Page 41 of Beautifully Scarred Omega

The voice doesn’t answer. It never does, when I fight back.

I set the empty cup down on the windowsill and stare out at the grounds, my grounds, my company, my legacy.

You don’t own me anymore, Theodore. You never will again.

Behind me, the elevator chimes. Voices drift down the corridor, the day beginning in earnest.

I straighten my shoulders, smooth my expression, and turn away from the window.

Some ghosts you can’t bury, no matter how hard you try. They just follow you, always.

CHAPTER 13

Finn

Iwatch Sophie from my office as she chats with Celine.

Through the glass wall, I can see them clearly, Celine animated and warm, gesturing with her coffee cup as she explains something, Sophie nodding along with that shy, uncertain smile. The nervous new employee, eager to please, grateful for the guidance.

I have to give it to her. She’s a master.

Sophie the assistant is nothing like Sylvie. Who was nothing like the real Sophie, the one who showed up at that first meeting with hollow eyes and a voice like a sharpened blade.

How could this be the same woman I met at the gala?

The woman at the bar that night had an air of quiet confidence, a stillness that drew me in before I even realized what was happening. She looked at me in a way that made me feel, for just a moment, like she actually knew me.

This Sophie, the shy new assistant, is different again. She fidgets with her sleeve, ducks her head when Celine compliments her. When she laughs, it’s a light, musical sound that carries faintly through the glass, nothing like the low, knowing chuckle I remember from that terrace.

And the clothes she’s wearing. It’s all so... girly.

A lavender blouse with delicate buttons, fastened all the way up to her throat. A cream-colored skirt that falls past her knees.

It suits her, I suppose. She looks pretty, harmless and approachable, exactly as she intended, I suspect.

She should have become an actress, really. She’d have been brilliant at it.

She certainly has the looks for it.

I can still clearly remember seeing her for the first time at the gala.

She was sitting at the bar, one leg crossed over the other, a champagne flute dangling loosely from her fingers, looking around with that air of nonchalance, like she had all the time in the world.

I noticed her the moment she entered the room.

And up close, she was even more striking.

It was her eyes, I decided. Those were her best feature, dark and luminous and full of secrets I wanted to unravel. And those lips, painted red that night, curved in a smile that promised everything and nothing.

God, that kiss.

A warmth spreads through me as the memory surfaces. The softness of her mouth. The electric shock that ran through my entire body when our lips met.

Shit, I need to get laid.

I shift in my chair. Friday can’t come soon enough. Maybe then I’ll stop thinking about a kiss that clearly meant a hell of a lot more to me than it did to her.

She said she was undercover and working a case. And judging by the way she asked about my last name, the panic that flashed across her face when she realized I wasn’t whoever she was actually looking for, she’d clearly mistaken me for a target.