Chapter 13
SLEEP ELUDED LYRIUS the entire night.
All he could see was her crying face as she rejected him—the wet lashes, the shake of her head, her hands pressed against his chest like she was trying to push something heavier than him.
I can’t.
I’m so, so sorry but I can’t choose you.
Because apparently, no matter what he did, she was still choosing the boy over him. He’d begged her. He’d as good as told her he loved her. He’d told her Wallace was cheating on her, and she’d said I know, and she’d still chosen the boy...over him.
Why can’t you choose me? Choose me, and I’ll—
He didn’t even know what he’d been going to say after that. He’d never gotten to finish the sentence. She had run before he could, and the unfinished half of it had sat in the back of his throat all night like something he’d forgotten to swallow.
He squeezed his eyes shut, but it wasn’t enough to escape the memories.
Kyara’s lips might be the sweetest thing he’d ever taste, but the sight of her running away from him had also destroyed him in a way that nothing else in this life could ever do.
It was already past lunchtime when Lyrius had done all the work he could remotely do from his apartment, and he had to force himself to show up at the office.
While the last thing he wanted was to see Kyara and Wallace together, he also didn’t want to give either of them any reason to think he was an emotional coward, unable to handle the sight of their fairytale romance.
Lara could’ve cried in relief when the elevator doors opened, and it was her boss who finally stepped out. “Where have you been?”
Lyrius raised a brow at the unusual shrillness of Lara’s tone, and equally unusual was the way she’d almost tripped on her own feet in her rush to get to him.
“I can’t believe you’d choose to be late now of all—”
He cut her off, asking curtly, “Is there some kind of emergency?”
“Absolutely!”
Lyrius, seeing that his assistant was about to shove her phone straight into his face, simply sniped the device from her hold.
“Look at it!”
Lyrius could only wince at how Lara was shrieking at every word. “Whatever this is—”
“It’s about Kyara!”
Lyrius was about to look at Lara’s phone but stopped the moment he heard her name. “I don’t need to hear anything—”
“You don’t understand!” Lara was so, so tempted to give her boss a good and hard shake. “You really need—”
“You’re the one who doesn’t understand,” Lyrius snapped.
“No, I mean it—”
“I told her I love her,” he snarled. “I told her he was cheating on her, and she still fucking chose him. That should be easy enough for you to understand so if you don’t mind—”
He tried giving Lara back her phone, but she pushed it back to him.
“Please just look—”
Lara was once again relieved when her boss seemed to finally see reason as he took her phone back—
Oh, finally!
—just so he could throw her phone in the trash.
“Seriously?”
“Get a new one on the company card. Get your husband one as well. Just don’t fucking—”
“Please.”
Lyrius stopped.
The trash can was the one beside the reception desk, two strides away, and Lara’s phone had landed face up among the discarded coffee cups, and from that distance the speaker was tiny and faint but the voice—
The voice was Kyara’s.
“Please, I’m begging you, anything you want, just don’t—”
Lyrius didn’t even know what he was doing. The next thing he was aware of was the phone in his hand again. He didn’t remember crossing the two strides, didn’t remember bending down, didn’t remember whose elbow he’d clipped on the way past—
All he knew, as he finally allowed himself to see what Lara had been begging him to watch—
No. No. No.
Lara’s screen showed Kyara on her knees, in front of Wallace, her face a picture of unbearable terror and desperation.
“Please...”
Lyrius felt sick to his stomach as he watched Kyara beg for Wallace’s mercy...because she believed he needed protecting.
I’m so, so sorry but I can’t choose you.
She had turned him down not because she didn’t love him.
She had chosen her ex over Lyrius because she loved him.
Why, Kyara? Why? Why didn’t you come to me?
Lyrius could feel his chest tightening to the point that he was finding it hard to breathe. But still he forced himself to continue watching. Even rewinding and replaying the security footage to know the exact extent of what she had suffered...because of him.
Cyrus shoving her off...
The back of Kyara’s head hitting the wall...
Cyrus grabbing her by the hair...
Lyrius nearly fell to his knees. He had done that to her. All of this...was his fault. Because he had gotten everything so damn wrong.