Aria didn't sleep. Her head was full of static, her chest a warzone of emotion and memory she couldn't suppress no matter how tightly she wrapped her arms around herself.
She shouldn't have called him.
She shouldn't have cared but hearing his voice say her name like that quiet, broken, desperate made her feel seventeen again. Back when love still felt like salvation but now it felt like drowning.
She arrived at the office early the next morning, hoping for quiet. Hoping he wasn't in yet but fate, as always, had other plans.
Kai was already in his glass-walled office, suit jacket off, sleeves rolled, standing at the window like he'd been waiting all night.
When she passed, their eyes met. She didn't look away and neither did he and that, somehow, was worse than anything he could have said.
She made it exactly twenty three minutes into her morning before he knocked on her door.
Just once.
She could've ignored it but she didn't.
"Come in."
He stepped inside slowly, like he didn't want to spook her. Like she was something fragile or dangerous.
She was both.
Kai closed the door but didn't move closer.
"I know it was you who called last night."
She didn't deny it.
He continued, voice low and unsure. "You didn't say anything. But it felt like… like something cracked open. Like I was back in that place with you. Like the world stopped spinning the second I heard you breathe."
Aria's throat tightened. "Don't do this."
"I'm not trying to manipulate you."
"Yes, you are," she said, standing. "You just don't know it."
His expression darkened. "Tell me what I'm supposed to do."
"Nothing. Walk away. Leave it alone."
"I can't."
He stepped forward now. One slow, dangerous step.
"I can't sleep. I can't think. I can't breathe without seeing your face."
Her chest rose and fell faster.
"I remember flashes now. Your laugh. Your perfume. The way you kissed my jaw when you were nervous."
She looked away. "Kai—"
He kept coming.
"The way you used to wait for me after class just so we could walk three blocks in silence."
He stopped in front of her. Close enough that she could feel the heat of his body. Close enough to break.
"Say you don't feel it too," he whispered.
She didn't.
Couldn't.
He reached for her face slow, reverent, trembling. When his hand touched her cheek, her knees almost gave out. Her breath hitched. Her lips parted.
"You shouldn't be here," she whispered.
"I should never have left."
And then—
He kissed her.
It was nothing like the first kiss.
This wasn't an accident. A slip. A drunken need.
This was history.
Raw. Desperate. Deep.
His hands threaded through her hair, pulling her closer, mouth moving like he needed to memorize every inch of her again. Her fingers clutched his shirt, trying to hold onto something solid as her heart shattered open.
He kissed her like he was starving.
She kissed him like she was afraid he'd disappear again.
It wasn't soft, it wasn't slow, it was two people being torn apart and sewn back together with nothing but touch.
When he lifted her onto her desk, she let him. When his mouth moved down her neck, she gasped his name like a confession. When his hand slid up her thigh heat, hunger, memory, she didn't stop him.
She wanted it.
She needed it.
Until—
She saw the photo on the shelf behind him.
Brielle. Smiling. Perfect. Framed in gold.
Reality crashed in.
Aria pushed him away hard. Kai staggered, breath ragged, lips swollen.
"Aria—"
"No."
She slid off the desk, fixing her blouse with shaking hands.
"We can't do this."
"I'm not with her. I haven't been."
"It's not about her."
"Then what?"
"You broke me," she said, voice trembling. "And I spent years putting myself back together. I came here to make you remember what you lost. Not to let you hurt me again."
"I won't," he said. "Not again."
"You don't get to promise that."
He didn't try to touch her again. He just stood there, heart in his throat, watching the woman he loved try to gather herself and for the first time, he realized—
She wasn't punishing him.
She was protecting herself.
When he left her office, he didn't slam the door. Didn't rage or beg but his absence felt louder than his presence ever had.
And Aria?
She sat back down at her desk, heart breaking in a rhythm she remembered too well.
He's still in there.
But he's not yours.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.