Page 5 of Valentine's Miracle

It’s a face that comes in handy as I don’t like crowded spaces. People steer clear of me as if I’m carrying a plague that will wipe them out with one stare.

“You were so happy to see Tori!” he squeals, hand clenching around the plastic white fork.

The cafeteria bustles with people coming and going. We stay in a corner to be away from the chattering and clattering of utensils while people glance at us. We’re well known in the company, for Sebastian’s title of ‘Man-Whore’ and my unapproachable presence.

Sebastian carries that name with so much pride that it’s sickening, but it doesn’t deter women from exuding provocativeness when he’s nearby.

Seeing it from an outside perspective, I would have felt secondhand embarrassment if I had the ability to care enough.

“I wasn’t,” I huff. He ignores me and the temper rises in my voice. I swallow down the detest with the cold water. It makes the irritation in me sizzle away until he brings it back up again.

“I saw you looking at her.”

I set a deadpan expression. “I was scanning the floor.”

It’s part of my job description to know my area well for potential dangers that require me to make a hasty exit with that woman sticking onto Sebastian’s arm. I had to wonder if I needed to get a saw to remove a limb, and at this point of annoyance, I didn’t care which one I would have cut off.

“You were smitten,” he corrects with a laugh. “Still are.”

It would be so easy to take the back of his head and slam his face down on his fork. A reenactment of the Joker scene and the pencil should satisfy the raging beast in me.

“I don’t know what happened between you two,” he says, jabbing the fork on his plate and sighs. “But I do know that you are still that love-sick puppy from seven years ago. You can’t hide that, Silas.”

“I’m not in love.”

I was, a traitorous voice whispers in my head. I still am.

I crush the empty water bottle, and the plastic gives under the power of my fingers. It’s loud, but it didn’t reach to the other tables that were higher in chatters and gossiping.

“When we left the event last week, you looked like you were about to bite the head of our client because she wanted to leave before Tori did.”

I was annoyed with the spoiled princess because she was complaining about every little thing to anyone with a pair of ears. Her brother had to stop her and ask us to take her home with him, so she doesn’t cause a scene in front of powerful people.

“And then you went back, ten miles of total driving from her home to the event hall.” Sebastian wiggles his eyebrows.

“She was still technically my client.”

He snorts, chugging down his smoothie. “Tori never hired you, and you were never paid. She only provided the invitation.”

Don’t do it, I think to myself as I look down at the metal tray reflecting the green in my eyes.

“You just wanted to make sure Tori was safe. What a nice boyfriend you are.”

Yes, do it, the voice in my head grumbles. My hands itch to hold the tray and smack it over the head of my friend, but I have been learning to control my temper for the last couple of years.

I’m not going to let that effort go to waste no matter how annoying Sebastian is.

“Admit it,” he teases with a crooked grin. “You miss you, and it felt nice seeing her again.”

It was more than nice. It was fantastic. My head and my heart hadn’t been on the same level after Victoria and I stopped talking, and at times I would think that it’s my fault for having a pride bigger than goddamn Russia.

She tried. She tried to call me so many times, but I never picked up because I was angry and I was hurt. Avoiding her was what I did, and I got rid of all the traces of her in my life.

The pictures that we took, the scent of her on my bed when she would be too tired to return home, and the little trinkets that she would buy for me because she thought a bunch of cuteness would cut away some of my angst.

Despite the pain that roared in my heart when I saw her again in that black dress and brown eyes, I never thought something good would come out of having a spoiled brat as my client.

I missed her. A bit too much, and now I am a bit too obsessively clinging onto the brief glances that I caught of her. I was afraid, so afraid of whatever emotions were raging inside me that I couldn’t bring myself to look at her.

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