Page 67 of Damaged

“Your heart seems to think so.”

“Yeah” is all I can eke out.

He’s still staring at me, and my pulse climbs higher as we look at each other. There’s no awkwardness in the eye contact. Just all the things we haven’t said—I’m attracted to you. I like you. I…

Suddenly James’s green eyes begin to darken. There’s something infecting them, dulling the shine—doubt.

He takes his hand away, and it feels like he drags my heart with him.

“I should get some sleep. We’ll fly back tomorrow. This was a successful trip, Sophia.”

What?I want to shout.No. “It was,” I say calmly, looking for that warmth to come back into his eyes. To see that green fire flicker again. But it’s gone.

“It was nice working with you.”

“You, too,” I say, nodding. Under my silent exterior, I’m screaming. Take me upstairs with you. Take me to your bed.Take me.

But I don’t say any of that. James must have different thoughts. There’s something more than sex between us. And I feel like that is what he’s afraid of.

Vulnerability. Liability. Impossibility. Those are the words he thinks of when he thinks of love. And maybe one more… Betrayal. Like if he loved me, one way or another, he’d destroy me. But something else has dawned on me at this dinner.

I’dlethim destroy me for the slim chance he didn’t. I’d roll the dice.

I picture his warm hands on my cold skin when he’d put me in the ice bath. The electricity of his gaze. Suddenly a new feeling burns in me. It’s not my cheeks or heart.

It comes from my core, hot and wet. If I wasn’t so burned out, I’d blush again. I turn from James and stand.

“I’m going to take a walk. I’m not quite ready to turn in.”

“Good night, Sophia,” James says, his voice quieter. Deeper. It was a dismissal. His eyes may linger on me with longing, but this is a man who built his empire on self-control.

I still haven’t stood up. What I want is for him to join me. To walk out with me to the water. To look at the stars over the sea and wrap his heavy arms around my shoulders. I feel pathetic not leaving the table right away. I’m waiting for him to sayI’ll join you, but those words aren’t ever going to come from him.

I stand finally and walk off across the grass lawn and towards the beach.

The breeze is stronger closer to the water. It’s deafening here. The crash and hiss of surf, the whirl of wind in my ears. I close my eyes and try to let the cold air cool my lust. When that doesn’t work, I take off my heels and walk just to where the last of each wave licks at the shore. The Atlantic water rushes past my ankles. After a minute, I can feel my toes stiffen and picture how pink they are.

I didn’t expect to have a crisis on this trip. I was proud of how I acted when my life was threatened. Happy I was going to make a life-changing sum of money, but then I was disappointed and resentful of myself for how little it all made me feel.

I wanted more.

You’re beautiful, Sophia.

His words echo through my head. I don’t know when it happened, but I realize I’m crying. Two cold streaks race down each cheek. I’m being pathetic. I have so much to be grateful for and yet… Yet. It feels like I have nothing. Because I have no one. My parents live across an ocean from each other. I’ve isolated my true feelings from my friends. Dammed them up. And now it feels like if I were to tell them, it would all come out at once and I’d drown them with my problems.

I should go back to therapy. Use this money to get a better counselor than insurance will provide. But all the back and forth talking will lead me to the same conclusion I can make now under these stars—I’m lonely.

I turn back towards the house. I can see the dinner table under the string lights from here. James is no longer at the head of it. He’s gone.

I notice something to my left, farther down the beach from where I started walking. A shadow. Dark. Tall. My heart races at first, thinking of Russians, and when I realize who this shadow is, my throbbing heart doesn’t slow. Instead it begins to rocket.

Tall, suited. There’s a squish of sand under his shoes as he gets closer. For a moment I think it’s just a dream, until he walks in the moonlight just so that I see the cut of his jaw and his green eyes flash.

“James…” I hear myself say his name like a plea.

I’m begging. I need him. His kiss on my forehead sent embers tumbling all the way down to my toes.

James doesn’t say anything as he kisses my lips. My knees bend and wobble.

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