Chapter Six #2
Thankfully, a lovely course of pasta came out on the heels of that realization, and she was able to take another sip of wine and finish the glass, and chase the thought away.
Music began to play, live guitars, and some of the couples around them got up and started dancing beneath the string lights on the roof.
If she weren’t here with a man who had a brick in his chest where his heart should be, it might’ve been romantic. Of course, it would’ve been dangerous. Emotionally. They were both the problem.
She could see that very clearly. She had been allowing her boss to fulfill something in her emotionally that a boss shouldn’t be fulfilling, and she was now angry at him for not reciprocating.
She was also angry at him for the whole convenient marriage thing, which in fairness to her was absolutely stepping over a line, but still.
“Dance with me,” he said, his eyes burning into hers, the statement emphatic, and in no way a request.
Her heart jumped in her chest because it had not gotten the memo that this wasn’t romantic.
They were supposed to be performing. She couldn’t say no.
So when he extended his hand, she took it.
And when he lifted her from her seat and onto her feet she felt like she was flying.
He wrapped his arm around her waist and swept her to the dance floor, and any protests or sharp comments she wanted to make were swallowed up by the feeling swelling in her chest. Overwhelming. Brilliant. Beautiful. Horrible.
He pulled her in to his chest, one hand clasping hers, the other wrapped firmly around her waist. She put her hand on his shoulder; she was reasonably sure that was what you were supposed to do when you were dancing.
She had never really done it before. If doing it alone in your bedroom didn’t count, that was.
He took the lead, strong and steady, and took the guesswork out of everything. His confident steps made her own move easily. Helped her find her rhythm.
The music wrapped itself around them like an intimate veil, and it was as if they were the only two people on the roof. Her heart was pounding, and it wasn’t from physical exertion. His body was hot against hers, and she realized she had never been so close to another person before.
It was easier, for some reason, to admit that she had fallen into the trap of getting emotional validation from him, than to admit that she was attracted to him.
That she had been attracted to him from the first moment they had met, and that Stavros was a bad decoy for the better, more reasonable aspect of herself that would have screeched an alarm about Alex if she hadn’t distracted it.
It had been him. From the beginning. And she was so dedicated to her self protection that she had done her best to hide it from her higher self so that her lower self could have what he wanted.
And now he was holding her. Carrying her across the dance floor like she wasn’t a burden. Like he had been born to do it.
If he was so dangerous then why did she fit in his arms like this?
Why did her body feel both relaxed and on edge because of his touch? Why did she feel cherished and safe and electrified all at once?
You don’t have a trademark on delusion, Verity. Your feelings aren’t facts.
That was true.
But she wasn’t like Alex. She had feelings.
She just squished them down. Manipulated them.
Hid them. Didn’t let herself happen. And in effect, it was like she was still letting her parents keep her from having nice things.
Or was it protection? It was a question she was having a difficult time answering.
Especially while she was in Alex’s arms.
There were other people around them, but she didn’t have a sense for them.
She didn’t care about them. This wasn’t a performance anymore, not for her.
This was her, sorting out her own feelings with fear and trembling.
This was her, indulging herself while punishing herself, and examining the punishment.
She sensed something dangerous in Alex, and she had from the beginning.
She knew what it was. He would never have feelings for her.
It wasn’t a great mystery. But she didn’t want a forever sort of love anyway, so what did it matter?
Except she knew it did, because it hurt her that he didn’t consider them friends, so she couldn’t even imagine the cost if she were to sleep with him and then. ..
Her heart started to beat erratically. This was the closest she had come to admitting that she wanted him like that. She looked up at him, her eyes landing first on the sharp cut of his jaw, the curve of his lips, that blade-straight nose. His black lashes, and his dark, fathomless eyes.
She knew why people were afraid of him. Hell, she was afraid of him. For very good reason. She really did need to find a new therapist, because there was something happening here. All this fear, and yet she was drawn to the fearsome thing. Wanted to reach out and touch it, tame it, make it her own.
