Chapter 15: Can You Stay?

Celine could vaguely hear the sound of knocking on the door, but she hadn’t been in the right frame of mind to be able to say anything.

She had opened her mouth, wanting to say something to make it sound like she was okay and didn’t need any help, but the truth was, she wasn’t okay…

Later, as the door was pushed open, that was when she could finally raise her tear stained face dripping with smudges of mascara and her eyes landed in him standing there.

When the panic had rushed into her, she hadn’t been able to remain standing on her feet anymore, her breath had been knocked out of her at the weight of the decision she had made. She ran away from marrying Ian, which meant he would ruin everything she cared about to get to her.

He would make sure she would never be able to step in another movie set ever again, he would make sure to wipe her name off the entertainment industry.

Everything she had ever worked hard for would be washed away like dirt. Those thoughts had made the weight in her heart heavier and she had curled into a corner in the bathroom, unaware when she knocked something over. She struggled to catch her breath, struggled to control her tears but they fell anyway.

Throughout her acting career, she had never allowed herself appear this disoriented and vulnerable before, and most definitely not in front of someone else. But she couldn’t control her emotions in this very moment.

“It’s over… it’s all over, my career, my life…all gone…” Her words broke up as she said them, she couldn’t make a full sentence due to the weight of emotions weighing down on her. Her shoulders trembled as she sobbed painfully.

She had started her acting career from the ground up, auditioned for small roles where she was constantly rejected, played stunts for haughty actresses who looked down on her but she persisted before she got lucky and landed the big role in Anelia, with every sleepless night she spent rehearsing scenes and facial expressions that made her face appear on the big screen. The first time she’d seen her own face in a theater she had cried tears of joy.

All those surreal moments of success and watching her hard work come to life, all of it would crumble right in front of her eyes.

Just when she felt the coming of a panic attack which threatened to tighten her lungs, making it hard for her to breathe, she was suddenly taken aback when a strong pair of hands came to hold her shoulders supporting her up to her feet, when she almost swayed, he steadied her. He didn’t utter a word, but she saw his broad figure move as he grabbed a towel, wringing it out of warm water then returned to her side.

“Come.” He led her towards the sink and she wasn’t even able to react yet when his hands suddenly closed around each side of her waist and she was suddenly lifted up, the next thing she knew, she was sitting on the sink countertop.

Quietly, he began to wipe the trail of mascara running down her cheeks. Her tears had ceased at some point, and she could only stare at him dazedly as he wrung the cloth once more, wiping off a few more of the smudges of the makeup on her face. His fingers would occasionally brush against her cheeks and she felt a hot, tingling sensation wherever he touched.

All of a sudden, her inner turmoil and pain was drowned away by the whole new sensations his slight touch caused, she had never felt like this before. Calmed by someone’s touch, eased by someone’s presence, flamed by a single touch.

His hand held her chin steady, while the other wiped with such gentleness, like someone afraid to shatter a delicate pearl.

A sweet, warm sensation trickled into her heart and she felt it all the way to her lower belly in light fluttering waves and a tightening knot of heat.

She stared into his eyes even though he wasn’t exactly staring into hers but at every spot he wiped, his musky scent a mixture of cigar, whisky and something masculinely spicy was all she could perceive everytime she inhaled a breath, she barely suppressed the urge to lean closer and deeply breathe in his intoxicating scent when her eyes suddenly landed on his lips. She was immediately engulfed by a searing ache to know how it would feel to be kissed by those lips.

A hot tingling sensation flooded to her lower belly and her pale cheeks were instantly dyed a bright crimson color.

Celine felt like she was being set aflame by all these wild urges in her head, she felt like she had fallen under a spell that would wind around her and entrap her into a whole new world she had never been in before and looking at Tristan, she was shocked to realize that she was all too willing to fall into that spell.

When he was done wiping her face, he quietly stepped away from her and she felt a sense of lose overcome her with the sudden distance between them.

There was a reigning silence in the air for a while before he said in a low, gruff voice,

“I’ll get you some water to drink.”

“Tha…thank you.” Her voice was unbelievably softened and breathy as she replied.

He helped her down from the countertop the same way he had placed her up and stepped aside gesturing for her to leave the bathroom before he followed behind her.

’I’ll be damned’ Tristan thought to himself as he watched her settle on a sofa in the suite.

She must be completely clueless the kind of flame she ignited within him, again he was never one to lose control but in the span of a night he found himself repeatedly on the verge of losing control completely.

