Memories from the past were like sugar–coated poison.
Even just a hint of sweetness was enough to leave Celestine longing for more, the aftertaste lingering far too long.
She’d even–absurdly–let that faint hope stretch into this present darkness.
The restaurant was plunged into a pitch–black void, broken only by the furious shouts of angry diners.
Chaos reigned, voices overlapping and chairs scraping as people panicked in the dark.
Celestine felt awful.
Swallowed by shadow, her head spun until she was dizzy, her body beginning to tremble uncontrollably.
Then a large, warm hand found hers, steady and reassuring, and someone gently rubbed her back. “Don’t be scared. I’m right here.”
The instant the lights failed, Chester had remembered–almost instinctively–that Celestine was afraid of the dark.
Trusting his memory, he made his way toward her table.
“Chester, don’t move, please. I’m scared,” Joanna’s voice quivered beside him.
He felt her shaking in his arms and hesitated, unwilling to go any farther. Instead, he wrapped her in an embrace, murmuring, “Don’t worry, Joanna. I’ll protect you.”
It had been years. Chester thought surely Celestine’s fear of the dark would have faded by now.
But when the lights finally flickered back to life, he caught sight of her–Celestine’s eyes wide with despair, tears/trembling on the brink.
A sharp, suffocating ache twisted in his chest.
Why?
The sensation unsettled him so much that his scalp prickled with alarm.
How could he–how could anyone–feel that kind of pain for a woman like Celestine?
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Chapter 172
If she was afraid of the dark, well, that was her own fault.
He looked away, forcing his gaze to rest on the woman in his arms. But in the corner of his eye, he kept glancing back at Celestine–and at Gideon, who had somehow slipped into the empty seat beside her.
Gideon’s eyes, fixed on him, were cold and venomous, like a snake ready to strike.
When that rough, sandpapery hand reached for her, Celestine clung to it like a lifeline.
“Don’t go. Please, don’t leave me…”
Her pleading was barely more than a whisper, thick with tears.
Gideon felt something tighten in his chest.
He understood instantly: her fear of the dark was worse now than it had ever been.
In the gloom, his eyes softened with a kind of agonized sympathy.
He let her grip his hand with desperate strength, even as her nails dug into his skin.
It wasn’t until the lights returned that the world righted itself, bright and ordinary
again.
But the darkness in Celestine’s eyes lingered, refusing to be washed away.
Gideon followed her blank stare–straight to the couple still locked in a tight
embrace.
He pulled his hand away, jaw clenched.
Idiot, he thought bitterly.
His glare swept over Chester and Joanna without the slightest attempt to hide his contempt, lingering especially on Chester.
“Ha! Still claiming you’re just friends? The minute the lights go out, you’re clinging together. Another second and you’d be going at it right in front of us,” Carole, one of the guests who’d been loudly complaining, gave a scathing laugh as she passed by.
Chester startled at her words, suddenly realizing how inappropriate he and Joanna must have looked. He hurried to extricate himself, letting Joanna go.
“Celestine, please, don’t misunderstand. It was just–when the lights went out, I was
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afraid something would happen, so I-”
Celestine slung her purse over her shoulder and swept past him, cold and unbothered.
She didn’t pause even for a second to hear his frantic excuses.
Disgusting man. If only he could vanish from her life as completely as the darkness
had.
Gideon picked up the gift bag Celestine had left behind and followed close on her
heels out of the restaurant.
Chester tried to salvage the situation. “Mr. Prescott, really, there’s no great misunderstanding between our families, I-”
“There’s no misunderstanding. I’m not blind,” Gideon shot back, his voice dripping with disdain as he glanced between Chester and Joanna. Then he strode out after Celestine.
Chester opened his mouth, but the words died on his lips. A nameless frustration welled up in his chest once again.
