by Ivy Wild
Not only that, but Silas had proven that he was more than capable of entering my apartment unannounced, as he did last Friday. The memory of him pushing me against the wall and kissing me was still so fresh in my mind. It replayed over and over again until I was almost sick of it.
Total lie.
The way his lips had moved against mine and the way he tasted was so unlike what I remembered of him in high school. I’d always been able to deny him in High School. He’d tried so many times to kiss me, but at the last moment, I always turned away. At the time I didn’t know why. Now I understood it as nerves.
I was so nervous about what kissing Silas would mean when I was younger. I was afraid of letting him in further than I had. I was afraid of what he would do if he knew how I felt about him. Would he use it against me? I never put it past him and he certainly proved me right on several occasions.
It was probably for the better, considering how our relationship all those years ago had ended.
But I didn’t know how to process just what I’d felt when Silas pushed me against the wall on Friday. Silas walked around with a mask on his face and over the years, that mask had become a near-permanent addition. And yet, when he kissed me, there was nothing between us. I felt his raw need and emotion clearly. More than that, I could feel his desire for me.
Why he left when he did, I still couldn’t understand.
Was it because he wanted me to say I belonged to him?
He knew me and he knew it wasn’t true, so I couldn’t understand why he would be mad about something like that.
All things considered, maybe my salary was too low considering the emotional rollercoaster he kept me on.
I was sitting at the kitchen island and my eyes darted to the clock on the stove.
4:45
Fifteen more minutes and then I could relax. Well, mostly. Silas didn’t really believe in set working hours but he seemed to follow a normal schedule, except for when he so obviously didn’t.
The bell for the elevator rang out throughout the apartment and my stomach dropped. There was only one person that would enter my apartment without ringing the doorbell. Technically, as far as I knew, there was only one person that could.
“I trust you had a good week,” he said in that smooth voice of his as he strode into the kitchen. He grabbed an apple out of the fruit bowl in the center of the island and bit into it. His eyes met mine and I could see he was searching for a reaction in me.
I wasn’t going to give him what he wanted.
“It was lovely, thank you. How was yours?” I asked in a candy-coated voice.
He took another bite of his apple and despite his relaxed features, his eyes seemed to be throwing razor sharp daggers.
“Fine,” he replied after finishing his apple and tossing it into the trash. “I’ve got a bit of a situation that I’m going to need your help on.”
I gave him my best fake smile and cocked my head to the side. “How can I help?”
The easy façade he wore on his features was starting to become more and more transparent around me. I could see my cheery attitude was getting to him. I’m not sure why I wanted him to break. It would only make my life a hell of a lot more difficult. Apparently, I was a total glutton for punishment. Probably why I’d agreed to work for Silas in the first place.
“I’ve got an extremely important interview with an IRS agent Monday and I’m going to need your help trying to prepare.” He paused. “I may even have you come along.” His voice was cold as he pulled out his phone and started pressing at the screen. “I’m forwarding you emails from my accountant with everything he has about the case. I’ll need you to print these and then we’ll need to go over everything together to see what they might have and how I can counter.”
“Together?” My own façade cracked the moment he said the word and his eyes lifted and swirled with mischief.
“Yes, together. Is that going to be a problem?” His tone was cocky and so was the smirk on his face.
I regained my bearings as best as I could and shook my head. “No problem. I just wanted to clarify.”
His eyes narrowed at me before he returned to looking at his phone. “Go ahead and print everything I’m sending to you and we can start going through it.” His voice returned to its normal frigid temperature and I slid off the stool I was sitting on and made my way towards my office.
“So much for my weekend,” I muttered to myself under my breath.
“You know, your voice carries,” Silas said behind me and I jumped. I’d been so distracted by my pity party that I hadn’t noticed he’d followed behind me.
The second bedroom was almost as luxurious as the master, with an attached bathroom and floor to ceiling windows. Like all the other rooms, the walls were a soft gray against bright white moldings and the décor was sterile, but functional. I’d grabbed a few of my own belongings on the various trips back and forth to my apartment and had given the place a little bit more “me.”
I watched as Silas’ eyes moved from the patterned throw rug, to the throw pillows on the leather sofa and finally to the blanket draped over the edge of my office chair haphazardly.
“I see you’ve been decorating,” he said, his voice slightly amused.
I shook the mouse to wake up the overly large iMac. The large glass desk was situated to the side of the room facing forward so he couldn’t see the face I was currently making at him. “Yeah, just thought I’d give it a bit more personality,” I finally said.
“Mission accomplished,” he remarked, striding forward to take a seat on the sofa. He threw the pillows off to one side and leaned a casual elbow on the armrest. From this angle he could see me clearly, so I needed to behave. “Did you have plans for the weekend?”
“Not anymore,” I said, not looking at him but instead beginning to click through the multiple emails he’d forwarded to me to start the lengthy printing process. Truth be told I had absolutely nothing going on. As much as Sophie said it would be easier to get together location-wise, that didn’t mean she was going out much given how far along she was. She complained she was constantly tired and I couldn’t blame her.
