The One That Got Away

Chapter 10: Let Me In

I strode in the building with my head held up high, hair perfectly combed to glossy waves, body fitted in a coral blouse and black pencil skirt. Unlike yesterday, my pink stilletos clack against the marble floors elegantly. I might've been impersonating Ms. Channing a bit as I walk in but with the uncertainty in my current employee standing, I might as well go out with a bang. I smile at everyone who stares but what the heck, right? When I reached the damned elevator, I was glad to be on it alone. 

A hand reached out to stop the elevator doors and a tall man wearing a leather jacket and bue jeans entered. I blew out a breath to show him my annoyance but I just punched in the button for the 6th floor and waited for him to say his destination.

"What floor?" Seriously though. I glanced up to shoot him a dark look and a few choice words of annoyance but a gasp came out instead.

Suddenly, I was catapulted to another time, another place but with the same guy. If he was handsome then, he was gorgeous now. The 10 years that passed has been good to him. My eyes couldn't help but devour who he was now. He was taller, more rugged and muscular. He doesn't look like the boy next door anymore. He was the kind of guy that would make every woman stop in their tracks and stare at him. He exudes personality, confidence and... and... sex. It may sound cliche but he was, without a doubt, a Sex god. His grey eyes were intense and overwhelming as he took me in.

I wanted to say something... anything... but it seems as though even my voice was frozen in place, unable to escape from my throat. Even though a decade passed with me deliberately avoiding him and anything about him, everything I knew about him when we were in that cruise came crashing back to me. Like the way he would watch teen fantasy series with his sister, the way he would always compare two choices and joke about them, laugh at my corny jokes, sit splayed on the couches, chairs or lounges, the way he always knew what I was thinking, how it felt when he defended me and how he looked at me when we spent our last night together.

But right now, none of those mattered. This was not the Tristan Thompson I met on the cruise. This was the celebrity and the Tristan everyone knows. This is the man who I never saw, let alone know about.

"Dru..." His voice...

Even it was different. Deeper. Huskier. Sexier.

It felt like I was meeting someone new. Someone new to break me.

And so I snapped out of it and pretended.

I smiled at him brightly and politely, offering my hand out.

"Hi, it seems we are at a disadvantage. Do I know you from somewhere?" It hurts to pretend and watch him look at me that way. Hurt, confused and astonished.

He blindly took my hand but he didn't shake it.

Simply held it.

My gaze strayed to our hands. His hands dwarfed mine and I felt more than saw his calluses. All the while, I felt his eyes on me, looking at my reactions. When his hand squeezed mine, I wrenched it away.

I feel... too much...

"Dru... you don't..." I forced myself to smile through the pain and ignore the way his gaze implored me to remember. What he doesn't know is that I do. 

Every. SIngle. Detail.

"I'm sorry Mr..." I let myself trail of, urging him to tell me... keeping my act together.

"Thompson. Tristan Thompson." He replied, standing straighter but with the same expression.

"Okay" I smiled when the elevator door open "I really am sorry Mr. Thompson but I cannot be late for my appointement. I'll see you around."

And then I was striding off, not giving an inch to let him in. Not again.