Her alluring ocean eyes that sometimes looked like ice and crystals and other times looked like the depths of the seas itself. Her sensual round lips, her small round face, her lovely fragrance, everything about her drew him in.

Heck, he could have crashed her against him, and devoured her in whole. That thought surprised even himself as he had never hungered for a woman like this before, he tore his eyes away from her before he would lose whatever fraction of rationality that remained within him.

She couldn’t have known that at the very moment her beautiful eyes settled on his lips and her cheeks burned red with a blush, he was counting numbers backwards in his head to distract himself from wanting her irresistibly.

If he had for a second entertained the thought that her eyes swayed to his lips because she wanted to kiss him, it would undoubtedly have snapped the bolt he kept locked and released the demon he suppressed within him, the demon that wanted to taste every part of her so hungrily.

He had downed another glass of scotch to distract his mind from these thoughts. Then took her a glass of water, again realizing he was doing things for her that he didn’t do for others.

Like how he had wiped her face clean, like someone taking care of a very precious treasure. The way he couldn’t even control himself but be gentle with her was astounding.

She drank a few sips of the water, sitting in silence with that same distant look in her eyes.

Again, he did something unbelievable to himself by ordering the best dishes on the hotel’s menu to be brought into his room, but he stopped all the staff by the suite’s doors, taking all the food in by himself.

Occasionally, he would glance over his shoulder to the woman sitting like a delicate rose, a rose broken at its stem by a heavy weight, and the strange anger would surge into his heart again without control.

He saw surprise flicker in her eyes when he wordlessly took her hand and led her into the suite’s dining area whose table was laden with multiple dishes. If there was something Crown hotels could boast of, it was the very best chefs and limitless Michelin star worthy dishes.

When she was seated comfortably at the table, he went on to tell her,

“When you’re ready to sleep, you can comfortably take the bed. If there’s anything else you need, dial this number and I’ll have my assistant serve you, don’t worry, he won’t dare reveal your whereabouts. You can stay here for as long as you like.”

This was him giving her the freedom to stay in his suite, this was him distancing himself before she would make him completely lose his mind, he wasn’t Tristan Grayson without his unbreakable self control, he wouldn’t be Tristan Grayson if he turned soft for a woman.

She looked up at him with a startled light in her eyes then down at the piece of paper with his personal phone number written on it which he had slid to her on the table, then back up at his face.

Celine felt something in her heart sink at the way he looked at her, it was like someone saying goodbye.

That small guess in her mind that he was leaving was confirmed when he walked to another side of the suite near the entrance where he grabbed a coat from the rack by the door and swung it over his shoulders.

He didn’t look at her, but spoke nevertheless knowing she could hear him.

“I have no doubt you’ll find your freedom.”

They were final words he said to her.

In Tristan’s mind, he heard a distant female voice that once told him,

’I know, someday you’ll find someone who’ll break down your walls…’

These uncontrollable urges this woman was making him feel…it was as if he couldn’t fight against them. Tristan knew danger when he saw one…this woman, she was dangerous for him.

There are people we shouldn’t let into our life, because some people are designed to become a weakness.

In his life, there was no room for weaknesses.

He walked away immediately he’d said those words, pressing a button on the elevator and stepped in.

Slowly, the elevator doors started to shut. And that was when what he thought to be his final view of her moved.

He stiffened when he noticed her suddenly running towards the elevator, and just before the doors shut, she stuck her hand through making the doors automatically open once more.

“Wait, please…” She was breathing heavily, but he couldn’t get the image out of his mind…the image of the very moment she was running towards him. It reminded him of the image of someone running away, someone he desperately wanted to keep.

In his memory, he could only see the woman’s back view as she ran, this image was the very last of someone who he never saw again from that point.

He blinked to clear the memory from his mind, it was the kind of memory that plucked something out of his dead heart, a heart he had killed and murdered with his very own hands.

“Can you…can you stay, please?” Her voice was airy and smooth, like the softest whisper of a melody in a storm, there was something vulnerable laced in their depths, and that vulnerability tugged a string deep in his chest.

Celine knew this might be a bit much to ask for. He hadn’t just let her off even after she broke into his suite, but he had also accommodated her, been so good to her, and allowed her to stay for however long she wanted. But…the thought of him leaving made her heart race with panic. She didn’t know what to do, she only knew that she wanted him to stay.

“I won’t be a bother, I just…I just don’t want to be alone.” Her voice cracked and she could feel her eyes sting with tears she didn’t want to shed. “Please, don’t leave?”

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