Page 54 of Strange Seduction (Strange #2)

“Nothing,” I said finally. “It’s your place, Carmen. I built it for you. It serves no purpose without you.”

“Theo. I—” She looked away again. I could practically feel her mind running a mile a minute with all the things she wanted to say. “I hope I can come back to it—someday.”

Yeah.

I pulled into the private entry and drove up to the jet waiting for us.

“I’ll walk you up,” I said quietly as I stopped the car.

“No need,” she replied, unbuckling her seatbelt. But I got out of the car anyway.

She didn’t argue.

I helped her grab her bags from the trunk. The same suitcases she’d packed two weeks ago, back when we were still joking about how she overpacked.

Now she couldn’t wait to drag it away from me.

I stood there while she double-checked she had everything before handing her things to the crew. My throat felt like it was closing up. I had so many things I wanted to say.

None of them were worth sharing at this moment.

She looked up at me—eyes glassy, jaw tight.

“I’ll… I’ll text when I land,” she said.

“Okay.”

Long pause.

This was it. This was the moment.

She shifted her weight, her free hand twitching at her side like she didn’t know what to do with it. I kept hoping she’d say something— anything —to buy us one more minute.

And then, awkwardly, she opened her arms.

It wasn’t a grand gesture. Just a small offering of kindness before we went our separate ways.

I stepped in, hesitant. But when her arms wrapped around my back and mine settled on her waist, it hit me like a fucking truck.

Her warmth.

The way her head rested against my chest like it belonged there.

It leveled me.

All the restlessness, the nausea of dread that had been sitting in my stomach for days—it all dulled under her touch. And I remembered, with horrifying clarity, that no matter how chaotic things got, she’d always been my calm.

She was my peace.

Even if it came wrapped in storms.

“I’m so sorry this didn’t work out,” she whispered. “I really wished we could’ve made it work.”

That cracked something in me. My hands tightened on her waist instinctively.

I shook my head. “I’m so sorry, Carmen. I was wrong. I take it all back. I don’t want you to go.”

Her breath caught, but she didn’t pull away.

“No, Teddy,” she murmured. “You were completely right. I still have a lot of growing to do. We both do. Hopefully… we can find our way back to each other someday. But for now, it’s best we part.”

I didn’t let go.

“I don’t want to.”

Her hands rested on my chest. “Theodore.”

“We can work on it together, baby,” I said quickly, clinging to the words. “We can grow together.”

She exhaled sharply. “We’ve hurt each other too much for that right now.”

I buried my face in her neck, refusing to let go.

“ Amore mio , I swear, we’ll make it work somehow. Just—please. Please. Please. Don’t leave me, Carmen.”

Her hands moved to my wrists, tugging gently. “You gotta let me go, Theo.”

“No. Not like this. Quédate conmigo .”

“Baby,” she whispered, pain laced in every syllable, “please. Let me go.”

“Let’s talk about it. I take it all back. No quiero que te vayas. We can figure something out. Please. I swear—”

“Teddy. Detente por favor. This isn’t the way to go about it.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want you to leave.”

Her fingers pressed harder against my arms. “Theodore. Let go of me.”

I did—barely. Just enough to look at her.

“Please,” I whispered. “I promise we won’t fight anymore.”

She looked up at me, brows tight, eyes glassy.

“Teddy. You love me and I love you. But that doesn’t mean we’re good for each other right now.”

I took a shaky breath and pulled her into me one last time.

She didn’t resist.

“I’ll fight,” I whispered into her hair. “If there’s any version of the future where we make it back to each other—I’ll fight for it.”

She nodded against my chest.

Then, slowly, she stepped away.

“I love you, Carmen. I love you so fucking much, baby.”

She smiled weakly. “I love you more, Theodore Clayton. Thank you. For everything.”

Reluctantly, she walked toward the jet, her figure getting smaller with every step. And then, with one final look, she boarded.

I stood there long after she disappeared, hand still clenched where her waist used to be.

And for the second time, I let Carmen Reyes slip through my fingers.

˙???˙

The suite was dark, silent except for the slow hum of the AC kicking on, and the distant city traffic bleeding in through the balcony glass. For a moment, I just stood there in the entryway, staring at nothing.

She was really gone.

Carmen had left behind a silence that didn’t belong here anymore. A stillness that pressed down on the room like a hand over my chest. Like it didn’t want me to breathe.

I rubbed a palm down my face and turned toward the bedroom, too tired to think and too wired to sleep. But something caught my eye on the coffee table just before I passed it.

The camcorder.

The one she insisted on bringing with her to Italy. Her little project.

I stepped closer.

The strap was still looped, just like she’d left it. Would she come back for it? Maybe this was a mistake, and she’d walk in any minute to scold me for touching her things.

