in my eardrums, my body fights me. I know something is wrong.
Something that shouldn’t be there.
Something very close to like.
For a woman I threatened to kill multiple times.