Chapter 31 — Unfinished Business
668 Words
Aurora Devereux spent the next few days doing exactly what any sensible person would have done after crossing a line she had spent months avoiding.
She buried herself in work.
Meetings filled her schedule from morning until evening. Reports replaced reflection. Decisions replaced distraction. Every available hour was given a purpose because purpose was easier to manage than memory.
Unfortunately, memory proved far more persistent.
No matter how busy she kept herself, certain moments returned without invitation. A glance across a conference table. A pause that lasted slightly too long. The memory of rain against glass and a kiss neither of them had discussed afterward.
Cassian never attempted to revisit what had happened between them. There were no private messages waiting on her phone, no unexpected conversations, and no effort to explain or redefine the moment. At first, Aurora told herself she appreciated that restraint.
The feeling didn’t last.
Silence came with its own complications. A conversation would have forced them to confront what had happened, but complete avoidance wasn’t much easier to live with. She couldn’t decide which possibility frustrated her more.
Three days later, they found themselves seated across from each other during a high-level strategy meeting involving several partner companies.
The room was crowded with executives, advisors, and department heads. Presentations moved across large screens while financial projections and acquisition reports dominated the discussion. Everything appeared perfectly normal.
Aurora almost managed to believe it.
Then she looked up.
Their eyes met across the room for only a moment, yet the awareness lingered long after she looked away. Maintaining focus suddenly required far more effort than it should have.
The discussion continued around them as reports were reviewed, projections challenged, and several major decisions pushed toward final approval. Aurora contributed exactly as she always did, answering questions with confidence and precision. Still, a small part of her attention remained fixed on something entirely unrelated to the documents spread across the table.
By the time the meeting ended, she was irritated with herself.
Not because of him.
Because of the effect he continued to have on her.
Most people left immediately. A few remained behind to discuss follow-up actions before gradually filtering out as well. Aurora gathered her files and prepared to leave when Cassian asked her to stay for a moment.
The request sounded completely reasonable considering the amount of business they handled together.
Her pulse disagreed.
Once the room had emptied, silence settled between them again.
“You wanted something?”
Cassian closed the document in front of him before answering.
“There are revisions needed on the acquisition proposal.”
Relief should not have followed.
Yet it did.
Because discussing contracts was significantly easier than discussing everything else.
For several minutes they reviewed figures, projections, and negotiation points. The conversation remained entirely professional, which only made the situation feel stranger. After everything that had happened, professionalism felt less natural than it used to.
Aurora eventually set the file aside.
“You are aware this is ridiculous.”
A faint curve touched the corner of Cassian’s mouth.
“The proposal?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
For the first time since the conversation began, neither of them hid behind business.
“We agreed on nothing,” Aurora said.
“No.”
“We discussed nothing.”
“No.”
“And somehow we’re behaving as if that’s normal.”
Cassian leaned back slightly, studying her with an intensity that immediately made concentration difficult.
“I wasn’t aware normal had ever described us.”
Aurora hated how close that answer came to making her smile.
She hated even more that he knew it.
The tension between them had changed. Before the kiss, everything had been built on possibility. Now it was built on memory, and memory was much harder to ignore.
By the time she left the room, one truth had become impossible to avoid.
Whatever existed between them no longer fit inside the carefully controlled boundaries they had spent months maintaining.
- Writer