Trevor was much closer to my old apartment. Seeing as I’d moved south and he was north of the city, it was a haul for us to get together now. I used to visit his shop on the weekends, but trying to fight Friday traffic leaving the city was not my idea of fun.
So, I’d planned a low key weekend of exploring Georgetown, wine and the Real Housewives of Salt Lake. But, I didn’t mind if Silas thought I was missing out on some big plans.
Having clicked through all of the emails, the over 500 pages of documents were in the printer queue and I had no escape from the conversation. I turned to look at Silas. He seemed entirely unconcerned about Monday, but it sounded pretty serious.
“Did this interview just get sprung on you today?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not exactly.”
“It’s a lot to go through. I’m not saying we can’t get it done, but maybe it would be better to try and postpone.”
He shrugged. “No use delaying the inevitable.”
My stomach growled and I couldn’t fight the blush that bloomed on my face. The only good thing was that under my daily makeup ritual, it was probably hard to tell.
“Did you not eat?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No. I was waiting for the day to be over in case you needed anything.”
The smallest of smiles appeared on his face and it was so brief that I almost questioned whether I’d seen it at all. “I’ll order us something. What are you eating these days.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Or I suppose I should ask what are you not eating?”
I smiled. He remembered that I was a vegan. He may have considered it a slip up, but to me, it showed he cared in some small way.
“Still not eating anything that had a brain.”
“So worms are on the menu?”
“Pretty sure they have brains,” I remarked.
/> “Damn. I’m going to need to rethink a few of my insults then,” Silas said, quite seriously. “Alright. Nothing with brains.” He stood and left the room and I couldn’t help but watch his retreating form. He seemed so calm and in control around me, despite what had happened between us a week earlier.
I, on the other hand, couldn’t stop thinking about how good his lips felt on mine and how sinful his fingers felt inside of me. I wanted to experience more from him, while at the same time I knew I shouldn’t.
Silas was like secondhand smoke for a former smoker. I breathed him in and his toxins swirled inside of me, reigniting the desire for him that I’d tried desperately to shove out of my system. His smell was reminiscent and all-consuming and it took everything in my power to keep away from him.
It’d always been like this for me, though. I crossed lines for Silas that weren’t rational and bordered on insane. I still couldn’t bring myself to admit to him what had happened to me when I’d moved back to the city. I knew it was a ticking time bomb, waiting for the perfect moment to explode guilt and betrayal over the both of us. But I couldn’t face it right now. So, I added it to the many things related to Silas that were buried beneath the ashes of our friendship.
“I hope you like Thai food,” he said as he strolled back into my office.
“I love it.”
He gave me a nod before scrunching his face at the growing stack of papers on the printer. I couldn’t help but laugh.
“I see your aversion to work hasn’t changed after all these years.”
“I don’t have an aversion to work. I have an aversion to stupidity and that’s a rather large pile of it,” he said dryly.
“What’s this all about, anyways?” I asked. I had a feeling I was going to become intimately acquainted with the situation over the course of the weekend, but for the most part, I was going in blind.
Silas rolled his eyes. “As far as I understand it, the IRS has decided to take a closer look at my offshore holdings to make sure I’m accurately reporting income and paying it forward to Uncle Sam.”
My heart stuttered in my chest momentarily. “Is this the first time something like this has happened to you?” The question came out rushed and a bit frantic.
Silas considered me for a moment before shaking his head. “No. I’ve been audited many times. When you make what I do, mostly passively, it’s a given.”
I suppressed a sigh of relief at his response. I knew I was being hypersensitive about the situation, but this was the very reason I’d tried to keep away from Silas for as long as I did. I was afraid that my actions would invite trouble for him.
Scratch that—I was told my actions would create trouble for him.
I shook the thoughts from my head, trying to shove the anxiety and doubt that seemed intent on coming to the surface back down. Things had been quiet for over five years. There was no reason to think any of that was going to change. If anything, past threats were probably forgotten by now.
“Although,” Silas added and my heart sunk, “I’ve never encountered an audit quite like this. What, with an interview and all that.” He arched a slender eyebrow at me. “You seem irrationally flustered by all of this.”
Nailed it.
I waved a hand in front of my face in defense. “No, no. I’m just nervous about making sure we can get through all of this so you’re well prepared.”
His eyebrow didn’t drop but he nodded his head in silent acceptance.
The printer squealed and I jumped. Silas seemed amused by my response and I knew I needed to get control of my emotions. Nothing was wrong. Everything was fine. This situation was entirely normal and had nothing to do with me.
I stood up and made my way to the large stack of documents it had spit out. They were so hot they almost burned me and I grasped them at the edges before bringing them to the center of the room and sitting down on the floor with them.
“What are you doing?” Silas asked as I reached behind me to grab a stapler off my desk.
“Sorting the documents, what’s it look like?”
