Only Ever You

Chapter 2

The answer caught Clara off guard. She froze for a second.

She could usually brush off the people in her social circle with a brazen, devil-may-care attitude and a line or two. Most of them cared deeply about saving face and were thin-skinned, having grown up pampered and unaccustomed to being slighted.

Once she’d embarrassed them, there was no reason for them to keep offering her a way out.

But Sebastian Hale hadn’t closed the window and driven off as she’d expected. Clara had no next move. The more uncomfortable she became, the brighter she smiled, though her voice lacked conviction.

“I wasn’t joking.”

His face had been turned toward her before, but it hadn’t felt as though he was actually looking at her. Now his eyelids lifted slightly, and his gaze shifted to her face and stayed there.

He made no attempt to hide the fact that he was assessing her. But his expression would never reveal the conclusion he reached.

Clara took half a step back with a smile. “Thank you. I’m sure I’ll get a car soon.”

Two seconds later, Sebastian looked away and turned back toward the road.

He was about to close the window when another car pulled up behind them.

Horns were prohibited in the residential community. With the road blocked, the driver behind them must have been getting impatient. The headlights flashed several times, urging them to move.

Sebastian asked his driver casually, “Whose car is that?”

The driver glanced in the rear-view mirror. “Looks like Mr. Vane’s.”

Sebastian said nothing.

Without instructions, the driver would not take further action. His hands rested calmly on the steering wheel. He didn’t turn around or press his employer for a decision, merely waited while the headlights behind them flashed again and again.

The rules for the Hale family’s drivers had been set by Sebastian’s grandmother. Without that kind of steady temperament, he wouldn’t have lasted fifteen years in their service.

Clara deliberately stopped looking at Sebastian. She rose slightly onto her toes and tried to see who was in the car behind them, wondering whether she could shamelessly ask for a ride.

But the rain had blurred everything into a haze, and Sebastian’s car blocked the other vehicle from view.

“Get in, Miss Vale.”

Clara went still.

The window was still open. At some point, Sebastian had turned to face her again. The rainy night was too dark to read his expression. His voice remained cool and detached, as though the rain had soaked all the way through it.

“I’ll give you a ride.”

The car remained there, silent and immovable, as if it wouldn’t leave unless she got in.

The poor, impatient soul behind them would never dare curse at Sebastian. If he cursed anyone, it would only be her for standing in the road instead of getting into the car.

By the time Clara came to her senses, she had already taken a step forward. Her body had made the decision before her mind could.

If this really was her last day in Vincent Langley’s social circle, then getting Sebastian alone for one car ride would make a perfect ending.

The driver got out and came around with an umbrella, though Clara couldn’t see the point. Her clothes were already soaked. The coach doors closed automatically once she was inside, shutting out the sound of the rain in an instant.

The cabin became so quiet she could almost hear them breathing.

Clara was trembling slightly, a normal reaction to entering a warm space after the beginnings of hypothermia.

There was a faint rustle.

Then a blanket landed lightly across her knees.

She pinched the gray fabric between her fingers. Cashmere, she thought at first, then reconsidered. It felt more like vicuña.

“There’s soup on my dress. I’ll stain it.”

“Someone will take care of it.”

Clara had never been timid. Good or bad, if someone else had something, she wanted to reach for it too. Whether she could actually grasp it was a problem for later.

Yet now, sitting there damp and disheveled in the spotless warmth of his car, she found herself strangely at a loss.

She wished the woman sitting beside Sebastian was her usual polished, beautiful self. But if she hadn’t looked this miserable, she never would have stirred his pity.

An impossible paradox.

She quickly made peace with it. It didn’t matter. Whether she was glamorous or pathetic, this was only a passing impulse on his part, one good deed for the day. He would forget about it soon enough.

She wrapped the blanket around herself and slowly dabbed at her wet hair.

In the past, from places where she remained unseen, Clara had studied every inch of Sebastian. She even knew about the tiny mole on his Adam’s apple.

Now they were sitting barely a seat apart, and she didn’t dare look in his direction once.

He wasn’t even sitting particularly straight. He was silent, his posture almost careless, yet his presence was so overwhelming that she found herself breathing more quietly, afraid of disturbing him.

Once the car had left the villa community, Sebastian asked evenly, “Where do you live, Miss Vale?”

