Claimed for one last night

Chapter 5

Ethan POV

Ben knows not to ask anymore. Lucas has the good sense to stay quiet. We just sit here, three men in a rental car, staring up at a building like we're waiting for something to happen. Like she might appear in the window and everything will suddenly make sense.

"How long since you've seen her?" Ben asks, because he's got patience and because he's learned that sometimes asking a direct question is better than waiting for the truth to come out sideways.

"Seven and a half years," I answered flatly. The number sits heavy on my tongue. Seven and a half years is a lifetime in technology. In business. In the amount of distance a person can put between themselves and their past.

She dumped me the day I left for America. No explanation. No real reason. Just a quiet conversation in her mother's kitchen where she told me it was best if we went our separate ways. That she'd met someone else. That I deserved better.

All of it was a lie, and I've known it was a lie for the past seven years, which is somehow worse than if she'd actually meant it.

"Does she know you're back?" Ben asks.

"No."

"And your parents? They're in Melbourne, right?"

"Toorak," I confirm. Twelve hours south. A different world entirely.

"So you came to Sydney. For this girl."

I don't confirm or deny it because the truth is too complicated for casual conversation. The truth is that I've been pretending this whole trip was about business meetings and family obligations and reorganizing my visa status. The truth is that I've been lying to myself and everyone around me about why I chose to spend three months in a country I haven't been to since I was nineteen years old.

The truth is that I'm a billionaire who has everything, and I'm still obsessed with a girl who doesn't want me.

"Come on," I say, finally tearing my eyes away from the window. "Let's go."

Lucas suggests I knock on her door, but that's not why I'm here. I'm not here to confront her or demand answers or anything that would require her to see me. I'm here to confirm that she exists, that she's real, that I haven't completely fabricated this person in my mind over the years.

As we drive away, I can feel the darkness settling over me like a familiar coat. This was a mistake. Coming back here was a mistake. But I'm already committed to the next three months in this city, pretending I'm here for work when really I'm just torturing myself in the most methodical way possible.

°°°°°°°°°

Bondi - 11:50 PM

The rental house in Bondi is exactly what I told Lucas I wanted. Oceanfront. Expensive. Soulless. It's the kind of place that's designed for someone with money and no actual taste, which I suppose is accurate. The decor is dated, the furniture is uncomfortable, and everything about it screams temporary.

Which is perfect, because that's all this is. Three months. Then I go back to LA and this becomes another chapter I try not to think about.

I'm standing on the balcony with Cointreau and ice, watching the ocean and trying very hard not to think about the way her hand felt in mine that night in the tent. The way her breath caught when I touched her. The way she whispered "I love you" like it was the most dangerous secret she'd ever told.

Seven and a half years and I still remember her like it was yesterday.

The doorbell rings and I assume it's Lucas, probably coming to b***h about something or other. Instead, when I open the door, there's a woman in a trench coat and heels standing in the hallway, and she's absolutely stunning in that calculated way that suggests she's made a career out of looking this good.

"I'm looking for Ethan Blackwood," she says, and her voice has that smoky, practiced quality of someone who knows exactly what effect they're trying to achieve.

"You've found him."

She introduces herself as a friend of Carson's, who's apparently sent her as some kind of gift. She opens her coat to reveal lingerie that costs more than most people's monthly rent, and my brain recognizes on some clinical level that this is exactly what I need. Distraction. Someone else. A way to stop thinking about an apartment five kilometers away and a girl who doesn't want me.

Except when I look at her, all I can think about is how her body would feel different in my hands. How her breath would sound different when I touch her. How nothing about this night is going to erase the fact that I spent seven and a half years pining for someone who made it very clear that I was an inconvenience she needed to dispose of.

"What did you say your name was?" I ask as we head up the stairs, and I already know I'm going to say the name before she answers. I'm already setting the stage for this moment of self-sabotage.

"What do you want it to be?" she asks playfully.

I stop midway up the staircase and turn back to look at her, and something in my expression must shift because I can see the slight hesitation in her eyes.

"My bedroom is this way," I tell her, and the cruel part of me adds: "Amelia."

It's not kind. It's not fair to this woman who's just trying to do her job. But as I watch her face process the fact that I'm literally asking her to roleplay as someone else, I realize that I've already crossed a line I can't cross.

I'm not going to sleep with a random woman tonight.

I'm going to spend the evening pretending, and in doing so, I'm going to hate myself just a little bit more than I did this afternoon.

This is what obsession looks like. This is what it means to let someone completely colonize your mind.

And the worst part is, I'm not even sorry about it.