SURRENDERING TO TEMPTATION

CHAPTER EIGHT : WHEN THE SILENCE BREAKS

I stared at the elevator buttons like they held the answers I didn’t want to ask. Each flickering number pulled me closer to him. My chest was tight—not from excitement, but the twist of everything I didn’t want to feel again. But there he was. Jae-min.

I don’t know why I walked into that café yesterday. Maybe I was testing fate. Or maybe I wanted to prove to myself that I was still in control. That this thing between us didn’t own me. But the second I saw him—his head bowed slightly, fingers tapping the rim of his cup—I knew I was lying to myself.

He looked up. And damn it, I softened.

"Eun-mi," he said like it still tasted right in his mouth.

I didn’t sit. I couldn’t.

"You shouldn't have called."

"But you came," he said. Simple. So damn sure of himself. As if that was enough proof that I still wanted him. Maybe I did. But want was the problem. It kept pulling me back to a place I had no business being in.

"Don't confuse curiosity for commitment," I said, biting down the shake in my voice.

He leaned back, arms crossed, lips tight like he was trying not to say too much too fast.

"I miss you."

God.

That’s when I realized it wasn’t just tension—it was grief, too. The ache of something we never named, never defined, but damn sure felt.

I left. Before I let his warmth swallow me whole again. Before I let my mouth betray my resolve.

And now, I’m in this elevator. Heading to his office.

For what? Closure? A clean goodbye? Or was I stupid enough to believe I could have him one more time without shattering myself in the process?

I don’t knock. The door’s open. He’s alone.

He stands when he sees me. And for a second, I remember how those arms feel wrapped around my waist. How they pin me to the wall like I’m something worth keeping still.

"You came back," he says, like he never stopped hoping.

I breathe in. I breathe out.

"This doesn't mean anything," I tell him. My voice is calm, but everything inside me is on fire.

He walks toward me, slow, careful. As if getting too close might break the spell.

"Then let it mean nothing," he whispers, fingers brushing mine.

And like always, I fall.

We don’t speak after. I lie in his arms, eyes open, wondering why silence feels louder with him.

And when I leave this time, I don’t promise to return.

But God, I know I will.