Nadia spotted him the moment she walked into the grand ballroom of the Hotel de Crillon in Paris, and her stomach dropped straight through the marble floor. Of all the weddings in all the world, Ethan Calloway had to be standing at this one.
She had not seen him in two years. Not since the afternoon she had walked out of his firm’s Paris office with a resignation letter in one hand and her pride barely intact in the other. He had been her boss. She had been falling in love with him. Neither of those things had been allowed to coexist.
The wedding was her cousin Sophie’s. It was Ethan’s college friend Marc’s. The universe, apparently, had a very dark sense of humor.
Nadia smoothed the front of her emerald dress and told herself she was fine. She was absolutely fine. She crossed the gilded room toward the champagne table, keeping her eyes fixed on the crystal flutes and not on the man in the charcoal suit who had just turned around and seen her.
“Nadia.”
His voice was exactly the same. Low, careful, like he was choosing the word the way you choose a step on uncertain ice.
She turned slowly. “Ethan. I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“Marc didn’t mention it?”
“Sophie didn’t either.”
They looked at each other for a moment that lasted approximately one full century. Around them, the room glittered with candlelight and the laughter of people who were not standing in the middle of two years of unfinished silence.
He looked well. That was the unfair part. His dark hair was a little longer, and there was something around his eyes that hadn’t been there before — something quieter, less guarded. She hated that she noticed.
“You look…” he started.
“Don’t,” she said gently.
He closed his mouth. Nodded once. “Right.”
They drifted to opposite ends of the room with the careful choreography of two people who had once shared a desk, a thousand late-night coffees, and one almost-moment by a rain-streaked window that neither of them had ever spoken about out loud.
Dinner was a long, beautiful torture. They were seated four chairs apart, close enough that Nadia could hear the low timbre of his laugh when Marc’s best man told a terrible joke. Close enough that when she glanced up, she sometimes caught him already looking.
She focused on Sophie, radiant in ivory lace, and on Marc, who cried twice during the speeches and apologized for neither. The love between them was so uncomplicated, so openly worn, that Nadia felt something ache in her chest that had nothing to do with sadness and everything to do with want.
She had left the firm because the company had a strict policy — no relationships between senior staff and their direct reports. She had been his direct report. She had known the rule. She had also known, with the quiet certainty of someone who had been trying not to know it for months, that she was in love with him.
Leaving had felt like the only honest thing to do.
She had never told him why.
After dinner, the dancing began. The band was playing something slow and French, and the candlelight turned the whole room amber. Nadia slipped out to the terrace overlooking the Place de la Concorde, needing a breath of cool night air and a moment away from the ache of being so close to him.
Paris at night was unfairly beautiful. The lights on the obelisk shimmered in the distance. Somewhere below, a car horn sounded and then faded, and the city settled back into its low, romantic hum.
She heard the terrace door open behind her.
She did not have to turn around to know.
“I’m not hiding,” she said.
“I know.” Ethan came to stand beside her at the stone railing, not too close. He looked out at the city. “I just needed air too.”
They stood in silence for a moment. It was a different kind of silence than the one inside — less sharp, more like something breathing.
“I left the firm,” he said quietly. “Six months after you did. I went independent. Consulting.”
She looked at him. “I didn’t know that.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know.” He turned to face her, and the candlelight from inside caught the side of his face. “Because you left without telling me why. And I spent a long time thinking I had done something wrong.”
WhatsApp
Telegram
Email
Categories
- AI & Technology
- Contemporary
- Corporate Control
- Creepypasta
- Crime Thriller
- Cyberpunk
- Dark Fantasy
- Enemies to Lovers
- Fairy Tale Retelling
- Fantasy
- First Contact
- Forbidden
- Genetic/Body Horror
- High Fantasy
- Monster Hunter
- Mythic/Folklore
- Paranormal
- Portal/Otherworld
- Post-Apo
- Post-Collapse Society
- Psychological Thriller
- Romances
- SCI-FI
- Second Chance
- Slow Burn
- Space Combat
- Spacepunk
- Surveillance State
- Survival Thriller
- Thrillers
- Time Travel
- Treasure Hunter
- Urban Fantasy
- Witchcraft/Curses
Tags
10min stories atmospheric atmospheric fantasy atmospheric fiction contemporary romance Creepy creepypasta crime thriller dark fantasy debt dystopia emotional fiction enemies to lovers ensemble cast epistolary fantasy first person folklore forbidden romance framed narrative high fantasy love story magic Memory mystery Paranormal psychological horror psychological thriller romance sci-fi second chance second chance romance short fiction short story slow burn space station speculative fiction supernatural Survival survival thriller suspense thriller travel romance witchcraft workplace romance
Leave a Reply