“Sarah, I’m sorry, but this is exactly what it looks like.”

I wasn’t fond of making women cry and now was no exception. Especially when my words were causing Sarah, someone I thought I’d loved, to look at me like that. Her eyes brimmed with watery emotion. She sniffed as if trying to suck them back in, trying to prevent them from falling down her cheeks.

“Don’t say that,” she mumbled, most of her fury now gone. “Please?”

The words in my throat, that two days before I would never have thought I would ever say to Sarah, felt like they were about to choke me. I couldn’t break her heart and watch her crumble in front of me. But then I remembered the woman standing behind me, most likely watching how this would all play out. Wondering why my half-naked ex was letting herself into my apartment when I’d just proposed and given her a ring.

Sarah’s lip trembled, then as if her dwindling fire had been doused with an accelerant, sparking new life, reinvigorating her anger, she shook her head, not wanting to hear what I had to say and began to back away. Her heels—that in the past had driven me to my knees—clacking on the tile floor.

“Don’t say another word,” she spat out. Perhaps if we’d been younger she would have also clamped her hands over her ears and shouted “I’m not listening” at the top of her lungs. But Sarah still clung to her dignity as she bolted from the room.

I spun to look at Anna, torn whether or not to go after Sarah. But Anna was no longer in the doorway to the bedroom. I had a split-second to decide. Go after Sarah and make sure she understood and that she was okay? Or retreat to the bedroom, like a coward?

I wasn’t the prick everyone thought I was, I still cared for Sarah even if it wasn’t in the way she wanted… and I had to make her realize that just because I hadn’t said it was over didn’t mean that it wasn’t true. There was Anna to consider now. Besides, she still had a key to the apartment, and I wanted it back.

I took the step forward and ran after Sarah hoping I could catch her before she made it to the elevator.

* * *

“Leave me alone,” Sarah hissed. She buttoned up her coat and jabbed a manicured finger, calling for the elevator even though the light was already glowing.

“Just wait, will you?”

“You made it perfectly clear, Sebastian. You’ve moved on. I don’t know why I’m so surprised. I was a fool for coming.” She paused, waiting for me to respond. My mind searched around for something to say, anything that would stop her from hating me. “Well? Are you just going to stand there?”

“I thought this was what you wanted? You were the one that left me, remember? But as soon as I find someone else, you come here, let yourself in dressed up in very little…”

Sarah bit her lip, determined not to look at me anymore. She stared at the cold steel surface of the closed elevator doors.

I let out an exasperated sigh. Why was I out here, trying to explain myself to someone who obviously did not want to listen?

“Look, Sarah. I didn’t mean to hurt you… that was actually the last thing on my mind—”

Now she pivoted my way, a remnant of hope dawning on her face. “What exactly does that mean?”

Despite my better judgment, I told her. “Maybe it started out as a way to get you back, but things have changed.”

“Within what, a day or two? I don’t believe you.”

I shrugged, how could I possibly explain all the ways that Anna had touched me, and not just physically. She’d somehow managed to, in the space of a few short hours, ingrain herself onto my soul. We didn’t need words, not when we seemed to communicate on another level. Though I’d already decided that I would find a course and learn some Russian. It was only fair.

“What if,” she started, “maybe we could continue seeing each other? You know, see how it goes? Have that open relationship you wanted… see other people?”

Was she offering up what I thought she was? For real this time? No more guilt if I so much as flirted with someone else? Was she caving just to win me back? The temptation was almost too great. Especially since I knew exactly what she was wearing beneath that flimsy coat. In two steps I could have her against the wall, her coat splayed open, my cock inside her.

I could eat my cake and have it too.

The elevator arrived. A quiet but pensive ding echoed through the hallway, breaking my train of thought.

Sarah did not hesitate and stepped in right away, deliberately putting distance between us. Was she trying to show me exactly what I would be losing if I let her go right now? She pinned me with her gaze, her expression as blank as a champion poker player’s.

“Last chance, Sebastian,” she said evenly. But her mask faltered when she drew her tongue across her bottom lip. She tilted her head, her eyes heavy with desire. She was trying to reel me in, using every trick in the book to get me to cave… she knew fine well I couldn’t resist her when she’d looked at me like that in the past.

I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d started to strip right there, trying to tip me over the edge. And by god, it almost worked. The effect of her gaze was alluring, and I felt myself stiffen.

I shook my head. It was time to let her go. For good this time. We’d never worked, I could see that now.

The doors juddered on their tracks, sliding along. The rectangular viewfinder of Sarah standing there, wanting me, began to disappear.

Then I shot out my arm in between the doors.

Groaning, the elevator mechanisms halted then retreated.

Sarah’s mouth turned up into a triumphant smile, and there was no mistaking the light that had come back into her eyes, wider and no longer watery. The cat that had got the cream. She wet her lips again.

“Sarah…” I said and continued to hold my hand out, palm facing upwards. “I need my key back.”