“Why are you on the floor? I mean, I’m not complaining,” he drawled, “but there’s a reason you’ve got a five thousand dollar desk in the room.”
I rolled my eyes at him and shook my head. Leave it to Silas to spend an exorbitant amount on a flat surface. “This is a lot of paper, Si. I’m going to need to spread it all out to really see what we’re working with.”
His nickname slipped past my lips and I realized I was sliding right back into my old routine with him and I needed to be careful. Silas had a way of tearing through my defenses with me entirely unaware. I didn’t know if it was something about me and the way I was hopelessly drawn to his cold center that left me burned by his hot edges or if he had this effect on everyone. Either way, I’d been burned before and I knew I needed to be careful around him.
“Alright, Sky. I trust you,” he said softly and my heart clenched in my chest. Yeah, he seriously knew how to penetrate my defenses.
We sat in silence in the office for a while, him scrolling through his phone to make sure he hadn’t missed anything and me organizing and stapling documents together and placing them into various piles based on their subject matter. The silence would have almost been comfortable if it weren’t for the fact that my mind kept revisiting our encounter the week before.
I stole glances at him every so often and I just couldn’t understand why he seemed so unfazed by everything. If anything, it seemed as if he’d forgotten about the entire incident. Was he just toying with me? Did he just want to hear me admit that I belonged to him out of some weird alpha-male possessiveness trait so he could tick the box and move on? Not understanding his motivations frustrated me to no end and my mind reeled as it tried to figure the situation out.
“Sky, if you keep looking at me like that, I am going to come over there and finish what I started last week,” he said in an even voice without looking up from his phone.
My breath caught in my throat and I tried to respond but tripped all over my words. “Don’t be silly,” I finally managed to say. It was a dumb thing to say. Why did I totally lose my bearings around him?
He put his phone down and I could hear his exhale. The sound filled the room, seeping into my chest and knocking down another layer of my defenses without me even noticing.
“What’s silly is you denying the very thing you know you want,” he said to me. He leaned forward, his elbows resting against his knees and he fixed me with that intense stare of his. I turned to look at him but I shouldn’t have. My eyes locked with his and I was helpless to look away. I became acutely aware of his cologne filling my lungs, but I was stuck in a burning house and there was no way to not inhale the smoke.
His hand reached out and wrapped firmly around the back of my neck and I let it. His thumb danced across my red stained lips and I closed my eyes briefly as shivers coursed through my body. “There’s no reason to fight it, Sky.” His voice was smooth and washed over me. “Just admit what we both know is true and I’ll give it to you.”
My eyelids fluttered open, my lashes coated in heavy black mascara. “I don’t belong to anyone, Silas.” I didn’t know if it was because I’d been hurt so badly in the past or because too many people had tried to take advantage of me in my life, but I didn’t trust Silas. At least not with my heart.
It was a shame really, considering he already had it.
It put me in a precarious situation.
His hand retreated and I felt the loss of him instantly. “Shame,” he murmured under his breath before picking his phone back up, looking entirely undisturbed.
I wanted to scream in frustration, but I knew that was what he wanted. Silas excelled at pushing people right to the edge and then claiming they were the ones that had decided to throw themselves overboard. I wasn’t going to let him win this game. I didn’t even want to play.
The buzzer rang, indicating someone was asking for permission to enter and Silas stood. “Th
at should be the receptionist with the food,” he said before sweeping out of the room, the papers ruffling slightly in his wake.
When I felt like he was far enough away, I leaned back on my hands, looked up at the ceiling and tried to take a calming breath. My ten second reset seemed to work and I returned to sorting through the pages.
A letter from the IRS caught my eye and I scanned it over while furrowing my brows. I was the furthest thing from an office professional, having gone to school for acting and failed, but even I could tell that something was up. I stood, brushed the lint from the carpet that clung to my navy blue pants and walked into the kitchen with the letter.
“Hey Silas, I think I found something interesting,” I started to say but the words died on my lips.
He had the downstairs receptionist mostly caged against the elevator doors. She was in her mid-twenties and had the most beautiful tanned skin and dark brown hair. She was the complete opposite of me and I was very aware of it. His forearm was pressed against the metal above her and he was leaning ever so slightly into her space. They weren’t touching, but the tension was there as he whispered something into her ear and she giggled like a school girl.
A wave of jealousy engulfed me. Suddenly, I felt like I was seventeen, standing outside the entrance to his patio, watching him with the gold-dress-girl all over again. I had no rights to Silas. In fact, I’d completely rejected his advances just moments before. But that didn’t stop the green snake that lived inside me from waking up to wrap itself around my heart.
“Am I interrupting something?” I asked harshly. The sharpness of my voice bounced against the cold edges of the apartment and the girl startled. Silas seemed entirely unconcerned and didn’t move from where he was standing.
“We were just,” the girl started to say.
“Thank you for bringing up the food, Rachel,” I said bitingly. I strode forward, all but pushing Silas out of the way as I grabbed the bag of food the girl was holding and pushed the button for the elevator. “You can go now.”
