by Marian Tee
Stylish still, but it just wasn't the Hallie he remembered, and right or not – but he hated it.
Several minutes had passed before Hallie realized that in her excitement of finally seeing her first brick-and-mortar business in person, she had ended up completely forgetting Andreus’ presence. Turning around with a sheepish smile, she was about to apologize when she saw the hardened look on his face.
Her excitement faded. “You’re angry.”
“I’m not.”
He was lying, but why? She tried to think of something that could’ve made him mad, and only one plausible reason occurred to her. “Is it because Yuri asked you to pick me up at the airport?”
Andreus frowned at the unexpected direction her words had taken. “Don’t be stupid---”
But Hallie kept on talking. “It’s Kalli’s first pregnancy, and you know how overprotective Yuri can be.”
“I said it’s not that---”
“Besides, if you had just said you were busy, I could’ve simply gotten myself an Uber---”
This time, Andreus didn’t even bother arguing.
Hallie noticed the way Andreus was simply gazing at her, and she immediately shut up. It was Andreus being kind, him telling her without words that she was being stupid. Corpus Christi was the closest city to Claymore – and at a good thirty minutes away, no Uber driver would’ve cared to pick her up, especially knowing there was little chance he could find a return passenger to pay for his drive back to the city.
So yes, it had been a stupid thing to say, and if it had been anyone other than Hallie who had made the suggestion, she had no doubt Andreus would have bitten that person’s head off.
And there lay the problem, she thought morosely.
He always made her feel special.
Always.
And that was why she had such a hard time stopping herself from loving him.
Andreus was puzzled when Hallie suddenly jumped a good three feet back like she had just discovered he had rabies. “What?”
She didn’t answer right away, her mind in chaos, and her feelings even more so. What to do now? What could she do to make sure the past didn’t happen again? What was left to do except…
Except…
She saw Andreus start towards her and quickly shook her head. “No!”
Andreus scowled. “What’s your problem?” Why was she suddenly acting like she would break out in rashes if he came nearer?
You are, Hallie thought despairingly, torn between laughter and tears. How could he not know that? How could someone so ruthlessly cunning be so brilliantly, painfully, adorably dense at the same time?
“Hallie---”
“Ssh!” Andreus was stunned to have Hallie actually shush him like a five year old, and he would have throttled her for it if not for the frantic look that flickered on her face.
“I’m not…I’m not done thinking.”
Andreus made an effort to rein in his temper as Hallie actually started pacing and wringing her hands in front of him.
Could she do it, Hallie questioned herself. After all, it was the only alternative left to her. The Lord knew how hard she had tried to make this man fall in love with her, just as the Lord would have witnessed how much she had struggled to forget him – and failed.
Andreus raised a brow when Hallie finally stopped pacing and whirled around to face him. “Made up your mind then?”
“Yes, I did, thank you.”
“And?”
In response to his question, Hallie seemed to turn into a mime and silently started acting like a casino dealer.
“Err…” Were they suddenly playing Charades now?
Seeing his confusion, she explained, “I’m symbolically laying my cards on the table.”
Andreus coughed several times. “I see.”
“It was something Si…r suggested, as a prelude to an important announcement.”
This time, Andreus wasn’t at all amused. Of course it had to be that damn Sir Asshole again. “What’s the important announcement then?” he asked coldly. And by God, if it was going to be about that asshole once more –
“I’m still in love with you.”
What the fuck?
Hallie smiled weakly at the way Andreus’ head swung sharply towards her. “I tried to fall out of love thousands of miles away, but it didn’t do me any good. So…I think the only way left is to let nature run its course.”
This time, Andreus didn’t even bother to hide his incredulity. “What the fuck does that even mean?”
“And for this to work,” she continued doggedly as if she hadn’t heard him talk, “I’ll need your full cooperation.”
“Again – What. The. Fuck.”
Hallie made a face. “Can’t you think of anything else to say?”
“When you keep saying things that I can only answer with what the fuck?” He bared his teeth in a grim smile. “No.”
“I didn’t even get to tell you how you’re supposed to cooperate,” she chided.
“I don’t have to,” Andreus retorted. “All I know is that---”
“It means I’ll just do whatever I want, and you’re free to hurt me, ignore me, or – I don’t know – give in to me?” Hallie punctuated her suggestion with a flirtatious batting of eyelashes, but this only had Andreus looking at her like she was crazy.
“I was just trying to be funny,” she mumbled.
“You weren’t,” he said shortly. “What the fuck---” He saw Hallie wince at his language, but he ignored this, like he always did. “---do you mean you’ll just do whatever you want?”
Instead of answering, she found herself turning her back on him.
It was suddenly so hard to breathe.
Lord, it was so hard –
“Hallie?”
She drifted to the shelf where all the Hobonichi covers were on display, trying to distract herself from the tightness of her chest as she let her fingers brush against its varying textures.
