Chapter 10

Kian's POV 

I stared at my phone for what felt like the hundredth time this morning. Still nothing.

No calls. No messages. Just silence.

Eliora refused to pick any of my calls since the day of the meeting, and it’s been a week now. A full week of unanswered calls and restless nights.

I sighed and set the phone down, the weight of it heavier than it should be. I knew deep down she was avoiding me. But the question that kept burning in my chest was why?

Was it because of the kiss?

That kiss...

It shouldn’t have happened, but it did. And as much as I hated to admit it, I couldn’t get the taste of her lips off my mind. It lingered soft, maddening, and entirely wrong.

“Why is that weird look on your face?” Julian’s voice cut sharply through my thoughts, dragging me back to reality.

I groaned. “What are you doing here?”

He just plopped down on my couch like he owned the place, already yanking off his tie as if the thing had offended him.

For a multi-millionaire who owns several chains of hotels and restaurants and practically lives in meetings, Julian had a strange hatred for ties.

“Am I now prohibited from your office?” he asked, throwing the tie on my coffee table.

“Haven’t you heard of something called calling before coming?”

He gave me a grin that I didn’t appreciate. “I’m sure there’s nothing like that, man. Why the hell are you so grumpy? Isn’t it too early to be this miserable?”

“I have work to do,” I muttered, reaching for the pile of files in front of me.

“Carry on then.” He leaned back lazily. “I don’t see how I’m distracting you. Unless…” His tone dropped suggestively, and he narrowed his eyes.

“Unless what?” I raised a brow.

“Never mind,” he said quickly, shrugging before stretching out on the couch like a man who had no business being here.

My phone buzzed, and my hand darted to it immediately.

“Sir, you have a meeting by 2 p.m.”

I sighed and dropped it back down, disappointment heavier than it should be.

The entire morning was wasted. I couldn’t focus on a damn thing. Every time I tried to work, my mind drifted back to her. To that night. To the look on her face when she pulled away.

Was she avoiding me because of the kiss? Or because she just couldn’t stand me anymore?

Either way, it didn’t matter. We had an agreement, and she needed to keep to it.

“You know staring at your phone every two seconds is suspicious, right?”

I looked up sharply. Julian’s eyes were narrowed, watching me like a detective catching a suspect.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“It’s her, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I flipped through a file for no reason.

“Of course you do,” he said with that knowing smirk. “It’s funny how she makes you think this hard.”

I glared at him. “If you have nothing meaningful to say, use the door.”

He laughed, unbothered. “Relax, bro. I’m just saying—if she wanted to reach out, wouldn’t she go through your assistant? Maybe she doesn’t want to talk to you directly.”

I closed the file and leaned back in my chair, running a hand over my jaw. His words stung, mostly because they were true.

“Why do you think she’d reach out to you personally?” Julian continued, his tone softening a little. “If anything, she probably wants out of this whole thing.”

“We had a deal,” I said quietly.

“That doesn’t mean she’d jump right back into it.” He paused, then added, “Especially after what went down between you two.”

He was right again. And that annoyed me more than anything.

“Besides,” Julian said, “she’s not the same girl anymore. She’s the boss now. A changed person. Not the Eliora you once knew.”

“We’re both bosses,” I countered, but he ignored me completely.

“Not the Eliora who used to have a crush on you since high school.”

I looked away and exhaled slowly. “You don’t get it.”

“What don’t I get?” he asked, his voice quieter now. “The fact that you haven’t been yourself since she left two years ago? Or that you’ve always loved her but were too scared to admit it?”

His words hit me harder than I expected. Julian always had a way of slicing through my defenses, seeing things I didn’t want him to.

But did he lie? Was there truth in what he said?

Do I love Eliora? Or do I just want answers…answers to why she left me without a word, without a goodbye?

“I don’t know,” I said before I could stop myself.

Julian sighed and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. Silence filled the room, heavy and thick. Even though it only lasted a few seconds, it felt like an eternity.

Then, in that calm, steady tone of his, he asked, “Is it guilt, obsession… or love?”

I stared at the floor, fingers curling loosely around the armrest of my chair. My throat felt dry.

“I don’t know,” I said again, running a hand over my face.

He studied me quietly for a long moment, then ask

ed the question I’d been avoiding for months.

“Is that why you never signed the divorce papers?”