Page 25 of Fallen Starboy

My night was supposedto be simple: shower, answer a few more emails, review the schedule for tomorrow, send out any changes, and then maybe sleep for a few hours before I had to get back up and do it all again.

And here I was, standing with my back to a literal wall, face to face with a monster of my own creation. And I didn’t have a stitch of clothes on me. I was defenseless, and here he was, ripping open scars and staring into my soul like he wanted to fight me or—or fuck me.

Or maybe both.

All of a sudden, my tongue glued itself to the roof of my mouth in uncharacteristic fashion, and my mouth dried up faster than the Sahara Desert in a drought.

Speaking came naturally to me. I knew a multitude of languages and it was literally my job to run interference for people from other parts of the world. And yet my vast vocabulary was suddenly missing, like my brain was a library and someone had checked out the book that contained all the words. I couldn’t think past what was staring me in the face, which was a veryintimidating and intense Kim Seo-Jun, caging me in like an angry predator cornering his prey.

His lips curled up in a smirk as I failed to respond, likely taking my silence as admission of guilt. “You aren’t going to defend yourself? Nothing to say to me?” When I just stared blankly, his smirk started to wilt. Those gorgeous eyes I’d stared into many a night when we were younger searched my face for a hint of emotion, but he’d find none here.

I learned how to hide the things I felt a long time ago. Once you put on a mask like that, it’s hard to just take it off. It becomes a part of you, your only defensive wall between you and the rest of the world.

My mask was a part of me, and I didn’t know how to take it off. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

Especially not around Jun.

His gaze fell to my lips, tracing them with a slow, languorous movement. Instinctively, they parted for him, perhaps remembering a time when that gaze would have been followed by a deep, passionate kiss. “Do you think you can just walk around here like you didn’t drag me over hot coals like I was nothing? Like you didn’t break me in two when you walked away?” The hoarse, rough words rasped from his throat like it pained him physically to say them. They dug into my skin, flaying me alive, cutting into old wounds and baring them to the world again.

“I . . .” There were no words. Nothing I could say would change what I’d done to him. Nothing. And yet, I wanted so badly to tell him the truth. It burned a hole in my throat, made me bleed internally. I’d choke on the weight of it if I stayed here much longer. “Move, Jun,” I snarled, forcing my voice to sound irate, pretending I wasn’t dying inside. “Unlike someone here, I have things to do.”

I didn’t wait for him to respond as I ducked under his arm and practically sprinted to my door even though it was only feet away. I slammed the door between us and pressed my back against it, hoping and praying he wouldn’t follow. Secretly wanting him to bust the door down to shake the truth from me, yearning for him to stop looking at me like I was evil, a horrible person, the worst of the worst.

A part of me so badly wanted him to know. But I’d had my chance. I made my choices.

I couldn’t go back on them now.

The floor broke my fall as the tears started to fall, sinking to my ass on the hardwood planks as choking sobs threatened to reveal the depths of the pain it caused me to pretend like I didn’t care.

I’d been strong for so long, I thought I could handle this.

I should have known living under the same roof as Kim Seo-Jun, and our daughter, would be a Herculean feat.

Across the room, my phone lit up, practically vibrating off the desk. I almost wanted to just let it go, fuck anyone and anything that could possibly require a call to my personal phone this late at night. I had to shove that desire down, though, because there was no telling who was on the other end of the line. It could be my boss, calling to tell me they were sending a replacement. It could be someone calling to reschedule their interview or appointment or who knew what.

With loathing in my broken heart for the person who’d made mourning my losses in peace impossible, I crawled over to the desk and yanked the phone off the edge, snapping it open without checking to see who it was. My voice was sharp, on edge, but it was close enough to my normal tone and attitude dealing with clients and coworkers that nobody would think twice about it.

“This better be good,” I snapped, wiping away the remnants of the tear tracks running down my face.

The other end of the line was silent for a long moment, and I almost hung up the phone, thinking it was a scammer, or maybe a telemarketer, neither of which I had the desire to deal with. But then, the sounds in the background caught my ear, a familiar tune that played every day in the elevator on my way to the floor I worked on.

The caller said no words, made no attempt to speak, just breathed into the receiver as they rode the elevator up. Each floor they passed, the automated voice echoed from the speakers, letting them know what floor they were on.

I worked on the fourth floor.

“Second floor,” the elevator lady said cheerfully, her voice muted in the background. More heavy breathing, and a faint, almost too quiet to hear, whimper of pain. But it wasn’t close enough to be the caller?—

“Third floor,” the disembodied voice said again, and now I was completely on edge, something in my gut telling me this wasn’t just a normal butt dial. There was something almost sinister in the atmosphere on the other end. I could feel it, as if I were standing right there with them.

“Fourth floor,” followed by the telltaledingthat told me they’d stopped there, and now the whimpering got louder, the sound resembling a plea from behind a gagged mouth?—

“Hello?” I asked again, hoping for some sort of answer. “Who the hell is this?”

The line went dead, leaving me with a chill that ran down my spine and shook me to my core.

I hung up reluctantly, making a mental note to check in with the security team when I got to the office in the morning. Tonight it was just a skeleton crew for patrols and night watch,so it would do me no good to talk to them. And there was no reason to call the cops. What if it was someone pulling a prank?

No. It was best to just deal with this in the morning.

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