Tonight, you are my prize - Chapter 23
The elevator ascended all the way to the top floor, stopping at the forty-sixth level.
“I’ll walk you here. Go back and keep celebrating with them.”
After I spoke, I turned my head a little sluggishly and pressed the door lock.
Just as I was about to go in, my wrist was suddenly grabbed, pulled hard into someone’s embrace, and then I was shoved forward, stumbling into the apartment.
I staggered on unsteady feet and fell onto the sofa together with Leo Archer.
The lights inside were off; the room was pitch black.
But the countless city lights streaming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows happened to outline his features in the darkness.
“My dear, why aren’t you saying anything?”
Leo Archer spoke at my lips,
“You’re so smart, didn’t you already guess?”
“Guess what?”
“Guess that after the news of your divorce with him was exposed, all those speculations and discussions online about our relationship were guided by me.”
He leaned in even closer, his lips almost touching mine.
I was silent for a moment, my rationality slowly returning from the haze of drunkenness:
“I guessed it, but I don’t understand–why are you doing all this?”
Suddenly, he flipped over, long legs straddling, and sat astride my waist.
“From start to finish, I have only one goal–to be with you. But it’s obvious you’ve always been avoiding me.”
“That night, you said we were just a brief fling, not in love.”
“Then I’ll let you see that the whole world supports us loving each other.”
As he spoke, he bent down.
The distance closed, inch by inch, his cheek nuzzling mine.
“Whether it’s a mistake to be mistaken, or a play turned real, I just want to like you.”
“The more I like you, the more I resent Julian Thorne. Even if you were only married in name, what right did he have to possess you for four years? So I found a way to send him away.”
My fingers threaded through his soft hair, tightening slightly.
The young man raised his head, his tense neckline and Adam’s apple stark, beautiful and fragile.
I whispered, “I thought you’d hate me.”
“What does it matter if I did? When I wake up, the first thought that comes to mind is still wanting to be with you.”
“I looked into your past, found out what it took for you to stand in front of me–it was all hardships and perils.”
He cupped my face, murmuring between my lips,
“Victoria Sterling, in this world, there are few as strong and steadfast as you.”
“I’m also grateful that, back then, when you were tempted by desire, the one you chose was me.”
“It doesn’t matter if we have no title. If you only desire me, if there’s no love, that’s fine too.”
His kisses trailed down along the curves of my body, leaving a scattered trail of wetness, refracting moonlight.
Everything flowed in this night of faint light, just the right amount of ambiguity.
Even that streak of hidden madness in his bones was no longer secret.
Like two train cars linked on the rails, Leo Archer held me, and we stumbled toward the window.
Leaning on the glass, gazing at the moon.
“My dear, hold on tight…”
After a long, damp kiss, my gaze, clouded with drunkenness and desire, drifted out the window.
From the forty-sixth floor, it felt as if I could touch the moon, and at the same time, take in the city’s entire scenery and lights.
In my drifting thoughts, countless fragments of the past flashed through my mind.
That pink light that had shone for so many years, the swinging curtain’s gap revealing those fleeting indecent scenes.
Dense apartment blocks, narrow alleys, the winter snow that never quite melted by spring, trampled into muddy slush.
I looked up from the dim alley, unable even to see a full moon in the night sky.
From then on, my heart held only a hunger for power and desire.
But when did it start, that I would sometimes remember the ever-sincere, passionate gaze Leo Archer cast at me?
The largest wave crashed against the rocks, bursting into a spray of white foam.
The emptiness in my heart was suddenly filled with heat; I gripped Leo Archer’s shoulders, gasping sharply.
My vision blurred with falling tears.
He gazed at me, reaching up to tuck my sweat-damp, messy hair behind my ear.
His voice was hoarse as he spoke:
“Spring is about to end, Victoria Sterling.”
“Now, I give you my heart.”
“And your heart–can forever be free.”
(The End)
