Chapter 3
“How’d you know that I wanted to come here, Elias?” Mia asked, sounding delighted. It was a fancy new restaurant.
She was dressed up in crimson co-ords that showed off her narrow waist, well-shaped derriere, and slender arms, earning quite a few appreciative and lustful glances from onlookers.
But Elias' mind was elsewhere this evening.
“Noah is a competent secretary,” Elias replied before taking a sip of his non-alcoholic beverage.
He saw Mia’s smile grow dull at the edges, but moments later, she fixed it. “Right.”
They ate in silence, which gave Elias the time to ponder his meeting with Lena.
His mind was muddled. His heart was in emotional turmoil.
~~~~
When Elias saw Lena, the woman he had loved from the moment his eyes lay on her, the woman who disappeared from his life one night five years ago, without any trace, standing a few feet away from him, he wanted to close the space and hold her by the shoulders and shake her, demanding answers.
But he found that he was incapable of even moving from where he stood at the doorway.
Lena was still lean, and the outfit enhanced her curves beautifully. Elias couldn’t look away.
“Fancy seeing you here. I thought you wanted to become a musician,” Lena said, genuinely surprised, but the smile or the dazzling gleam in her eyes didn't leave.
Elias had prepared countless replies for such questions in his head, created fake scenarios for if or when he crossed paths with Lena, but predictably, he neither spoke nor reacted.
Lena, he realized, still had the alluring hold over him.
“What is this game, Elias? Are you not going to speak to me?” Lena pouted as nothing had changed between them.
“Lena, behave,” a female voice came from behind Elias. When did another person walk in?
“C’mon, I am behaving,” Lena whined, and it was then that Elias noticed the petite woman walking up to Lena and giving her a stern look. She casually straightened the collar of Lena’s blouse before turning to look at Elias.
“Mr. Black, I apologise on my colleague’s behalf,” the woman said, giving a curt bow. Elias didn’t know how he reacted, but he knew one thing: his heart was burning with irrational jealousy.
How could that woman touch Lena so casually while Elias could only watch? Why could he not be the one to do that? He felt the visceral urge to shove the woman away from Lena.
He knew he had no right to feel anything akin to jealousy, not towards a person who left him without giving him any closure, not towards someone who was now practically a stranger, but who would show logic to his heart?
“Hey, c’mon, I was just chatting with an old friend; can’t I do that?” Lena mumbled petulantly.
Friend? An old friend?
Anger flared inside Elias. He finally decided to come out of his stupor and reply when others emerged through the doorway, filling up the boardroom.
Throughout the meeting, his gaze kept flickering towards Lena, who presented her software that could not only detect malware but also track the IP address. There were various other features, but Elias hardly listened.
He came to know later that the other woman’s name was Garcia.
When the meeting ended, Xander, Elias’ elder brother and current CEO, finalized the deal with Barrow Tech, and everyone started filing out; he too stood up to leave.
He had questions he needed to ask his older brother. Why did he hide this information from him? Why did he not let Elias be prepared for this…
His train of thought came to a halt when an employee called his name gently before leaving, and he realized that he was the only one in the boardroom now.
For a moment, it felt as if Lena had been a figment of his imagination, an occurrence that wasn’t uncommon ever since she left without a word.
But then he noticed a sticky note lying in front of him. He tentatively picked it up and flipped it over, and for the second time, his breath caught in his throat.
It was undoubtedly Lena’s writing: My number is still the same, in case you wanted to catch up.
~~~
“Sweetheart…” his mind came back to the present when his wife’s voice reached him. He blinked and gazed up to find Mia frowning, her red-painted lips forming a petulant pout.
“Why do you look lost in thought?” she asked, sounding annoyed.
Her gaze became mischievous as he added, “Are you impatient to go back, darling?”
She lifted a stiletto-clad foot and caressed the other man’s calf suggestively.
“Work stress,” Elias murmured, moving his leg politely. He never liked public displays of affection, but Mia never cared; always fawning, always touching, and always clinging.
Mia smiled thinly as if she knew that Elias was lying, but she didn’t say anything.