I spent two days avoiding everyone.
Sophie's calls went to voicemail. Her texts piled up unread—frantic apologies, desperate pleas to talk, explanations I couldn't bring myself to face. I silenced her notifications and pretended she didn't exist.
At work, I kept interactions with Sebastian strictly professional. Clipped responses. No eye contact. Cold efficiency that left no room for questions or personal conversation.
When he approached my desk, I suddenly had urgent tasks elsewhere. When he lingered after meetings, I buried myself in paperwork until he left.
Sebastian knew something was wrong. I saw it in the way he watched me across the office, confusion clouding his features.
The easy warmth from our night together had vanished, replaced by this glacial distance he couldn't understand.
He tried to corner me twice. Once in the break room, where I excused myself for a fictional phone call. Once outside the conference room, where I claimed Charles needed me immediately.
Both times, I saw the hurt flash across his face before I turned away.
I couldn't face him. Couldn't look at him without seeing Sophie's tear-streaked confession, without imagining them together while I sobbed alone at that hotel bar.
The third time, he didn't give me an escape route.
I was walking to my car after work, the parking garage empty and echoing, when Sebastian stepped out from behind a concrete pillar.
He positioned himself directly in my path, arms crossed, expression caught between anger and desperation.
"What the hell is going on?" His voice was strained, rough with two days of confusion. "Two days ago we were… And now you won't even look at me. You flinch when I say your name. What happened?"
I stopped walking. My keys dug into my palm, metal edges biting skin.
"Sophie told me."
The words landed like a slap. Sebastian went completely still.
"The wedding night,"
I continued, voice shaking despite my efforts to control it.
"While I was crying at the bar, falling apart over James, drowning myself in whisky because my entire world had just collapsed—you were upstairs with my best friend."
"Belle…"
"Was I just next on your list?" The anger I'd been suppressing for two days erupted, hot and bitter. "Work your way through the office? Sophie one night, me whenever convenient?"
"No." He stepped closer, desperation etched into every line of his face. "It wasn't like that. You have to believe me—it wasn't anything like that."
"Then what was it like?" I demanded.
"Explain it to me, Sebastian. Help me understand how the man who held me two nights ago, who showed me his childhood and told me I was the only person he wanted to know—how that man neglected to mention he'd slept with my best friend."
Sebastian ran a hand through his hair, exhaling hard. For a long moment, he said nothing. When he finally spoke, his voice was raw.
"I watched you with James for years. Years, Belle."
He met my eyes, and I saw something there I'd never witnessed—complete vulnerability, stripped of every defense. "Wanting you. Knowing I couldn't have you. You were his, and nothing I did could change that."
He took another step closer. I held my ground.
"And that night, the wedding, you ran out of the ceremony looking destroyed. I knew immediately it was because of him. Again. Always him."
His voice cracked on the words. "I watched you leave, and I was convinced you'd go back to him eventually. You always would. He had this hold on you that I couldn't compete with."
"So you slept with Sophie instead?"
"I didn't think I had a chance in hell with you. And watching you run away because of James again, knowing that even after what he'd done you'd probably forgive him eventually..."
The confession came out broken. He exhaled shakily.
"Sophie approached me at the bar. She was drunk. I was... I was drowning in wanting someone I couldn't have. And I just—I wanted to feel something other than that. Something other than years of useless wanting."
He shook his head. "It was self-destruction, Belle. Not malice. Never malice. I wasn't thinking about hurting you because I never imagined I'd have you."
I stared at him. The explanation made sense in a horrible, painful way. It even hurt in a manner that suggested truth—the raw edge in his voice, the shame in his eyes.
But understanding didn't erase the betrayal.
Knowing why didn't undo the image of him with Sophie, didn't silence the voice in my head reminding me that while I'd been falling apart, he'd been finding comfort in someone else's arms.
"I need time," I whispered.
"How much time?" The desperation in his voice cut through me. "Belle, please. Tell me what I can do. Tell me how to fix this."
I didn't answer. I couldn't.
I walked past him to my car, footsteps echoing in the concrete silence. He didn't follow. Didn't call after me. Just stood there, frozen, watching me leave.
I didn't look back.
The next morning, Charles summoned me to his office.
His assistant delivered the message with the gravity usually reserved for disciplinary meetings. My stomach churned as I walked the familiar path to his corner office, wondering what new complication awaited.
Charles stood by the window when I entered, silhouetted against the grey London sky. He turned at my approach, gesturing for me to sit.
His expression was calm but serious—the face of a man who'd made difficult decisions before.
He closed the door. The click echoed like a verdict.
"I'm not blind, Belle," he said quietly, settling into the chair across from me rather than behind his desk. The intimacy of the positioning made my heart race. "And I'm not a teenager to play these games."
Heat flooded my cheeks. "Charles…"
"I see what's happening. With Sebastian. With James. With me."
He studied my face with those penetrating blue eyes. "The photo from Paris. The tension in the office. The way you've been avoiding everyone for two days."
I opened my mouth to explain, to defend, to apologize—but he raised a hand.
"I care for you. I've made that abundantly clear."
His voice was steady, measured. "But I won't compete like a schoolboy for your attention. I won't play games or issue ultimatums or pretend I don't see what's obviously in front of me."
"I never meant to…"
"I know."
His voice softened, and I saw something that looked like understanding in his eyes.
"You're young, Belle. You're sorting through complicated feelings after a devastating betrayal. I understand that. I've been patient because I believed you needed time."
He paused, choosing his next words carefully. "But what I need from you now is honesty. Not just with me—with yourself."
He leaned forward slightly. "Figure out your feelings first. Examine what you actually want, not what you think you should want. And then give me your answer."
"And if the answer isn't what you want?"
Charles smiled—sad, gentle, resigned in a way that made my chest ache.
"Then I'll accept whatever makes you happy. That's what caring for someone actually means, Belle. Wanting their happiness even when it comes at your own expense."
I left his office with tears threatening to spill, more confused than ever. Three men. Three impossible situations. Three versions of myself I didn't know how to reconcile.
But beneath the confusion, I felt something unexpected: gratitude.
Charles deserved better than my indecision. Sebastian deserved better than my silence. Even Sophie deserved better than being ignored.
They all did.
And somehow, I needed to figure out what I actually wanted before I destroyed everyone around me—including myself.