In Viola’s penthouse, after Sebastian left, a foolish smile still lingered on her lips before she caught herself short and internally scolded the warmth right off her face, because it was so unlike her to be smiling like a schoolgirl thinking about what her crush had done.
Even during her school days she hadn’t smiled like this thinking about everything Evan did, and he hadn’t even done that much to woo or court her to begin with, so why was she blushing and smiling like an utter fool at the re thought of Sebastian?
She found her insides acting funny whenever she rembered his kiss on her lips and how he had kissed her cheek at the door when he was leaving. It was just like a loving husband would do for a wife when leaving for work, and that train of thought made her bite down on her bottom lip because in a few days they would be married. Though if things continued like this, Viola was afraid she was at a much bigger risk of falling helplessly for the man.
That train of thought snapped her out of her daydream and her blushing. She ntally shook her head. She didn’t want to fall for anyone again. She didn’t want love to bloom in her barren heart or her mind, especially not for soone who could so easily hurt her without intending to.
Viola didn’t want to entertain that train of thought even just a little, and so she got up from where she had been sitting in her living room trying to practice her Spanish, which she hadn’t even been concentrating on, as her mind kept drifting to Sebastian in a way that scared her. She decided to put the learning aside for now and do sothing tasking and distracting instead.
She knew she needed to learn Spanish, not only for the oath she would take during the ceremony but also so she could understand Sebastian’s story about his history with Moonwillow.
But then, forcing herself into it when her mind was elsewhere wouldn’t make her retain anything, and so she raised her hand, tied her hair into a ponytail, and decided to do the dishes by hand even though she had a dishwasher.
She needed a good distraction from Sebastian, and washing their breakfast dishes seed like the only work left in her clean, polished penthouse. However, when Viola stepped into the kitchen, it was the mory of him cooking there that greeted her, him using her kitchen for the very first ti since she had moved in.
She could still subtly perceive his scent hovering in the space, and inhaling it unintentionally made her toes curl inward and her stomach act funny again.
’You’ve got to stop this, Viola,’ she scolded herself with a sigh.
Viola finished washing the dishes, humming a song to herself so she wouldn’t let his thoughts creep back into her mind, and she was succeeding and pushing him away from her thoughts quite well, until she rembered him telling her to eat and not skip her als.
What would she eat tonight?
She pursed her lips, contemplating cooking for both of them tonight since he would be coming over to sleep here again and there was nothing she could do about it. And if she was being honest, there was a side of her that looked forward to him coming.
Honestly, Viola didn’t want to lie to herself, but she had co to realize that sleeping next to him, or anywhere his scent was, helped her sleep so much better than she ever had before, with no nightmares, nor that depressing, suffocating feeling inside her. His presence took away the emptiness and the loneliness, and yesterday had been the sole reason she had co to realize this.
If his presence would make her feel so refreshed and well rested in the morning, Viola wouldn’t mind it nor push him away, as she needed those nights of good sleep before the ceremony.
He had cooked for her twice now, and since she knew he would be coming straight from his office, Viola found herself standing in the middle of the spacious kitchen with her hands on her hips, looking at the raw cooking ingredients stored in the pantry connected to the kitchen, its double doors thrown open wide and its shelves filled from floor to ceiling.
There were a lot of ingredients, only it was a sha she didn’t know which one went before the other. She was terrible at cooking, no, not terrible, Viola thought with a grimace, she had never cooked a single thing in all her life, not even boiled water.
He had made sothing for her as a friend, and she also wanted to put in the effort to do it for him in return, to prepare their dinner. But looking at everything in the pantry sent her insides quivering with nerves as she wasn’t quite certain where to begin.
Viola stretched the back of her neck in silent contemplation before an idea flashed into her mind. Perhaps she could look it up online! There were plenty of cooking recipes she could follow, and if there was one thing Viola knew how to do best, it was following instructions to learn new things.
She smiled to herself and then dashed towards her couch to grab her phone. She sat down and began to search for a cooking video, watched a few of them, and jotted down the ingredients and asurents of everything she would need.
Viola was scrolling the internet when another video of well-made beef chops caught her attention, and being one of her very favorites, she tapped on the video to watch how it was made. However, when she tapped on it, it redirected her to the werewolves’ social dia platform, WolfTalk, where the original video had been uploaded.
Viola watched the video, committing every step of how it was prepared to mory, but once she was done watching and tapped the back button on her screen, she was taken to the WolfTalk feed where a trending post belonging to Laila Serrano sat waiting at the top.
Viola pursed her lips at the sight of Laila’s social dia. She wasn’t a fan of social dia anymore as it tended to make her more depressed, and she had tried to stay away from it ever since she got a phone. She wouldn’t have even entered the app if it hadn’t been for the cooking video, and she was about to tap out of it when her eyes fell on the post Laila had made just a few minutes ago.
Viola’s eyes narrowed and then her lashes trembled. The picture Laila had posted was of her neck, where she wore a piece of jewelry Viola recognized imdiately, its sparkling blue diamond pendant catching the light and flashing brilliantly.
Viola would have brushed it off as simply not being the sa set as the one that had been gifted to her, which she had returned, if it hadn’t been for the caption that read, ’A Gift From My Man. Isn’t he so sweet? S.K.’
Sebastian Kade.
Viola stared at the necklace on the screen and the caption without blinking, and then she snapped out of her daze and told herself that it didn’t matter because she had already returned it to him, she hadn’t wanted it in the first place. But then another part of her felt a sting, a faint and unwelco sense of hurt that pricked all the way into her gut until she felt sick from it.
What was wrong with her? Hadn’t she been the one to reject it and even ordered for it to be taken back to his place? So where was this feeling coming from? Why couldn’t she swallow properly? It was as though a large rock had settled in her throat and it wouldn’t go down no matter how hard she tried to push it away.
Viola was still trying to convince herself that there was nothing there, that he was her friend, and since she had rejected his gift he had simply given it to soone else who clearly appreciated it more than she did and had even posted about it, when she heard her phone beep in her hand and she looked down at the notification that had popped up.
It was Sebastian. She felt her heart leap when his na along with the heart emoji flashed on her screen, and she almost smiled, recalling his shalessness at saving his number that way, until she saw the ssage he had sent. That faint smile fell away.
[I am sorry, honey, I can no longer co over to spend the night. I know you already told I didn’t have to co, but I had given my word that I would. Since I can’t make it to your place, I want to remind you to EAT and don’t skip your als.]
Viola stared at the ssage with a conflicted expression, emotions spiraling through her insides and rushing all the way up to her chest. He wouldn’t co, of course he wouldn’t, not when Laila had recovered and was back from the healing house, not when he had gone and gifted her that priceless piece of jewelry. Would he spend the night with Laila the way he had spent it with her in the past two days?
Was he going to start dividing his ti between her and Laila now? A hot, seething anger rose and spread inside her chest.
Viola hadn’t even noticed her fingers clenching around her phone until she heard a faint crack and looked down to see that the screen had cracked slightly from the force of her grip. She gasped and released the phone. It fell onto the couch with a light thud and she stared down at it almost sightlessly, her lips quivering.
Where was this feeling coming from? Viola thought, feeling a sudden fear consu her as she recognized what it was, the feeling of possessiveness over a man. She had felt it many tis before, that sudden flash of temper that ca whenever she sensed her man in the presence of another woman...
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