Chapter Seven - Old Fire
1094 Words
The room had gone too quiet.
Amara could feel it before she looked around.
Conversations had stopped. A few people stood near the refreshments table pretending not to stare. Others were openly watching. The weight of Damien saying her name still hung in the air.
She tightened her grip on her portfolio.
“I should go,” she said.
This time she did not wait for an answer.
She turned and walked toward the door.
Her steps were steady, but her pulse was not.
She had almost reached the corridor when she heard footsteps behind her.
“Amara.”
She kept walking.
“Amara.”
His voice was closer now.
She stopped.
Not because she wanted to.
Because ignoring him would only make the moment louder.
She turned.
Damien stood a few feet away.
The corridor was quieter than the meeting room. Soft lighting. Glass walls. Distant voices.
“Do you usually follow people after business meetings?” she asked.
“Only when they disappear for five years.”
The words landed harder than she expected.
Her jaw tightened.
“This isn’t the place.”
“No,” he said. “That was five years ago too.”
For a second she could not answer.
He took one step closer.
“Why did you leave?”
“It was a long time ago.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
His gaze stayed fixed on hers.
“You vanished.”
She forced herself not to look away.
“Yes.”
“No explanation. No call. Nothing.”
“I know.”
“Then tell me why.”
His voice was controlled, but there was something underneath it now. Not anger alone. Something sharper. More personal.
She folded her arms.
“You don’t get to demand answers from me.”
“Don’t I?”
“No.”
“After that night?”
Her breath caught.
The words hit too close.
“That night changed things,” he said quietly.
“For you?” she asked before she could stop herself.
He looked at her for a long moment.
“Yes.”
The honesty unsettled her.
She had prepared herself for accusation. Coldness. Distance.
Not that.
She looked away first.
“You shouldn’t say things like that.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t know what happened after.”
“Then tell me.”
His voice had softened.
That almost made it worse.
She shook her head.
“I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Both.”
A silence settled between them.
For a second neither moved.
Then he said quietly, “I looked for you.”
Her eyes lifted sharply.
“What?”
“I went back.”
Her chest tightened.
“To your building,” he said. “You were gone.”
Her throat had gone dry.
He continued, his voice lower now.
“Chioma wouldn’t tell me anything.”
That startled her.
He had really looked.
For her.
For a moment the careful distance she had built over five years shifted dangerously.
“You shouldn’t have,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because it would not have changed anything.”
“How do you know that?”
Because I was carrying your child.
Because I was afraid.
Because I left before you could become impossible to walk away from.
But the words stayed locked inside her.
Damien was watching her too closely.
He had always done that. Not with force. With attention.
“You’re hiding something,” he said.
Her pulse jumped.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know me anymore.”
His expression changed slightly.
“That doesn’t feel true.”
That one hurt.
She took a step back.
“This was a mistake.”
“Coming here?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you?”
“For work.”
“Only work?”
She did not answer.
His gaze held hers.
The silence between them felt too full. Too familiar.
He stepped closer.
Close enough now that she could see the faint scar near his temple more clearly.
“What happened to you?” he asked quietly.
The question landed differently.
Not what happened between us.
What happened to you.
Her throat tightened unexpectedly.
“Life,” she said.
“That’s not enough.”
“It has to be.”
He was still looking at her in that steady way that made lying feel impossible.
“I heard about the attack,” she said, needing the conversation to move somewhere else.
His jaw tightened.
“So you were paying attention.”
“It was everywhere.”
“You still could have called.”
“No,” she said softly. “I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
Because by then I already knew.
Because by then leaving felt like survival.
She swallowed.
“I made a choice.”
“For yourself?”
“For my family.”
Something changed in his face.
“Family.”
He repeated the word as if testing it.
“What does that mean?”
“It means exactly what I said.”
His gaze sharpened.
“And who is your family now?”
That question came too close.
Dangerously close.
She stepped back again.
“You don’t get to ask me that.”
“Maybe not. But I’m asking.”
For one brief second she saw it clearly.
He was not asking because of wounded pride.
He was trying to understand.
That made it harder to stay guarded.
“Damien,” she said quietly, “some things are better left where they were.”
“No.”
The word was immediate.
“No, they’re not.”
He took another step forward.
She felt the wall behind her before she realized she had backed into it.
The air shifted.
Too close.
Too familiar.
“Five years,” he said. “Do you know what that does to a question with no answer?”
Her breathing had changed.
“You should let this go.”
“I tried.”
His voice dropped lower.
“It didn’t work.”
For a second the city outside the glass walls disappeared.
There was only the space between them.
Only memory.
Rain. A quiet apartment. His hand brushing her cheek.
Her heart beat painfully against her ribs.
She needed distance.
She turned slightly, ready to move past him.
Then her phone lit up in her hand.
The screen glowed between them.
Ethan calling.
Damien saw the name.
And in the sudden silence, Amara stopped breathing.
- Writer