And she knew she couldn’t do that.
He would dominate. He would force submission. Because that was who he was; she wasn’t going to be the one...
And anyway, he didn’t want her.
She thought of the way that he had looked when she had come out of the dressing room in the pink dress. And then, the way that he had looked at her breasts at the table. Maybe he did. But it was in a base way. It had nothing to do with who she was as a person. It had nothing to do with her.
Do you need it to be?
She didn’t know how to answer that question. One posed by herself, to herself. What kind of sad idiot didn’t know herself to this degree?
She knew all her warning signs, all her triggers.
But that was different than actually knowing what she wanted and why.
It was different than being honest about what she was feeling.
She was good at building fences and observing the boundaries.
She was not good at reevaluating those boundaries around existing feelings.
She was good at making rules and following them.
Alex had nothing to do with her rules.
He never had. If she had an ounce of real self-preservation inside of her, or even self-awareness, she probably wouldn’t have continued working for him, much less said yes to all of this.
But right now it felt like a tangle. Wanting to continue to please him and wanting to keep herself safe.
But also wanting to continue to be near him.
He moved his hand, and it drifted down her back making her shiver. This was dangerous. So very dangerous.
The worst part was, she was sure she was feeling alone. Just like the sense of friendship, just like—
Her thoughts were interrupted when he swept her around the corner on the dance floor, and backed her up against a vine-covered wall, his dark eyes burning. Her breath caught, her heart slamming hard against her breastbone.
He pressed her hand to the wall, his fingers still laced between hers, and he touched the engagement ring there, a look of something like reverence on his face.
She had never seen him look like this before.
There was fire in his eyes, something like the expression she had found there when he had seen her in the dress just an hour ago, but also something more.
Something confused, hunted, ravenous.
It mirrored the feelings that were inside of her, finally. Finally it wasn’t only her. Who felt like a victim of this thing, who felt like she was at its mercy.
Was he feeling all of this conflicting attraction? This need to embrace it and turn away all at once? This desperate desire to know what it would be like to touch, to taste?
She felt overwhelmed by it, swamped with it, like it might drown her.
He was a man with experience, and she was nothing more than his virgin secretary.
That was the tragic fact of it all. She was a stereotype.
Ripe for the picking, even. If she tried to explain it to someone, they would scoff.
They would say she was being taken advantage of.
They would say she was a fool. But they didn’t know what it felt like. And they couldn’t.
She knew. And judging by the look in his eyes so did he.
They had stopped. The music kept on playing, and people around the corner were probably still dancing, but they had stopped.
Almost like they had frozen time itself.
There was nothing but this growing, throbbing need between them.
It was so real. It was so...all-encompassing.
And then, on the breeze, with her breath, it was over.
He moved away from her, pulled her from the wall and swept her back to the dance floor, with no explanation, no commentary, nothing.
She took a breath, a gasp, really, and only then did she realize she hadn’t been breathing at all.
“Alex...”
“It looks as if the meat course has been served. Would you like another drink?”
He took her hand and led her back to the table, and her head was swimming.
Maybe this was a gift. Maybe it was a reprieve. A chance to make a better choice, instead of giving into...whatever that was. She wanted to say something. She wanted to push.
But something stopped her. Held her back. The same old things.
The fear of what would happen if she pushed at the wrong time.
She was tired of herself. Tired of how much she didn’t know.
And she was resentful. Of him. For unmasking so much inside of her that was still so broken.
It was so easy for her to look at him and have thoughts about his trauma.
About his coping mechanisms, and his protections and layers, but looking at her own was just.. .
She just wanted to be fine.
That was why she had come to Greece. To be fine. To start living.
Maybe when all this was over she finally could. Maybe it wasn’t enough to run away from her family. She needed to run away from Alex too.
And once this was done, she would have the means to do it.
Until then...
She would just plan the wedding. Look at it as another part of the job.
They weren’t friends.
And whatever she had seen in his eyes before, she would ignore it.
Because God knew he would.