«The skyline falls as I try to make sense of it all. I thought I'd uncovered your secrets, but turns out there's more.»
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"She's staying at the same hotel as me."
Those were the words that welcomed her as soon as she opened the door of her hotel room for Charles.
He stormed into the room as quickly as he could, leaving Aurora a bit startled. Her hand gripped the door tightly, and she took a deep breath before finally deciding on closing the door. Charles stood in the middle of the room, he looked worried sick and Aurora wondered if that was how she looked as well. Before anything could be said or done, he looked around the room, taking notice of the two beds.
Charles turned back to her, slightly frowning. "You are not alone?"
"No, Valentina is sharing the room with me, but she's not around. Don't worry, we can talk." She assured him, hesitantly getting closer to him.
His only answer was a nod, it looked like he wanted to say something but everything had gotten trapped in his throat after telling her Sloane was in the same hotel as him. Aurora, as panicked and terrified as she felt, was also incredibly anxious about everything and she just wanted to know what had been said between them, but all she could do was bite her thumbnail and wait for Charles to start the dreading conversation. Just get him to pull the trigger and release her from all that misery.
It took him a few seconds, but eventually, Charles sighed deeply and pulled her into a tight hug. It was like he was holding on for dear life, all Aurora could do was close her eyes and grab a handful of his shirt. Sadly, and as much as they both wanted it, the hug wasn't as comforting as they thought. They could feel the tension being held in their bodies.
Charles placed a kiss on top of her head before letting go.
"It's my fault, mon ange." He said, and those words did not help to calm her a little bit.
Aurora widened her eyes, and the sudden thought of Charles telling Sloane everything felt like someone poured cold water over her. "What do you mean?" She swallowed hard, not wanting to jump straight to any assumptions.
He let go of her and ran a hand through his hair. "When I saw her at the hotel, I should've never tried to talk to her but I did, like an idiot." He sounded irritated. The same way he used to talk about himself when he made a mistake during a race and he was being hard on himself.
Aurora didn't like that. "You approached her?" Charles nodded. Aurora could feel her heart pounding in her chest, her mouth suddenly went dry. "Why did you do that?"
His eyes found hers, he just looked as troubled as he sounded. Aurora wanted to tell him it was nothing, that everything would be alright, but it was hard for her to even convince herself of such thoughts to even try to help Charles.
"I don't know, I wanted to fix things with her, I..." He shrugged. "I thought it would be helpful. Maybe the hit wouldn't hurt so bad if we were on good terms. If I just — if she knew I'm the good guy she used to—" Charles stopped himself, probably feeling like reminding Aurora of what he used to be for Sloane wasn't the best of the ideas.
"And what happened? Did she — was she mean to you?" Charles wanted to laugh, and probably cry at the same time. Aurora knew them both far too well. She knew Sloane far too well.
He shook his head. Sloane was, well, Sloane. "She asked me about you." Charles could quite catch the moment her lips parted to gasp for air. "Sloane asked what was my deal with you."