Sebastian had been back in the country for less than four months. The idle heirs and socialites in their circle held parties nearly every day, but very few people could persuade him to attend. His plans also seemed to depend entirely on his mood. Sometimes, even after agreeing to come, he would cancel at the last minute.

People said you would idealize the person you liked, but Clara didn’t.

She knew Sebastian had plenty of faults. Not only did she refuse to excuse them, she condemned them vigorously, because he was the king of last-minute cancellations.

She attended every party, yet could count on one hand the number of times she’d managed to catch him there. Whenever he appeared, the room naturally rearranged itself around him. But he was a quiet, uncommunicative center, and hearing more than a few words from him was nearly impossible.

She had always thought his voice sounded like snow-melt. Cool, but never sharp.

Snow only melted when the weather had warmed, after all.

“I live…”

Clara sighed.

Only then did she remember that the water heater at home was broken. Her landlady was an elderly woman who trembled when she walked and couldn’t deal with such things. They usually contacted a repairman themselves, then brought her the receipt for reimbursement.

Perhaps Sebastian interpreted her sigh and meaningful silence as something else. Or perhaps he simply couldn’t be bothered to think about it.

When she didn’t give him an address, he continued, “Which hotel do you usually stay at?”

His tone was the same as before, a practical question meant to move things along so the driver would have a destination.

The implication that he wanted to send her on her way as quickly as possible was also perfectly clear.

“Have you ever taken in a stray cat?” Clara asked suddenly.

Sebastian had been looking straight ahead. Now he turned his head and lowered his gaze to her, seeming faintly puzzled by the question that had come from nowhere.

“Generally speaking, taking in a stray cat is a lot of trouble. First you have to bathe it, then treat it for parasites. If it’s sick, you have to take it to the vet. You might have to pay to get it spayed or neutered too. After that, you still have to find a good family to adopt it and check in on them for at least six months. Only when you know it’s doing well can you finally stop worrying.”

Clara smiled.

“People are different. People have hands and feet, and their poor little scraps of pride. They’re much less trouble.”

Then she turned toward the front. “Could you drop me off at the nearest convenience store, please?”

Sebastian had asked her into the car on a momentary impulse of compassion. She appreciated his kindness, and she understood his reluctance to invite trouble.

The driver didn’t answer immediately. He looked at Sebastian for approval.

Sebastian lowered his eyes. With no expression on his face, he gave a slight nod.

Clara’s phone vibrated several times inside her bag, as though offering them a way out of the awkward silence.

She took it out, held it to her ear, and listened to the voice message. Then she pressed and held the button at the bottom of the screen to send one back.

“The water heater can wait. I’ll stay with a friend tonight and have someone come fix it tomorrow.”

She released the button and sent the message, then pressed it again.

“Thank you for remembering my birthday. I’m not celebrating it today. I want to wait until Dad comes back so we can celebrate together. Go to bed early, Mrs. Zhao. You don’t have to wait up for me. And make sure you shut all the doors and windows because of the rain. Don’t do what you did last time.”

Whenever Clara spoke to her elderly landlady, her voice became unusually gentle, as though the person on the other end were five rather than seventy-five.

A reply came quickly. Mrs. Zhao agreed, then fussed over her with several more reminders.

The car fell quiet again.

The rain had eased. Droplets slid across the windows, dragging the streetlights into crooked, wavering shapes.

Clara was staring at them absently when that cool voice sounded again.

“Today is your birthday?”

She had assumed Sebastian wouldn’t speak again after her destination had been settled.

“Yes,” Clara answered.

The car glided soundlessly through an intersection.

“Aster Ridge Drive,” Sebastian instructed the driver.

Clara turned to look at him.

He didn’t explain what was at that address.

Her heart gave a sudden, hard beat.

Sebastian’s eyes were lowered, his expression unreadable.

She didn’t know whether he understood what was going through her mind. With his sharpness, perhaps he saw everything clearly.

But it was as though she could interpret his actions however she pleased. That was her freedom. He had no responsibility to explain.

Clara couldn’t bring herself to ask.

The silence cut at her like a dull blade. The fantasy in her heart flickered like a weak candle flame, wavering in the wind.

They drove for a while longer. The streetlights thinned, and the greenery grew dense. The car seemed to plunge into a lush botanical garden before finally coming to a silent stop beneath a sprawling tree whose canopy blotted out the sky.