The word hung in the air between them like a physical presence, reverberating through James's consciousness with the force of a thunderclap. No. Victoria Sharp, brilliant, successful, captivating Victoria had just told him she did not like him. After everything that had transpired between them, after the careful conversations and meaningful glances, after her unexpected appearance at his apartment tonight...she didn't like him.
James felt something shift inside his chest, a sensation like the ground giving way beneath his feet. His hand, without conscious direction, began tapping against the smooth surface of his coffee table, a nervous rhythm that betrayed the turmoil suddenly churning through his mind. The sound was sharp in the quiet apartment: tap, tap, tap.
He could not process it. Could not reconcile Victoria's presence here tonight, the way she had looked at him, the deliberate intimacy of taking the book from his hands, with those two simple syllables, that seemed to negate everything he thought he understood about what was happening between them.
Victoria watched his reaction with those piercing blue eyes, her expression carefully controlled. She could see the confusion written across his features, the way his jaw tightened as he tried to make sense of her words. He's going to run, she thought with a spike of panic. She had miscalculated, pushed too hard too fast.
James's tapping grew more insistent against the coffee table. Tap, tap, tap. The rhythm matched the acceleration of his heartbeat, the way confusion was giving way to something that felt dangerously close to hurt. Had he misread everything so completely? Was he truly that naïve about women and about the signals they sent? The sent gifts as a form of courtship, the shared moments at the anniversary, the connection he'd felt during their conversations, the moment at his office, the way she'd looked at him during meetings, had all of it been in his imagination?
Victoria could practically see his thoughts spiraling, could watch as uncertainty transformed into something approaching self-doubt. It was fascinating and heartbreaking in equal measure. Here was a man who commanded her respect in every situations, who presented complex analyses with unwavering confidence, who had built a reputation on his ability to read people and situations and she had reduced him to nervous tapping with two words.
Before she could allow herself to second-guess the decision, Victoria reached out and placed her hand gently over his, stilling the nervous tapping. Her palm was warm against his knuckles, and she could feel the tension thrumming through his fingers like electricity.
"James," she said softly, but even as she spoke his name, he could not bear the sound of his name on her lips, it felt wrong, so wrong, not now, not when it felt like everything he had believed about their connection had been revealed as wishful thinking. She could see him pulling away, not just physically, but emotionally. The walls were going up, the defenses she had worked so hard to bypass were reasserting themselves.
He pulled his hand away from hers as if her touch burned, the contact suddenly feeling like mockery, and Victoria felt something cold settle in her stomach.
James rose from the couch with jerky, uncoordinated movements that spoke of barely controlled emotion. His usually calm composure had cracked, revealing the raw confusion underneath. He needed distance, needed space to think, he needed to understand what game was being played here.
"I should..." he began, his voice hoarse with confusion and the beginning edges of embarrassment, "Maybe you should go. I think there's been some kind of misunderstanding."
The words felt like swallowing glass. Here he was, preparing to excuse himself from his own living room because he couldn't bear to sit beside someone who had just confirmed that whatever he'd been feeling was entirely one-sided. Was he back to square one? Had Victoria simply been physically attracted to him while remaining emotionally un-invested? What had been the meaning of everything then, the elevator conversations, and her decision to come here tonight? His heart cracked, literally.
Like what is this? What are they doing? What was she playing at?
The words hit Victoria like a physical blow. She had been unconsciously dreading, the point where her reputation for being difficult, for being too intense, for wanting too much, would cost her something she actually valued. However, she would not let the thing between them wither under the weight of her expectations and demands.
No not this time. Not with James. Not when she had finally found someone who seemed capable of matching her intensity instead of being intimidated by it.
Before James could take another step toward what she could only assume was his escape route, Victoria's hand shot out and grasped his wrist with surprising strength. The contact was electric, sending heat shooting up her arm, and she could feel his pulse racing under her fingers.
"Sit down," she said, her voice carrying a note of command that was both familiar and utterly foreign in this context. "Please."
The grip on his wrist was firm, insistent, and Victoria could see the exact moment when something in her tone made James pause. He looked down at her, this woman who had just torn apart his understanding of their relationship, and she held his gaze steadily, letting him see something in her expression that gave him pause.
Victoria's blue eyes were intense, almost burning with some inner fire. There was no mockery there, no dismissal. Instead, there was something that burned like determination.
"I don't like you, James," Victoria repeated the same words which pierced his fragile heart, but this time she allowed her voice to carry the weight of deeper meaning, the full force of what she was actually trying to communicate. "What I feel is much stronger than just 'Like'."
She could see the exact moment when her words registered, when confusion began to transform into something else entirely. James's breath caught, and Victoria felt a surge of satisfaction at having successfully redirected his emotional trajectory.