Rediscovering her love for paper-based planning and journaling was one of the best things that happened to her while she was in Tokyo, and she was hoping to share it through Ephemera by bringing in all her favorite Japanese brands.
Hobonichi, Kakimori, Traveler’s Company.
She found herself reciting the Japanese brands in her mind as she sensed him coming close.
Daiso, Seria, Can Do.
She switched to the names of 100-yen-store chains as his large, strong hands settled on her shoulders, and she bit her lip hard as the heat of his touch spread through her body.
Mind Wave, Bande –
But when he forced her to turn around, she knew it was pointless to delay the inevitable.
“I’m tired of keeping my feelings a secret. I’m tired of doing things your way. I’m just tired.”
Andreus couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“So from now on, I’ll act like your girlfriend if I want to.”
“What the hell?”
“And I’ll try to seduce you if I want to---”
“Are you on drugs?”
“And like I said, you can say or do anything you want except---” Out of the blue, the enormity of this last thing she was about to ask finally sank in her mind, and her voice wobbled into an unexpected stop.
Andreus frowned. “What?”
She looked at him then, and he sucked in his breath. A smile was doing her best to curve on her lips, but even then he knew. Even with her blue eyes so painfully dry, he still knew.
“You c-can do anything you want,” she said tremulously. “Say a-anything. Except j-just one thing…”
She was crying inside.
“Please stop making me feel so special?”
And the brighter her smile, the harder her invisible tears fell.
“Because whenever you do, it just makes me hope…”
So damn hard, he could almost hear her crying.
“And don’t you think it’s time…I stopped?”
Blue eyes met hi
s then, and when he saw that this time her smile was more dazzling than the sun – it hurt. It hurt so damn bad because he knew it could only mean one thing –
“What do you say?” she asked, so, so sunnily…
Her heart had to be breaking behind her smile.
Andreus forced his lips to stretch into a smile of his own. “You got yourself a deal, baby doll.”
Seven Years Ago
Andreus tried to sleep, but it was impossible. A year had passed since the first and last time he saw her. One fucking long year, he thought. And all that time, he had never forgotten her. Never.
But obviously, it wasn’t the same for her.
He closed his eyes, but the memory of her persisted in haunting his mind. He kept seeing her face – her beautiful, blank face, with its empty blue eyes and equally empty smile. Where was the sunlight that had almost blinded him? The innocence that had made her so precious the mere thought of touching her had his hands shaking with fear?
Unease eventually turned into physical discomfort, and he got out of his bed with a curse.
Damn her.
Goddamn her.
But he was already walking out of his room and padding down the hallway until he reached the bedroom that had been specifically reserved for her use. His fists clenched at seeing the light peeking from under her door – he knew from past observations that she slept with the lights out, so what did this mean?
Was she still awake – or had something happened that made her afraid of monsters in the dark?
Andreus’ heart slammed against his chest as he slowly reached for the knob.
It turned easily under his fingers, and his heart slammed harder against the wall of his body.
He came in without making a single sound, and the door swung shut just as silently behind him. But even so, he knew. Even with her sitting so still on the bed, long dark hair gathered over one shoulder, pajama-covered-knees tucked under her chin, and her gaze turned towards the infinite sea of blackness outside her windows – he was damn certain she knew she was no longer alone.
His hackles rose. She was ignoring him. Again. Just as she had so patently ignored him the moment she and her brother came out of the airport, her gaze meeting his without actually seeing him, smiling at him without actually meaning it –
“Damn you.” The words crushed the silence in the room, but she still didn’t turn towards him, and he found himself even more livid – and broken. His long-legged strides ate the distance between them in moments, and soon he had one knee on the bed as he reached down to clasp her shoulders. “Look at me, damn you.”
And when she still didn’t move a muscle, his ire rose and his pain deepened. His grip tightened, and then he was forcing her to face him –
“What is it, damn you? Just spit it out.”
But her blank blue eyes only stared up at him.
“You’re messing with my brain,” he growled, “and I don’t fucking liking it.”
The words were so unexpected it startled Hallie out of her stupor, and she said haltingly, unthinkingly, “That d-doesn’t make sense.”
No, he thought grimly, it didn’t make sense. Nothing about her made sense. Nothing about them made sense, and yet for some goddamn reason his life had become interlinked with hers the moment they had met.
His gaze trained on hers, he said curtly, “Something’s wrong. Isn’t there?” The way she jerked was his answer, and his jaw clenched. “Spit it out.”
Hallie’s lip started to tremble. “I can’t.”
The pain ravaging her voice made him want to kill whoever it was that hurt her, over and over until that person knew angels like Hallie should only be cherished.
“No matter what it is,” he said quietly, “you know you can tell me anything. You know that. You’ve always known that---”
Hallie shook her head. She wanted to believe him. Oh, how she wished she could believe him. But she just couldn’t. She was too ashamed. “I just can’t,” she choked. “It’s different now---”
“Nothing’s different---” Her tiny cry of pain cut him off, and Andreus’ blood ran cold.
