Chapter 5: Smudged Lines
AVA'S POV
I smell of him. The smell lingers… acrid charcoal smoke, bitter turpentine, and underneath that. something coarse, feral. I am waking up in horror in my tiny Chinatown apartment. My hands are cradling my cheeks, still warm as I try to shake the memory away.
But when I shut my eyes, all I can do is visualize the dark throat opening of Caleb, the way his blistering dark eyes had me nailed to the chill of the brick wall. Inches. That was all that was between us. His lips inches from mine. His steamy, desperate breath mirroring my own ragged gasps.
"See what you do to me?" His gruff, torn-from-him and his voice still reverberates through me.
I taste the sting of those words as a scorch on my skin. The memory crashes in my bones. Stupid. Shame washes over me like an icy tide. I push aside the distorted, wet sheets. Bitter cold air wraps around my legs but not enough to douse the embers still smoldering low in my belly…the embers he ignited.
I went to Sterling to build skylines, not to crash into deadly fires with my new boss's, hot-headed son. But the recollection. it's not in my mind. It's in my flesh. The hard pressure of the wall against my back. The heat of his body too close. Not fear. Something else. A pull I didn't want but couldn't escape. A rush that caused my knees to shake. And then the ringing of his phone, a harsh slice through that moment like a blade.
He pulled back. And I was gasping, stunned, broken by what almost happened-by what still seems to have happened.
Hours later, the lobby of Sterling Tower's harsh light hits me in the face. I clutch my tablet like a thin shield. And then I smell it …that aroma again, piercing fresh air. Charcoal. Vanilla. Him.
Victoria Hayes appears as a ghost in front of me. She's dressed in ice-blue silk, holding a steaming cup of hot tea. Her smile is gentle, sweet and pointed under.
"Ava, darling. Still burning the midnight oil? Or something. else keep you awake?" She raised an eyebrow in a wicked curve. She thrust the tea into my hands before I could speak. It is hot. Too hot. My fingers burns.
"Such dedication," she goes on silkily, her eyes glancing toward the design elevators. "Just don't let the pressure wreck your lovely focus. Falling apart would not be becoming to you."
She steps back. She speaks softly. "Some secrets, sweetheart, are better buried. For everyone's sake."
Jasmine from the perfume thickens the air around me. Secrets? About Caleb? About Marcus? About Julian? About me?
Her words scorch like splinters. I run to my desk, to my refuge — blueprints, models, the smell of new paper. But then I notice it. Out in neat lines on top of my portfolio. My ivory cashmere scarf.
The same that vanished in Caleb's attic in our nearly moment.
My breathing stops. A small note protrudes among the creases. I unstuck it with shaking hands.
You left this.
Three words. No label. But I know whose. His slashing, bold letters. My heart jumps within me.
I press the scarf to my face. Vanilla, fresh rain. and the whisper of him. that same deep charcoal and cutting turpentine. He wore it. He kept it.
And now. he gave it back.
Heat envelops me, melting the ice Victoria left behind. Proof. He did recall. I was not a momentary distraction. The burning in his eyes. it was real.
I hold the scarf close and see him. Slouching over his sketchpad, working with all he had on renderings of crumbling piers and boarded-up windows…places full of truth, even in ruin. I'd told him that before, "They don't lie." I'd seen it in his drawings. In his eyes, too.., that same uncut truth.
He looked at me. Not as Marcus's stepdaughter or junior architect. He looked at the girl who drew destroyed buildings because destruction was more tangible than flawless glass skyscrapers. That knowledge. it terrifies me. It draws me in. And it is wrong on every level.
Julian's icy contempt. Marcus's stifling silence. Victoria's poison. Caleb's Heartbreak.
Collaborating with him isn't just not safe. It's career-ending. Life-ending. But God, it feels real.
I open my portfolio and attempt to focus. Clean lines. Simple schemes. Control. I find myself swept up in the neat symmetry of the plaza design. It does work. Kind of.
Then the soft chime of silence is broken. An email.
From: Eleanor Flinch (EA to Mr. J. Sterling)
Subject: Meeting Request - Ava Thompson
Message: Mr. Sterling would like to see you in his office today at 6:00 PM sharp. Be on time.
6 PM.
My heart pounds faster. Julian. Alone. After office hour.
Why?
Does he know?
Did Victoria tell him something? Does he have a clue what transpired or almost transpired with Caleb? Or worse, about whatever "truths" Victoria intimated at?
I look again at the scarf. Vanilla. Rain. Caleb.
And I think of Julian. His cold gaze. The power in his silence. The weight of his judgment.
And I know I'm at a crossroads.
Do I go see Victoria? Face her? Or do I go to Julian's office tonight with no clue what he is going to tell me? Perhaps a normal critique… or the downfall of everything that I have created. My career. My standing at Sterling. The delicate equilibrium I've barely held together.
The scarf still clutched in my hands, Caleb's cologne suspended like a ghost.
I closed my eyes.
I see his face. The way he gazed at me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered in the room. I see Julian's hard eyes. And Victoria's sly smile. A combination of danger and desire and secrets.
My heart is constricted. I take a small nervous breath. The air is dust and ink and something ancient like ambition and longing all blended together.
"Okay," I say. It's just slightly louder than breathing. A threat. Or a promise.
One step at a time.
The future I used to see so clearly, all tidy plans and cutting blueprints is in pieces now. I'm walking a high wire over broken glass, and one wrong move will shatter it all.
But I continue anyway.
Because what else am I supposed to do?
