Chapter 70: Soft Touches, Sharp Edges

Lisa’s POV

Something changed between us after that night.

It wasn’t anything to do with pressure or theatrics. There was no big announcement, no radical overhaul of our timetable or the way we addressed each other on the phone. No one else would sense a difference in it. When you look on paper, nothing changed. The same routines, the same meetings, the same carefully choreographed intervals between work and whatever this was turning into.

But I knew how it felt.

In the quiet spaces. During those pauses that last a teeny tiny bit longer than they’re supposed to. In the way Leo’s eyes rest on me now, like he’s simply searching for something to put a name to, only to realize he doesn’t have the courage to do so.

And I was doing the same with him.

It was Monday morning at the office — first day after the penthouse — and I was earlier than usual, anticipating to waste some time with e-mails and reports and receipts. It was cold and hard. Something that wouldn't look back at me with warm eyes and a half-smile.

I did not expect him to be there already.

Leo was standing at the window in my office, the city’s skyline bright but grey beyond him. His hands rested in the pockets of his dark pants, his stance was at ease much different from before. Less guarded. Less guarded against assault.

He turned when he heard my steps.

“Good morning,” he said softly.

The tone of his speaking—not solid, not sarcastic, not businesslike—rippled in my chest with something uneasy.

“Good morning,” I said as I forcibly tried to sound normal.

Our eyes met and lingered for just a little too long.

Then he nodded once and  looked away, as though he needed to pull himself physically from the moment . “I made coffee. It’s in the kitchenette.”

“You need not have done that.”

“I felt like it.”

The silence returned…

But this time around it was gentler.

All day long, we paced about one another like we were two people just learning how to speak.

He waited a moment longer to hold doors, his hand a fraction longer on the handle as I moved past. Once, when I was bent over a file on the conference table, I felt his fingers glide ever-so-lightly against the small of my back, steadying me instinctively.

The touch was brief.

Innocent.

But I stopped breathing anyway.

“Sorry,” he whispered right away, retreating.

I said, “It’s fine,” far too quickly.

But it wasn’t.

Every accidental brush, every near touch, made me tremble silently. A reminder of his warmth on that couch. Of the steady weight of his arm around me when the sun had crept in. Of waking naturally with him tangled against my side.

Oh, it was, “You didn’t sleep, you couldn’t sleep. And that had been terrifying, too.”

At noontime, we were seated, eating in a silence, facing each other with half-eaten plates growing cold.

“You’re being careful around me,” he observed without looking up.

“So are you.”

“I don’t want to scare you.”

“You don’t,” I said, but my voice faltered.

That made him glance up.

“Then what is it Lisa? Because I’m not feeling distance. It’s… avoidance.”

The word stung because it was true.

“I don’t know what to do anymore,” I confess quietly. “Everything feels… different.”

His jaw tightened, a muscle flickering as though he were holding back something heavy. “I feel like that,” he said. “For me it is different.”

“And that doesn’t frighten you?”

His eyes, as always, met mine without flinching. “It does. Every second of the day.”

There was a pause between us.

Dangerously honest.

Somewhere down the hall people were laughing. Phones rang. People’s lives continued to go on.

But in this tiny bubble of time, his confession seemed colossal to me.

“Then why don’t you pull away?”

“Because the running from it is worse than running towards it.”

I looked down at my hands. They were shaking just a little.

“I don’t know if I can take another fall,” I breathed.

Here it is.

The raw truth was woven through that fear. Andre. My past. The betrayal. The love that had been twisted into something ugly.

“I don’t want you to fall,” he whispered. "Not for me. Not for anyone. I need you on your feet all the time. And if you ever decide to lean it's because you feel safe and not because you're scared of being alone."

My throat went tight.

“Nobody ever said that to me before.”

His lips parted slightly, as if he were going to say something more. Something stronger. Something braver.

But he turned his back on us again; instead, he moved away again.

We were again cautious the rest of the afternoon. Quiet. Productive. Reality rooted in a brittle “I” that neither of us was prepared to put into words for fear of blowing up what we felt: We were drifting together uncontrollably in ways we couldn’t stop.

That evening, the office was gradually deserted, the ordinary buzz of voice dying away into nothingness. I packed up my things and turned off the lamp on my desk. I thought he’d been gone already.

Except he was still there, he was still leaning against the frame of my doorway, watching me.

“Are you going to wait to escort me out?” I asked.

“I was just making sure you were all right.”

“I’m okay.”

He looked at my face like he was trying to commit it to memory. “You say that a lot.”

“And you don’t believe me a lot.”

"I want to," he said.

I came closer, reducing the distance with more care this time — slowly, deliberately, taking notice of every inch space separating us vanishing.

“Then try,”

He raised his fingers, paused in midair… and at last he brushed a tender strand of hair away from my ear.

A light tap.

It sent a shudder right down my spine.

Neither of us budged. The office was now dark, with only the blue light of dusk pouring in through the windows.

“When this becomes something,” he said in a low voice, “that’s not going to be game for me.”

“I know.”

“Plus, I won’t be able to be gentle if someone attempts to hurt you again.”

“I know that too.”

Our eyes met — and there were so many things to look at that we weren’t yet brave enough to put into words.

Then he stepped back.

“I’ll see you later, Lisa.”

I nodded.

He left, leaving a swath of warmth as if he had exhaled the air out of the space.

My hand rose without my knowing it to the spot on my waist where his fingers had grazed me earlier in the day.

My heart was pounding too fast. Too loud.

“Andre was never this gentle,” I whispered to myself. “And that’s what makes this more dangerous.”

I closed my eyes.

“Why now?”