18. Leah
LEAH
The elevator.
The elevator is going to be the thing that doesn’t let me and Rowan escape each other. Not the lake house. Not Koi Tower itself. Not the gala where we first met, and not his studio with its walls covered in sketches of me.
It’s going to be the damn elevator.
This is where Rowan stopped it the first time. Where he held me against his chest and said I’m not Kian, as if I could ever mistake the two of them, and then let go of me the second the doors opened. He’s been letting go ever since.
Last time, he was the one who hit the button. This time, it’s me.
I reach out and press the stop button, halting us several floors below the penthouses.
“What are you doing?” Rowan asks. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes.” I turn to face him. “Something is very wrong, and I’m done pretending otherwise. You keep telling me there’s nothing I could possibly see in you that I didn’t see in Kian. You keep refusing to believe I can separate the two of you, when it’s the opposite that’s true.”
“Leah, there’s nothing you can say that will make me believe you see me differently.” He sounds almost sad about it. “It’s not your fault that Kian and I wear the same face. I don’t expect you to—”
“When your hand wraps around mine, your thumb rests in the center of my palm.” I don’t let him finish.
“Kian never did that. He gripped my hand like a leash, thumb on the outside of my wrist. When you stand beside me, you watch over me. Kian watched how other people reacted to seeing me on his arm. He flaunted me while he was hiding me from his own wife. Your face looks nothing like his to me. Don’t you see?
I stopped seeing Kian as soon as I learned who you really were.
All I see is you. I couldn’t find him in your face now if I tried. ”
The elevator is still and silent. So silent that Rowan’s breathing is the only thing I hear.
It’s heavier now, and slower, as if he’s forcing it.
Maybe I shouldn’t be pushing him like this.
Maybe I should have left it alone and let him believe whatever he wants, instead of trying to peel back his armor.
But I couldn’t let him keep thinking he’s a reflection of his brother, or that I see him that way. People have looked at Rowan his whole life and seen his twin. I don’t. I can’t. Whatever he does with that, at least I’ve told him the truth.
His hand goes to the panel to restart the elevator without responding to anything I said. But he stalls before his fingers reach the button, and I watch him fight with himself.
I stand there and wait. Rowan rarely gives away what’s going on behind his eyes, and I’m bracing for the doors to open and for him to walk out without a word.
And right when I start to wonder how long his hand can hover over that panel, and how long I can stand here in the silence, his hand reaches for me instead.
My back meets the cold elevator wall. Rowan’s chest is warm against mine. He kisses me with his eyes wide open, and I stare back at him and see exactly what I’ve been telling him I see.
Him. The man I wish I’d been with all along.
I let my eyes close and sink into him. His kiss is unlike any I’ve ever had. His tongue moves against mine slowly, carefully, as if he’s exploring and caressing at the same time. His body holds me to the wall, one hand on my waist and the other cupping the side of my face.
If I let myself, I could forget the rest of the world in this elevator with him. It would be so easy.
Rowan isn’t ready to let the world go. Not yet.
He pulls away slowly, as if it hurts.
His breathing is faster now. His shoulders rise and fall with it, and his hand trembles as he lowers it to his side.
“I want you to wait, Leah.” It’s barely above a whisper. “I want you to wait to be with me until you’re completely sure that I’m the man you want, and not an echo of someone you once thought you loved.”
I open my mouth to tell him that he already is, that I’ve been telling him this whole time. But I stop myself. I can’t make him believe it yet. I just have to give him time.
“Alright.” I want so badly to kiss him again. “I’ll wait.”
He presses the button, and the elevator carries me up to my floor.
“Thank you for letting me see your studio,” I say as I step out. “I’ve wanted to be inside your workspace since the first time I heard what you do.”
Rowan’s eyes flicker under the harsh light of the elevator as the doors start to close.
“You already were inside it, Leah,” he says. “You’ve been covering the walls of it for weeks.”
The doors close. I stand in the hallway long after they do.