Chapter 7: The Quiet Between Them
612 Words
The rain had started sometime after midnight. By morning, it hadn’t stopped.
Thick droplets tapped against the villa’s windows as a soft fog curled around the garden outside. The weather had effectively trapped them — no phone calls from managers, no surprise visits from security teams. Just stillness.
Candice stood barefoot in the kitchen, wrapped in an oversized sweatshirt that clearly wasn’t hers. Her face was bare, her hair tied in a lazy bun. She looked like a stranger — not the face of every billboard, not the goddess in diamonds and silk.
Just Candice.
She was heating leftover pasta on the stove when Sergio entered. He paused in the doorway, holding a towel around his neck from the quick jog he managed before the rain got worse.
“You cook now?” he teased gently.
“I reheat,” she said with a smirk. “Don’t get excited.”
He smiled and crossed to the counter. “Still impressive.”
She glanced at him sideways. “You hungry?”
He nodded. “Always.”
So she handed him a plate. No elegant table setting, no staff serving them. Just two people eating reheated pasta while the sky cried above them.
They sat in the breakfast nook, the glass behind them fogged from the heat inside. A candle flickered between them — Candice had lit it mostly for comfort. Somehow, it made the space feel warmer.
“You’re quiet today,” she said after a while.
Sergio looked at her. “I was just thinking.”
“About?”
He hesitated, then said honestly, “You.”
She arched a brow. “Me?”
He nodded. “You look different today.”
Her fingers paused mid-twirl with her fork. “Worse?”
He chuckled. “No. Not worse. Just... different.”
She put her fork down slowly. “I don’t have makeup on.”
“I noticed.”
Silence stretched again, but this one was charged.
“And?” she asked softly.
Sergio leaned forward slightly, his voice lower than before. “I think this is the first time I’ve seen you — really seen you. No lashes. No lipstick. Just you. And you’re...” He trailed off, searching for the word. “Striking.”
Her breath caught.
“You’re not the Candice on TV right now,” he continued. “Not the one the world watches and worships. You’re just... a woman in a borrowed sweatshirt, standing in the kitchen with cold feet and sleepy eyes. And I don’t know — that version of you feels more real. More beautiful.”
Her eyes shimmered, but she didn’t look away. “No one’s ever said that to me before.”
“They should’ve,” he said. “Because this version of you? It’s the one someone could fall for.”
The words hung between them like the rain outside — soft, persistent, impossible to ignore.
Candice looked down, then back at him, cheeks warm. “You don’t say things like that often, do you?”
He shook his head. “No. Only when I mean them.”
She smiled — not the one for cameras, but the kind that reached her eyes and softened her whole face. The kind she forgot she had.
They spent the rest of the morning not talking much — reading on opposite sides of the couch, sharing glances during quiet songs playing from her playlist, occasionally commenting on the storm.
But the bond between them — it thickened like the mist outside. Quiet. Steady. Unspoken.
And for the first time in a long time, Candice didn’t feel like she was running.
She felt like she was arriving.
- Writer