No, she wouldn’t.

I picked it up cautiously and turned it on. The screen flickered to life with a low beep and a flash of digital static, then settled into the last thing she’d recorded.

I sat down slowly on the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, as I scrolled to the first video.

It was her voice first — soft, breathy, warm.

“Is this thing even fucking working?” She held the lens so close to her face as she examined the camcorder. “M’kay, so apparently trying to fit my entire wardrobe into a few suitcases is not gonna happen, so I’ll have to downsize.”

I smiled a little at her cute ignorance. This was probably taken in her apartment before she came here. I could tell by the photo of us hanging on her wall. Part of me wondered if she would take it down when she got home.

I skipped to the following video. Now she was on the jet, en route to Italy.

“Okay, so I’m about to land and I’m pretty nervous,” she said with a bright but unsure grin. “It’s been a long time. I’m not too worried, though. Teddy and I are pretty locked in.”

My chest tightened. She continued, “Still. It’s been so long. I know he loves me, I just hope he still likes me.”

I moved onto the next video.

“First day!” she said, smiling a little for the camera. “Solo lunch because Theo’s working.”

My grip on the device only intensified. “He’s got a lot going on. Can’t expect him to stop working cause I’m here, right?”

Next video.

“This is kinda sexy, y’know,” she voiced over.

I looked into the camcorder, surprised. “Sexy?”

“Yeah. This whole mysterious artist thing is kinda turning me on.”

The corners of my mouth twitched. Then the video shook as she sat down in the chair, setting the camcorder on the table to face us.

“Gimme a tattoo,” she said.

I blinked at her. “What, seriously?”

She looked so sure. “Dead serious.” She trusted me then…

Next video.

“Things with me and Carmen are finally feeling normal again. I didn’t think we’d fall back into rhythm so quickly, but I’m glad we did. Maybe we can finally start to enjoy our time together like a normal couple.” I was an idiot.

I skipped through the rest of the videos with a heavy heart:

Our sextapes. Some of our days out.

One included us walking through Florence. She was filming the back of me as I reached out and laced my fingers with hers.

“Say hi, baby,” she said.

I looked over my shoulder and smiled. “Hi, baby.”

She giggled.

Then came the video she recorded on the Yacht.

I watched with tears in my eyes as she spoke to the camera before handing it to me that day.

She tried so desperately to convince herself that staying and forgiving me for that incident at Thanksgiving was the right thing to do.

I hated that I made her question everything she stood for and all the boundaries she had put in place just to be with me.

“It’ll work itself out,” she said. And I wondered if I still believed her.

My part of the video cut me open entirely. “If you’re watching this in the future, and we’re in a better place, I hope you remember this version of us, too. The one that fought like hell for us to get it.”

I was speaking to no one. Because she was no longer here to see what we could’ve become.

In the next video, we were out on the balcony of the yacht.

I had forgotten we took this after the many glasses of wine we drank after our very explicit night together. I was shirtless, wine glass in hand, sitting back with my legs stretched out. Carmen was offscreen, giggling as she tried to zoom in.

“Say something to future us,” she teased.

I groaned. “Like what?”

“Anything. A message. In case we forget.”

I shifted in my chair, looking directly at the lens, eyes bleary from too much wine.

“Hm. Don’t let the little shit get too big,” I said. “And don’t forget that this right here—”

I looked off camera. Carmen must’ve panned the shot to include herself.

“This is all that matters, and it’s all mine.”

Next video.

It was a shaky, handheld shot of her exhaled breath as I tried to get the lens to focus on her while she was driving.

The screen went dark for a second, then lit up again— low battery.

I skipped through that, trying to get to my proposal and replay the last moments of our happiness.

“So, if you’ll have me,” the video began. “I want to grow old with you. I want to be the arms you come home to. I want to be your person. Your home. Your partner. Please, baby. Marry—”

The video cut. Then the screen went black.

Battery dead.

I leaned back on the couch with the camcorder still in my hands and stared up at the ceiling.

It still smelled like her in here. That faint mix of vanilla, cherries, and whatever oil she put in her hair.

She loved me.

And I let her go.

Because I thought it was the right thing to do. I thought that’s what grown men were supposed to do.

“You gotta let me go. Baby, please. Let me go,” she asked, and I actually did it. I swore I’d fight for her and promised her father I’d take care of her, but I still let her get on that plane.

I didn’t know how long I sat like that.

The day’s events played over and over in my head as I tried to figure out what I could’ve done differently. My conclusion was nothing.

Our truth lay somewhere in the middle. We loved each other enough to know what we had right now was not sustainable. But we knew that our futures would intertwine beyond our current understanding.

So for now, it was okay that we parted. It simply meant that when we met again, it would be extraordinary.