48. CHAPTER 48
ARIA
I stared at the date in big letters screaming at me.
Had it really been a year already? I took a deep breath in, releasing it slowly, logging into the system. It was time I got back to normality and forgot about those stupid letters and my past. I needed to get rid of them.
It had been five months since they’d released Jason, and he wasn’t one to sit around and wait. If he was going to do something, he would have done it straight away.
Seeing Sebastian last night made me realise I couldn’t lose him over my past; he meant so much to me. It felt like we had never been apart. I was stronger now, and I wouldn’t allow that man to control me anymore.
I glanced up, looking through the window at Sebastian in his office. He’d been in there since I got here. He hadn’t come back to mine last night, either.
Sebastian hadn’t left the office at all, and it was now lunchtime. He had back-to-back meetings booked in his diary, and I could see he was on video calls all morning. But he would normally make time to step out and see me for lunch.
I brought up his diary. Sure enough, there was a meeting booked over lunch.
I glanced over into his office, and I could see him talking to his laptop.
I closed my laptop and stood up, grabbing my bag.
I glanced over at him once more, but he didn’t notice me, so I turned, making my way to the door.
I pushed it open and walked into the main office that was attached to mine.
One of the good things about the office building was that it had its in-house cafeterias, so I didn’t need to go far—just down from my thirty-eighth floor to the sixteenth.
I reached the lift, pressing the button to call for it as a few other people stood waiting. They were talking about how they couldn’t wait for the fireworks tonight. I gripped my sleeve, pulling it down, making sure my scar was covered even though I knew it was.
Just before I could sit back down at my desk after lunch, Jessica came out of Sebastian’s office, smiling as she reached me.
“Hey Jessica, everything ok?” I asked. Why had she been in there?
“Yeah, Mrs Rogers asked me to grab him something from the cafeteria for lunch. I think she knew you’d be on your break,” she said.
Jessica was Mrs Rogers’s PA, who was an executive in the company. They were based two floors below this one. I’d been down there a few times to get paperwork for Sebastian, or Jessica brought it up to me.
“Oh, ok, makes sense.” I smiled, trying to hide the fact that I thought it was odd.
Was he avoiding me? I didn’t think I’d ever known Jessica to bring lunch up for him in the whole seven months I had been here.
It was nearly the end of the day, and I had yet to see Sebastian.
I’d thought after last night, everything was going to be fine between us. That the distance I had put between us was broken. I didn’t want to stay away from him; I couldn’t stay away from him.
I pulled Sebastian’s diary up to check that there wasn’t a meeting going on. Once I was confident I wouldn’t be interrupting anything, I took a deep breath, making my way to the door and knocking.
“Come in,” he called.
I pushed the door open, looking at him as I walked in. He didn’t look up; he was fixed on the paperwork in front of him.
“I just need to put this file back,” I explained.
He glanced up to look at me, and as he did, I noticed a small cut above his left eyebrow.
“Sebastian, what happened?” I asked, moving closer.
He pulled his hand up and touched it. He knew what I was referring to. “It’s nothing.”
“Have you been fighting again?”
His voice stopped me in my tracks. “Can you just grab me the Johnson file out of that cabinet?” He pointed at one I’d not been in before and then looked back down at the paperwork on his desk.
I pulled the drawer open, flicking through the files to find it. As I read the names in my head, my hands paused at one that was burned deep into it.
Jason Brown.
Why did Sebastian have a file on Jason?
I swallowed hard, pushing the sick feeling down. My hands trembled, slowly opening the file, to see a photo of Jason staring back at me.
My eyes darted all over the page, trying to grasp what it was.
Then I saw it.
It was a police report from the night he’d attacked me. I flicked the page over, photos of my injuries on display.
What the hell was this?
Had Sebastian known all along?