Chapter Thirteen
1273 Words
It was only when he turned toward the far end of the gallery that he saw them—those dark curls, luminous even in the low lighting. She stood in the center of a gathering crowd, her attention no longer his. Her gaze was fixed forward now, face upturned with a new expression.
He froze. She looked… alive in a way he hadn’t seen before. Her eyes sparkled with something dangerously close to joy, her mouth parted slightly in anticipation. It was like watching a different version of her—one he hadn’t been allowed to meet.
And then the voice rang out over the crowd.
“Mesdames et messieurs,” the host announced with polished charm, “this evening marks a long-anticipated return. Please join me in welcoming back to the spotlight two of Paris’s most innovative artisans—world-renowned chocolatier Javier Moreno, and rising pâtissière Yesenia Castillo, debuting their collaborative masterpiece.”
Applause exploded around him, echoing in his ears like cannon fire.
But Graham couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
There he was—tall, poised, and sickeningly self-assured. A man cut from a different cloth. His bronze skin caught the light, his dark hair slicked back, the kind of elegance that didn’t need to be announced. He stood like someone who already knew he’d won.
And beside him—Yesenia.
She was smiling.
Not the polite, distant smile she’d given Graham. This one was radiant. Soft. Real. It lit up her face and crumpled something inside him all at once. It was a smile that could change the temperature of a room. A smile that could ruin a man, and here she was, giving it away to someone else.
His chest tightened as he watched her, her arm lightly brushing the chocolatier’s, the way her body angled toward him without even thinking. Like she belonged there. Like she had always belonged there.
Graham’s eyes flicked to Moreno’s hand—confidently, instinctively, resting against the small of her back. Possessive. Intimate. Familiar.
It made his jaw clench.
And the worst part? She didn’t pull away. She didn’t even flinch. Her head tilted toward Moreno as he leaned in, whispering something only for her. Her lips twitched—laughter maybe? Agreement? God, he didn’t know. He didn’t want to.
Graham stood there, stone still among the moving crowd, his fists balled tight at his sides, the buzz of the gallery fading into a dull roar in his ears. Every instinct screamed at him to look away, but he couldn’t. He was caught in her gravity, a moth to flame, even as it singed him.
Her eyes flicked up briefly, sweeping over the crowd.
They didn’t find him.
And that hurt more than anything.
The reality settled in, heavy and hollow—
She wasn’t just enchanting. She was already someone else's.
And the cruelest part? She had never really been his to lose.
Graham felt a pang, sharp and visceral, twist deep in his gut. It burned low, steady—like whiskey soured into poison. He had seen enough. Couldn’t bear the way Moreno’s hand curled around her waist, casual and possessive, as if claiming something sacred. Something stolen.
It wasn’t the touch itself. It was the knowing. That unspoken fluency between them. The way her body tilted instinctively toward his, like a secret language Graham had never been taught.
The applause rose again—bright, jarring
His fingers tightened around his glass, knuckles pale against the cool metal. He needed another drink. Something to blur the edges, to dull the ache blooming beneath his ribs.
Anything to quiet the feeling that she was already slipping too far out of reach.
But no. Not yet.
He couldn’t leave.
Not when he didn’t understand why this woman—this stranger who somehow saw into the rawest corners of him—had unraveled him so completely. He wasn’t a man easily moved. He’d built walls thick enough to keep out storms, voices, memories. And yet she’d walked in like she knew the blueprint.
It was maddening.
He turned to walk away.
A voice caught him, soft but sharp—unfamiliar, lilting slightly with a Caribbean undertone.
“Excuse me?”
He turned, not expecting it. Not recognizing it.
The woman stood a few feet away, her expression unreadable. Dark curls framed her face, striking in the soft light, and something in the way she held herself—calm, poised, just a little too still—made the gallery’s noise fall away in Graham’s ears. He knew her, didn’t he? They had spoken on the balcony. Briefly. But names hadn’t passed between them. Her voice, her presence, had lingered in his mind like smoke. And now, hearing it announced over the crowd—Yesenia Castillo—the name felt like something he’d always known but wasn’t meant to say aloud. She wasn’t unfamiliar. She had been watched. And now, somehow, she was watching him.
“You don’t seem like you belong here,” she said, her voice steady.
Graham blinked, confused. “Do I know you?”
She tilted her head, her lips barely moving. “No.”
But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he did.
Behind her, the applause continued. Moreno’s voice lifted through the chamber, praising chocolate profiles and delicate pâtisserie glazes. But Graham didn’t hear any of it.
Only her.
“You’re not watching them anymore,” she said. “Why?”
He looked past her. Yesenia—real Yesenia—still beside Moreno, radiant. Laughing.
But this one—this version in front of him—she didn’t belong to the gallery. She didn’t belong to anything. Not really. And yet, the whispers hissed around him, sharp as broken glass. She’s real. She’s not. She’s here. No, she left. Lied to you. Look at her. His mind buckled beneath the static. The crowd blurred. Her lips moved again, or maybe it was just in his head. He couldn’t tell anymore. The line between hallucination and reality thinned to a razor’s edge, and she stood on it—balancing, haunting, real enough to hurt. Not part of the gallery. Part of the sickness. Part of him.
She was part of him.
She stopped him cold.
He turned slowly, breath caught halfway in his throat.
“You shouldn’t watch them,” she said, voice low, words like silk.
His eyes darted between her and the couple across the gallery. She was still standing beside Moreno, laughing, clinking glasses. And yet… she was here too.
He swallowed hard. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re not supposed to.”
The crowd blurred behind her. Time seemed to bend inward, everything muffled except the space between them.
Graham’s voice cracked. “I hate seeing you like that.”
She followed his gaze. Her double. With Javier. Smiling.
“Which version of me hurts more?” she asked.
He couldn’t answer. He didn’t know.
The version with Javier looked so perfect. So unreachable. So far from the woman who had seen him—not his art, not his mask, but the chaos beneath.
“Why do you look like her?” he asked.
His chest tightened.
She stepped closer, her presence pulling at him like gravity.
A tear slipped down his cheek. He didn’t feel it until it hit his lip.
“I’m not real,” she whispered, and the world around them trembled.
He blinked—and she was gone.
Across the gallery, the real Yesenia leaned into Javier’s touch, smiling as the lights shifted above them.
And Graham stood alone.
Breathing like a man who had just woken from a dream.
Or fallen into one.
- Writer