“Everything’s different,” Hallie whispered. “And there’s no…there’s no going back.” The pain of remembering the past made her numb, and she squeezed her eyes shut, wishing there was a way to forget everything.
“Imagine…imagine a man you’ve loved your whole life.”
Who’s Daddy’s girl?
Me, me, me!
“Someone you t-trusted without question…”
Daddy, I’m scared.
Come here, sweetheart. Daddy will protect you.
“And then all of a sudden, that p-person changes.”
Hallie? Can Daddy come in?
The memory of those fateful words clawed at her mind, forcing her to relive her nightmare in terrifyingly vivid detail.
The way Nelson Athanas licked his lips as his gaze slowly ran over her body, the heavy rasp of his breath, and the stifling, sickening feel of his embrace as he pulled her to his body – one that she no longer thought as reassuringly, comfortingly solid but had become grotesquely corpulent.
I just miss my little girl.
And most of all, oh God, most of all, she remembered her silent screams –
No! Please! No! This can’t be happening! No! No! No!
When her eyes flew open, and she let out a gasp as if she was drowning, Andreus didn’t even let himself think. He simply broke into a run and yanked her into his arms. A part of him expected her to struggle, but she practically crawled onto him instead, causing Andreus to fall back on the bed.
She curled atop his body, head pressed against his chest, and a moment later, her tears began to seep into his shirt.
“Can you imagine it? Can you imagine how it felt,” Hallie asked painfully, “knowing that his touch has changed?”
He whitened.
“But you still let his touch linger. Y-you let his hand stay where it’s not supposed to be…”
Oh God. No. Fuck no. Not Hallie.
“You let things happen because you just wish…that maybe…” Her voice cracked, and something in him cracked, too. “Maybe it’s not real. Maybe you’re just imagining it.” Blue eyes lifted to his, and this time it wasn’t blank at all. This time, he saw in it a whole world of pain.
“But you’re not.”
Horror at what she was saying, at realizing what she had to fucking go through made him cup her face with shaking hands. ““Theo.” God. “How much did he hurt you, Hallie?”
“Never in the way that would leave scars.” Her voice was toneless. “Yuri protected me.”
She looked at him then, as if waiting for him to say something else, and his face hardened. “Are you thinking I’d blame you for this?”
“It’s possible, isn’t it? That I could’ve done something to make him change---”
“Bullshit.”
“Because it would have been legal, you know. Yuri told me I’m not his child,” Hallie revealed shakily. “I’m our mother’s indiscretion---”
“Doesn’t fucking matter. He acted like your father your whole life, and he knew you loved him like a father. Nothing you could do or say could make someone cross that kind of line. It’s a choice, and that man chose to be a monster.”
When she only looked at him, he cupped her chin, saying fiercely, “There is no way you can blame yourself for this. And if you don’t see that for yourself, then you’re a fucking idiot---” The words were out before he could stop himself, and Andreus cursed under his breath.
“Did you j-just call me an idiot?” Hallie’s voice was full of hurt.
Andreus silently cursed again. “I didn’t mean to---”
“Liar!”
His temper threatened to get the better of him at the slur, but Andreus fought to keep his voice steady. “Fine then. I did call you an idiot, and I did fucking mean it---”
Hallie’s hands flew to cover her mouth.
Ah, fuck. He had always know
n he sucked at doing this kind of thing, but only now did he see for himself just how bad he was at comforting other people.
“Hallie---” And then he saw it.
The faintest sparkle in her eyes, and the way her slim shoulders was shaking –
Well, fuck.
“You little liar.”
A teary smile precariously made its way to her lips as she lowered her hands. “It took you long enough to catch on.” If he had gone on and on saying one platitude after another, she might not have completely believed him. But hearing Andreus actually call her an idiot?
It had convinced her he was telling her the truth like no other words could, never mind if the line of thinking also made her appear masochistic.
As Hallie pressed her palms against his strong chest, warmth spread through her at the thud of his heartbeat and the fiercely protective way he was gazing up at her.
“You’re okay now?” Andreus asked unsmilingly.
“Not yet…” The betrayal was still too raw, and she didn’t think the nightmares would fade anytime soon. “But I think in time…”
“You will.”
It was almost like he was ordering her to be okay, and…since this was Andreus, he probably was.
Andreus saw a helpless smile bloom over her lips, and the sight struck him like a bolt of lightning.
Fuck.
Several awful truths suddenly hit him.
They were alone, they were on her bed, and she felt too damn good in his arms.
“I should go---”
“No!”
In an instant, Hallie had turned into dead weight above him, and Andreus would’ve smiled if not for the excruciating way her soft, trembling flesh was now pressed against his.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“Get off me.”
The low, furious growl would’ve terrified most people, but this only made the tiny brunette on top of him shake her head.
“Hallie, dammit.”
“N-No.” She wasn’t sure if it was courage or sheer stupidity that was making her defy him. All she knew was that when she was close to him like this…she felt like there was something in the future to look forward to.
