Still as beautiful
RIVEN'S POV
We tried to get a photo of Lindsey or Leah but the only one we got was of both of them which was taken on the school art galla day. They told me the one on the left was Leah and the one on the right was Lindsey. I didn't know them so I depended on the information my friends gave me. When I arrived, I had not yet gone further into the school when I saw her. At that moment,it had slipped my mind that this was Lindsey but in my thinking, I expected Lindsey not to come to school but Leah so I thought this was Leah since she thought she was safe. I didn't know I was soon making the greatest mistake of my life.when I found her, it seemed like she was running away. I thought she did that due to guilt because of what she had done to her friend since to me, it was Leah. I know she hated me since then. When I left, I found many photos of her on the wall and insults written all over, what surprised me was that according to the photos the person I had just spoken to was Lindsey, but she had not denied, I could only remember her teary eyes. I asked to confirm expecting things to be different but it was done.
I thought I would apologize to her when she returned but days went by, then weeks but she never returned. I didn't even want to stand before Leah because she was the route cause of all the problems. Finally, news came to me that she had changed school and left the town as well. I couldn't believe I had actually caused someone so much pain. It haunted me that I had made such a stupid mistake. I always wanted her to return, but I didn't know why I felt so familiar with her yet i had only seen her once and spoken to her once.
†*******†****
After all those years, coincidentally we met again but not in any different way. Even today, we are fighting. She hates me so much. Many people do and I don't give a damn but why does it hurt so much when she says it to me. The first time I saw her after my return was when I had gone to see my father at the campus for some issues on his invitation. I saw her getting in the campus gates when I was arriving. The moment I saw her, I knew it was her, I could never forget her. She was still as beautiful as she was. In years I had never felt so alert and aware of my heart. She was smiling but then I saw him, Stuart ,he went to her and hugged her. I got confused. My chauffeur reminded me of how we had arrived and what he needed to do. Then I recalled my sister Avery.
When I realized that she would be at the cafe on the day of Avery's engagement,I remembered some colleagues who had suggested the spot so i agreed. I don't know why I want her now, whether she wants me or not. I want her to smile at me as well. I don't want to fight with her but I want to share my everything with her yet here we are fighting. I hate that things have to be like this between us. I don't even know what am doing anymore. I can't give her freedom because I can't take risks.
You can imagine she refused to eat since the day began. She likes being forced to do everything I tell her to. Dawson informed me that she ate after my threat. I am ready to take her. The key to her freedom is obedience.
I didn't sleep all night thinking of everything that had been happening around me. I even married. Rean loves that girl. She did ever since she found out what transpired between us then. I planned to go out when I found her having breakfast. I decided to sit and have breakfast since she was there but she stood up and left after telling me she wanted to go to campus. I told the butler not to serve me. When she returned, I told her we would go together. She told me she would go if only we would sit in different cars. I then told her to be ready to stay home if that was the case then she had no option. To my surprise, she sat in the front with the chauffeur.
Allan was also shocked to even sit in his driver's seat.
" You have one minute to come here." I told her lifting my head from what I was doing on my phone. She looked at me from the rearview mirror and I stared at her. If I didn't know her well, I would say she lusted me every time she saw me. Lindsey moved out and joined me at the back. She banged the door so hard then looked at me with her brows raised, she was fuming. She sat as far as she could then looked away from me. We spoke no word from the start of the journey until the end.She stationed herself at the farthest edge of the seat, her shoulder nearly fused to the door, as though the thin barrier of steel and glass were a fortress against me. Her posture was a manifesto of resistance—spine rigid, arms folded tight across her chest, chin lifted in defiance.
Yet defiance could not disguise the tremor in her breathing or the way her fingers tightened and loosened in restless cycles. Anger burned in her eyes, bright and unfiltered, but beneath it lurked fear—quiet, wounded, and vigilant. She did not look at me; she studied the window instead, as if the blur of passing streets were preferable to the man who occupied the same air as her.
I have been forged in indifference, taught by power to wear silence like armor and control like a crown. The world knows me as cold and untouchable. Yet in that confined space, with the low hum of the engine and the driver pretending not to exist, her fear dismantled me with humiliating ease. Every inch she put between us felt like an accusation.
Every breath she took without meeting my gaze was a verdict. I wanted to speak, to dismantle the image of the monster she saw, but my voice—so effective in boardrooms—failed me there. Authority meant nothing in the presence of her trembling resolve. She never wanted it anyway and she wouldn't take it. What would I even say to her, nothing that she would understand.
I watched her flinch when my arm shifted, the reflexive recoil of someone who expected harm where none was intended. The realization struck me with brutal clarity: I had become a threat in her mind, a shadow she could not outrun even while seated beside me. And yet, perversely, it was in that moment—when she feared me most—that my feelings for her grew more insistent, more reckless.
Not the shallow desire of conquest, but the aching urge to be understood, to be forgiven for a cruelty I had never meant to wield.
I remained still, imprisoned by restraint, aware that any movement would sharpen her alarm. The space between us became a battlefield of unspoken things,her terror and fury entrenched on one side, my unexpressed tenderness on the other. She leaned away as though distance could neutralize emotion, but the truth was merciless: her avoidance only made my awareness of her more acute. I could feel the heat of her anger, the chill of her fear, and the unbearable pull of my own heart, all coexisting in that narrow stretch of leather and silence.
Between us lay inches of air and miles of consequence. What was happening to me was something I could not define. Why she had such an effect on me I didn't know.