Page 13 of Fallen Starboy

Chapter

Nine

ARISTA

My night was supposed to be simple: shower, answer a few more emails, review the schedule for tomorrow, send out any changes, and then maybe sleep for a few hours before I had to get back up and do it all again.

And here I was, standing with my back to a literal wall, face to face with a monster of my own creation. And I didn’t have a stitch of clothes on me. I was defenseless, and here he was, ripping open scars and staring into my soul like he wanted to fight me or—or fuck me.

Or maybe both.

All of a sudden, my tongue glued itself to the roof of my mouth in uncharacteristic fashion, and my mouth dried up faster than the Sahara Desert in a drought.

Speaking came naturally to me. I knew a multitude of languages and it was literally my job to run interference for people from other parts of the world.

And yet my vast vocabulary was suddenly missing, like my brain was a library and someone had checked out the book that contained all the words.

I couldn’t think past what was staring me in the face, which was a very intimidating and intense Kim Seo-Jun, caging me in like an angry predator cornering his prey.

His lips curled up in a smirk as I failed to respond, likely taking my silence as admission of guilt.

“You aren’t going to defend yourself? Nothing to say to me?

” When I just stared blankly, his smirk started to wilt.

Those gorgeous eyes I’d stared into many a night when we were younger searched my face for a hint of emotion, but he’d find none here.

I learned how to hide the things I felt a long time ago. Once you put on a mask like that, it’s hard to just take it off. It becomes a part of you, your only defensive wall between you and the rest of the world.

My mask was a part of me, and I didn’t know how to take it off. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

Especially not around Jun.

His gaze fell to my lips, tracing them with a slow, languorous movement.

Instinctively, they parted for him, perhaps remembering a time when that gaze would have been followed by a deep, passionate kiss.

“Do you think you can just walk around here like you didn’t drag me over hot coals like I was nothing?

Like you didn’t break me in two when you walked away?

” The hoarse, rough words rasped from his throat like it pained him physically to say them.

They dug into my skin, flaying me alive, cutting into old wounds and baring them to the world again.

“I . . .” There were no words. Nothing I could say would change what I’d done to him.

Nothing. And yet, I wanted so badly to tell him the truth.

It burned a hole in my throat, made me bleed internally.

I’d choke on the weight of it if I stayed here much longer.

“Move, Jun,” I snarled, forcing my voice to sound irate, pretending I wasn’t dying inside.

“Unlike someone here, I have things to do.”

I didn’t wait for him to respond as I ducked under his arm and practically sprinted to my door even though it was only feet away.

I slammed the door between us and pressed my back against it, hoping and praying he wouldn’t follow.

Secretly wanting him to bust the door down to shake the truth from me, yearning for him to stop looking at me like I was evil, a horrible person, the worst of the worst.

A part of me so badly wanted him to know. But I’d had my chance. I made my choices.

I couldn’t go back on them now.

The floor broke my fall as the tears started to fall, sinking to my ass on the hardwood planks as choking sobs threatened to reveal the depths of the pain it caused me to pretend like I didn’t care.

I’d been strong for so long, I thought I could handle this.

I should have known living under the same roof as Kim Seo-Jun, and our daughter, would be a Herculean feat.

Across the room, my phone lit up, practically vibrating off the desk.

I almost wanted to just let it go, fuck anyone and anything that could possibly require a call to my personal phone this late at night.

I had to shove that desire down, though, because there was no telling who was on the other end of the line.

It could be my boss, calling to tell me they were sending a replacement.

It could be someone calling to reschedule their interview or appointment or who knew what.

With loathing in my broken heart for the person who’d made mourning my losses in peace impossible, I crawled over to the desk and yanked the phone off the edge, snapping it open without checking to see who it was.

My voice was sharp, on edge, but it was close enough to my normal tone and attitude dealing with clients and coworkers that nobody would think twice about it.

“This better be good,” I snapped, wiping away the remnants of the tear tracks running down my face.

The other end of the line was silent for a long moment, and I almost hung up the phone, thinking it was a scammer, or maybe a telemarketer, neither of which I had the desire to deal with.

But then, the sounds in the background caught my ear, a familiar tune that played every day in the elevator on my way to the floor I worked on.

The caller said no words, made no attempt to speak, just breathed into the receiver as they rode the elevator up. Each floor they passed, the automated voice echoed from the speakers, letting them know what floor they were on.

