37 - First Meal Together
The suite breathed in amber.
Evening light seeped through the sheer curtains like warm honey, settling over polished marble, gold fixtures, and the pale cream upholstery that glowed as if lit from within.
The air hummed with the quiet luxury of the honeymoon suite—a beauty meant for newlyweds who touched and laughed and adored each other.
Scarlett stepped inside alone.
She halted after a single stride, her hand still curled around the handle behind her, heartbeat hitching at the presence of a silhouette she did not expect.
A man leaned against the sectional sofa, framed by the last strands of dying sunlight. Broad shoulders, rigid posture, jaw angled like he carved the light around him. For a breathless instant, her chest tightened—fear, surprise, something unnamed—before recognition unfurled through her.
Ethan.
He didn't move. Didn't speak. Didn't even turn toward her at first. He simply existed there—still, imposing, made of shadow and steel.
Scarlett swallowed, her voice emerging softer than she intended.
"Ethan... you're back early."
The door clicked closed behind her. The sound felt too loud in the room's heavy silence.
Slowly, he lifted his gaze toward her. The soft amber light sculpted his face in sharp planes—cheekbones like cold marble, eyes that caught the dim glow like depthless steel. His arms were crossed, framing his chest like a barricade.
But it was his eyes that held her. They swept over her—not lazily, not dismissively, but with an acute awareness that felt like a gloved hand brushing her skin. The changed dress. The sandals. Her sun-kissed cheeks. Her wind-tousled hair. He noticed everything.
Something flickered behind his expression. A question. A calculation. Or something darker.
Gone before she could decipher it.
"Hope you had a nice time on your own," he said finally, tone level yet edged with something she'd never heard from him. Something unsteady. Something almost... emotional.
Scarlett blinked, unsure if she imagined it.
"Y-yes." She nodded quickly, forcing lightness into her voice. "I did."
The atmosphere pressed on her chest—thick, strange, tight with things unsaid. So she hummed—a soft, breezy tune that didn't match the tension between them—and hurried into her adjoining bedroom.
Only when the door shut behind her did she exhale.
When Scarlett returned, dressed in lilac pajamas that framed her limbs in quiet comfort, something in her breath caught mid-inhale.
Ethan was no longer the man of tailored armor.
He stood near the dining table now,
wearing a black t-shirt and gray sweatpants.
The transformation hit her like a change in temperature.
He looked... different.
Almost devastatingly so.
His shirt clung to lines she'd only glimpsed beneath expensive fabrics—lean muscle defined by a life that didn't include idle softness. Shoulders sculpted. Arms corded. Waist trim. The hem of the shirt rested lightly against his abdomen, revealing the faint outline of abs beneath cotton.
His hair was slightly messy—as if his hands had been dragged through it in frustration or thought. His forearms were bare, veins mapping the path of restrained power.
It was the most human she'd ever seen him.
And the most dangerous.
Because there was nothing impersonal about him like this.
Scarlett's breath snagged. She tore her gaze away and busied herself with the hotel phone, ordering dinner even though the words nearly tangled on her tongue.
When food arrived, she set the containers on the table, lifted her chin, and offered something fragile:
"Let's eat together."
Her voice carried a tremor of hope.
To her shock, he sat.
No laptop. No phone. No barrier.
Just Ethan. Just Scarlett.
A first.
The air between them thrummed with something neither of them understood. Not hostility. Not indifference.
Something new.
Something alive.
Scarlett tried to steady her pulse as she spooned moussaka onto her plate.
"I didn't expect you to be back so soon," she said delicately.
Ethan looked at her, eyes flicking to her mouth before lowering to his plate again. "Neither did I."
Not helpful. But not cold. A subtle shift.
"Long day at work?" Scarlett tried.
He hummed—a sound too brief to hold meaning.
She pressed her lips together in faint irritation. This was their pattern, their choreography. She reached for another path.
"You actually own casual clothes?" she teased lightly. "I wasn't sure if I'd ever see you in anything other than a suit."
His eyebrow lifted.
"Suits are practical."
"And yet," she countered, an amused glimmer in her eyes, "you seem comfortable."
His gaze locked with hers. Something softened—barely, but unmistakably. The corner of one eye threatened the birth of a smile.
It startled her. It warmed her.
Then it vanished.
"You changed clothes when you got back," he said unexpectedly, voice low.
Scarlett paused. "I—yes. I slipped off a dock. The dress was soaked."
He nodded.
Nothing more.
Not are you hurt?
Not tell me what happened.
Just... nothing.
A tiny hurt curled quietly inside her, unwelcome but real.
She wanted his concern.
And she hated that she cared.
Their meal finished in quiet. Not hostile. Just... uncertain. Words hovered between them, unsaid and unsure of their right to exist.
Scarlett stood first, stretching with a soft yawn. "I'm exhausted. Goodnight, Ethan."
She didn't wait for a reply.
Her small, warm body disappeared beneath Egyptian cotton, breathing slowing into sleep.
Ethan did not sleep.
He lay in darkness for hours, chest tight, thoughts circling like vultures.
He had come back early.
He had told himself it was precaution—checking on her, ensuring she wasn't reckless in a foreign place.
But when he entered the empty suite...
a hollow ache had settled in his sternum.
He didn't acknowledge it then.
He didn't acknowledge it now.
And when she returned, glowing—radiant with happiness he had not given her—
something inside him twisted.
The new dress.
Her laughter in her voice.
Her cheeks flushed from sun and company.
Another life she lived without him.
His jaw clenched.
Jealousy.
He recognized it slowly, reluctantly.
It made him feel raw.
He turned onto his side.
His eyes found the silhouette of her sleeping form—gentle rise and fall of breath, lashes brushing her cheek, lips parted just slightly.
Moonlight draped over her like a lover.
His throat tightened.
How had this woman—this stranger tied to him through business, through strategy—
become the only variable he couldn't control?
She challenged him.
She unraveled him.
She saw him with a clarity he never asked for.
And instead of hating it...
he was drawn to it.
To her.
His breath left him in a whisper of frustration.
Why did her smile matter?
Why did the thought of someone else seeing it first burn like acid in his veins?
He needed answers.
He needed control.
He needed distance—yet every night she slept three meters away and felt like gravity.
Scarlett Landon was making him feel vulnerable.
He loathed it.
He craved it.
He feared it.
He needed it.
And in the quiet dark of the suite, Ethan understood one ruthless truth:
He was no longer untouched by her.
And he never would be again.