Chapter 2
389 Words
Chapter Two
Selene
I should have worn armor.
Instead, I sat across from him in a silk blouse and lipstick too red for caution, trying to pretend my heart wasn’t thudding like it remembered what it felt like to break.
I flipped to a clean page in my notebook, avoiding his gaze. “Let’s begin.”
He leaned back in his chair, elbows resting on the arms like a king on a throne. “By all means.”
I cleared my throat. “After the scandal three years ago—the data breach, the leaked client files—Voss Enterprises took a massive hit. Investors pulled out. You disappeared from the press for months. What changed?”
“Everything,” he said simply.
I raised a brow. “You’ll have to be more specific than that.”
A pause. Then his voice dropped lower, silk over steel. “I realized I couldn’t fix everything by pretending I wasn’t the problem.”
I blinked, caught off guard. There was no smirk. No mask. Just… honesty. That scared me more than his arrogance ever had.
I forced my voice to stay level. “You took the blame publicly, but internally your team suggested it was a former executive. Was that just spin?”
He smiled faintly. “You’re digging deeper than I expected.”
“You should know by now, Xander. I don’t do surface-level.”
He flinched slightly at my use of his name. Good.
I scribbled a note I didn’t need. Anything to keep my hands busy. My fingers still remembered what it was like to touch him. My body hated me for remembering.
“Selene.”
I froze.
I hadn’t heard him say my name like that in years. Not with that… ache. That guilt.
“What?”
His eyes found mine. Steady. Regretful. “Are you here to destroy me? Or are you just here to make sure I’m still bleeding?”
I stared at him. A thousand replies crowded my tongue. I wanted to say yes. That I came to tear him down. That I wanted him to feel half of what I did.
But all I said was—
“This is an interview. Nothing more.”
I turned the page.
But the truth was already leaking through my voice. And we both knew it.
- Writer
