First Real Crack

  The next morning, Victoria woke up in Sebastian’s bed. Soft sunlight filled the room. She felt warm and satisfied, her body still humming from the way he had taken her last night after the gala.

Sebastian was already up. She could hear the shower running in the bathroom. For a moment, she just lay there smiling, remembering how possessive he had been. How he kept whispering to her that she was his.

Then her eyes drifted across the room.

On the far wall, the large framed poster of Lily Carter stared back at her. The famous singer looked powerful and beautiful, microphone in hand, eyes full of fire. Victoria had seen it before, but this time something felt different.

She got out of bed, wrapped the sheet around her body, and walked closer to the poster. Up close, she noticed a small handwritten note in the corner - “For my favorite student. Keep rising. - L.C.”

Victoria’s heart started to beat a little faster.

She was a casual fan of Lily Carter’s music. Almost everyone was. Lily had been huge for years. Her songs were everywhere - on the radio, in clubs, and in the movies. Victoria had always loved her voice, even if she didn’t follow every detail of her life.

But now she remembered some of the lyrics.

There was that one song where Lily sang about “coldness in the kitchen” and “cooking an old lover just so I could find my real lover and make him a star.”

It had always sounded artistic and dramatic, but standing here, looking at the poster in Sebastian’s bedroom, the words suddenly felt different.

Like they could mean something real. And Lily Carter had been married at the time she wrote most of those songs. Everyone knew that.

Victoria’s mind started turning.

Was Sebastian the “real lover” in the song?

She shook her head. That was a crazy thought to her. It was just a song. Artists made things up all the time, she told herself. Still, the thought would not leave her.

The shower stopped. Sebastian walked out with only a towel around his waist. Water droplets ran down his chest and over his scars. He looked so handsome that Victoria’s body reacted instantly. She felt herself getting wet again just from looking at him, and realizing this man now called her his woman.

“Morning, beautiful,” he said with a smile. He walked over and kissed her softly.

“Did you sleep well?”

“Yes,” she answered, trying to sound normal.

“I was just looking at the poster. Lily Carter was really something, wasn’t she?”

Sebastian glanced at the poster and gave a small shrug.

“She was. Very talented. Very powerful.”

He didn’t say anything more. Instead, he pulled her close and kissed her again, deeper this time. His hands slid under the sheet and cupped her bare ass.

Victoria melted into the kiss. Her questions faded as heat rushed through her body.

Sebastian lifted her easily and carried her back to the bed. He took his time with her that morning - slow, deep thrusts while he looked into her eyes. He made her come twice before he finally let go inside of her.

Afterward, he kissed her forehead and said he had to go to the restaurant for a meeting.

Victoria left his villa a little while later. In the car on the way home, her mind kept returning to the poster and those lyrics.

“Cooking an old lover… make him a star…”

It felt too close. Too strange.

When she got back to her loft, she tried to paint. But instead of working on her new series, she opened her laptop. She typed “Lily Carter lyrics cooking lover” into the search bar.

Several results came up. She clicked on the song and listened to it again. The words sounded even more pointed now. She spent the next hour reading old interviews and articles about Lily Carter. Nothing concrete jumped out, but there were enough small things and details that made her feel uneasy.

Later that afternoon, she stood in front of her canvas again. Her hand moved without thinking. She ended up sketching another detailed drawing - this time Sebastian’s face mixed with shadows that looked a little like Lily Carter’s silhouette.

Victoria stared at the sketch and sighed.

Sebastian was ruining her focus, but the worst part of it all was she didn’t want him to stop.

That night, she went back to his villa again. The moment she walked through the door, Sebastian pulled her into his arms and kissed her deeply like they had been away from each other for months. 

They barely spoke. He fucked her against the wall in the living room - hard and fast, her legs wrapped around his waist. Then he carried her to the bedroom and took her again, slower this time, whispering how much he wanted her.

Victoria came so many times she lost count.

Afterward, as she lay in his arms, tired and satisfied, she told herself she would stop digging.

But deep down, she already knew she wouldn’t.

The poster. The lyrics. The way Sebastian brushed off any mention of Lily Carter.

Something was there.

And Victoria was becoming too obsessed to ignore it.