I worked on the fourth floor.

“Second floor,” the elevator lady said cheerfully, her voice muted in the background. More heavy breathing, and a faint, almost too quiet to hear, whimper of pain. But it wasn’t close enough to be the caller?—

“Third floor,” the disembodied voice said again, and now I was completely on edge, something in my gut telling me this wasn’t just a normal butt dial. There was something almost sinister in the atmosphere on the other end. I could feel it, as if I were standing right there with them.

“Fourth floor,” followed by the telltale ding that told me they’d stopped there, and now the whimpering got louder, the sound resembling a plea from behind a gagged mouth?—

“Hello?” I asked again, hoping for some sort of answer. “Who the hell is this?”

The line went dead, leaving me with a chill that ran down my spine and shook me to my core.

I hung up reluctantly, making a mental note to check in with the security team when I got to the office in the morning.

Tonight it was just a skeleton crew for patrols and night watch, so it would do me no good to talk to them.

And there was no reason to call the cops. What if it was someone pulling a prank?

No. It was best to just deal with this in the morning.

As I slipped on my pajamas and slid between the covers, I shivered, the palpable anxiety lingering. No matter what I did, the feeling wouldn’t go away. And of course, when I got like this, I knew sleep would elude me.

I ended up in the workout room an hour later, trying desperately to forget the way that phone call made me feel.

Trying to bury the resurrected fear I’d lived with when I first came home to this city and lived my life perpetually looking over my shoulder.

Always alert, always on edge, always an anxious mess.

Sweat dripped from my brow, dotting the floor as I ran on the treadmill, increasing the speed every few minutes until it was all I could do to keep up with the belt whizzing by beneath my feet.

When running became impossible, unbearable, I shut it off, gasping for air, and moved to the next machine.

Sunrise found me guzzling a bottle of water like I’d been dehydrated for years. My hair had barely dried from the shower before I spent a whole night running myself ragged, and now it was drenched again, straight through to my scalp. I was a mess, and exhaustion was just starting to set in.

And now I had to clock in as a fucking assistant to the last person I wanted to follow around all day.

Fuck me, life really comes full circle to bite you in the ass when you least expect it.

I threw a towel around my neck and sighed, leaning my forehead against the steel door of the fridge as my eyes drifted shut.

I just needed a minute. One fucking minute.

Of course, who should walk right in but fucking Kim Seo-Jun himself, dressed to the nines in his own workout gear.

I glanced at him out of the corner of one peeked-open eye, and heaved a sigh at his refreshed, immaculate appearance.

He stood there, eyeing me like it was physically painful to look at me.

His hand wrapped around the handle of the fridge, but I didn’t have the strength to move just yet.

Nonetheless, he tugged on it anyhow, sending me stumbling toward the nearest wall in surprise.

Until two strong arms caught me round the waist and steadied me, of course.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? Trying to get hurt?” He glared down at me as I slumped in his arms, too weak and exhausted to even pick myself up and stand on my own two feet yet.

All I could do was stare into his eyes, imagining what it would feel like to smooth the crease in his brow like I used to when he was worried about something.

Would they feel the same under my fingers, or had every part of him changed over the years?

“You’re the one knocking me over,” I said dryly, my eyes fluttering shut for a second. “I was just minding my own business?—”

“You were sleeping against the fridge,” he pointed out, and damned if he wasn’t one hundred percent right. “Why?”

“Don’t act like you care, Jun.” I struggled, but between my wounded pride and my stubborn refusal to keep him from seeing weakness in me, I managed to stand up on my own, shoving him back a step, albeit a bit weakly.

“If you don’t mind, I have things to do.

Like manage you until you’ve hired a replacement. ”

“How are those coming?” he asked suddenly, turning back to the fridge. “You find anyone suitable yet?”

“You’ve got an interview block set up at noon today for three candidates.

” None of which he’d like, once he got to know them, but they were strong interviewers.

If they didn’t come out and reveal themselves from the start, I could foist him off on one of them and be out of town before he could even realize what I’d done.

Hell, maybe the new kNight Records office in Khula City had a position I could fill temporarily. Maybe a transfer was just what I needed.

Yeah. A transfer would solve all my problems. Distance between me and my past, that was the answer.