Chapter 191 CHAPTER 191
The Break
The air between them felt different the moment Tessa collapsed into Ares’ arms after that final, painful confession. The storm that had been raging for months—accusations, distance, shame, fury finally broke. The mansion seemed too quiet for the chaos inside them.
Shadows lingered on the walls like the remnants of all the arguments they had thrown at each other. But none of that mattered now, not with the way Tessa trembled against him, not with the way Ares held her as though he had been waiting years for this one moment of peace.
Her sobs softened, turning from ragged to fragile, then to shaky breaths pressed against his chest. Ares didn’t speak at first. He simply held her, grounding both of them. He felt her fingers curl into his shirt as though she were afraid he would vanish. He felt his own resolve melt, slowly, painfully, irresistibly.
She whispered again, voice cracked, “Why do you hate me so much?”
And he had whispered back the truth he had buried in his bones, “I don’t hate you. I love you so much, Tessa...”
Those words had opened something in both of them, something they had pretended wasn’t there, something they had suffocated for survival. Now that truth breathed between them with heat and danger, its pulse loud and undeniable.
Tessa lifted her head, eyes wet, cheeks flushed. She looked at him as though she didn’t recognize the man standing in front of her. Or maybe she did but this was the version she thought she had lost forever.
Ares brushed his thumbs under her eyes, wiping away the tears she hadn’t realized were still falling. “I didn’t want to forgive you,” he said quietly. His voice shook with the honesty he usually tried to bury. “It felt weak. It felt like giving up a fight I was supposed to win.”
“You hurt me,” she whispered.
“I know,” he replied. “And I hurt myself too.”
Those words, soft but rough, slid between them and changed everything.
Tessa leaned into his palms. Her lips parted slightly. For a moment she looked at him with disbelief, then with hunger, then with something rawer, something older than both of them. Ares felt the shift deep in his core, felt the way her breath hitched, the way her fingers gripped him with something dangerously close to longing.
He moved first. He didn’t think. Didn’t calculate. Didn’t weigh consequences or reasons or history.
He just pulled her closer, slow at first, giving her time to refuse, to step back, to reject him the way she always had when pride got in the way.
But she didn’t step back. She stepped into him. Their mouths collided in a kiss that was nothing like the sharp, conflicted moments they had shared in the past. This one was messy, heavy, unrestrained. It tasted of apology and anger, of everything they lost and everything they had been too stubborn to admit they wanted back.
Tessa gasped softly into his mouth, clutching the front of his shirt to steady herself. Ares wrapped one arm around her waist, drawing her flush against him while his other hand slid into her hair, anchoring her with a tenderness he had denied himself for too long.
Her knees weakened. He felt it. He deepened the kiss. Their breaths tangled together, hot and uneven. He kissed her harder, then slower, then deeper again, searching, learning her again, feeling the familiar shape of her mouth and the new, fragile edges of her pain.
Tessa slipped her hands around his neck, pulling him down to her level, kissing him with months of frustration and hidden affection burning through her. Her body pressed against his with an urgency that left his pulse hammering. She didn’t push him away. She didn’t shield herself behind anger. She didn’t hide.
She let him in. And for the first time since their lives had collapsed, Ares held her without restraint, without distance, without pretending he didn’t still crave every piece of her.
When they broke the kiss, they didn’t step apart. Their foreheads stayed touching, breaths still mingled.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, eyes closed as if the words pained her but freed her at the same time.
“I am too,” he whispered back. “More than you know.”
She opened her eyes slowly. “Then forgive me.”
He swallowed, thumb brushing the edge of her jaw. “Only if you forgive me too.”
Her voice was barely a breath. “I already did.”
Ares felt something loosen inside him, something tight and twisted that had been anchored in his chest for years. He exhaled deeply, almost shakily, his hand sliding down to her waist. She leaned into him again, their lips brushing in soft, lingering kisses, nothing rushed, nothing violent, just slow reconnection, like they were learning each other all over again, rediscovering skin and breath and memory.
For a moment the world softened. The air warmed. The ache between them closed. They kissed again, slower this time, deeper, lingering in the quiet forgiveness that had taken them so long to offer.
Then the front door opened. A loud sigh echoed through the hallway. Julian stood at the entrance with a hand on his hip and the other gripping a folder, his expression caught between disbelief and exhausted amusement.
“Wow,” Julian said loudly. “Should I clap or turn around and go back outside?”
Tessa froze mid kiss. Ares stiffened. They turned at the same time, like two teenagers caught behind the school building.
Julian stepped inside fully, eyebrows raised. “I mean…look at you two. Two minutes ago you were shouting at each other like divorced politicians, and now…” He gestured at their intertwined bodies. “…this.”
Tessa buried her face in Ares’ chest in embarrassment. Ares muttered something under his breath that definitely wasn’t polite.
Julian clicked his tongue dramatically. “Please continue. Don’t mind me. I’m only the best friend who has risked my blood pressure for both of you for years.”
He shut the door with his foot, walked past them, and dropped the folder on a table. Then he pointed at Ares with a tired smirk.
“I told you this would happen. Didn’t I? Didn’t I?”
Ares glared at him. “Julian, now is not…”
Julian cut him off, waving his hand. “Please. Spare me. Tell her how you were looking for the masquerade girl you made out with that year. How you fell in love and looked for her for long.”
“Julian!” Ares yelled.
“What? I walked in on worse when you two were still pretending you hated each other the first time.”
Tessa’s cheeks burned. “Julian, please…”
“Oh no, don’t ‘Julian please’ me,” he replied, moving toward them. “I want front row seats to this reconciliation. I suffered for it emotionally. I left my pregnant soon to be wife to be here.”
Ares groaned and rested his forehead on Tessa’s hair. “He’s impossible.”
Julian finally softened, his voice dropping as he approached them. “But…I’m glad.” He smiled, genuinely this time. “Both of you needed this. You needed…each other.”
Tessa looked away shyly. Ares tightened his hold around her waist. Julian exhaled dramatically and clapped his hands once.
“Alright,” he said. “Now that I’ve humiliated you both, can we get back to work?”
Ares opened his mouth to reply, but Julian lifted a hand quickly.
“Actually, no,” he corrected himself with a smirk. “I’ll give you two minutes. Finish your hugging. Maybe one more kiss. I don’t want to interrupt nature.”
Ares shot him a look that promised violence.
Julian only laughed.