⦠continued from here ; ft. wyatt ( @velvetdesirez )
There could've been a million faces in that ocean of ostensible glamour and luxury, and Kadriye would still notice him first. Those ravishing green eyes that once took the air out of her lungs with a mere glance. His ease. That dazzling smile that so effortlessly enchanted her once. The woman's heart failed a beat, Wyatt still possessing the power to take her breath away, but there were no butterflies to speak of anymore. Instead, a quiet storm ravaged her chest, blowing shards of familiar pain through every part of her soul. He'd taken too much of her, not that she hadn't been generous in offering, with the naivety and zeal of a girl still raw in the matters of the heart, who believed in soulmates and happily-ever-afters.
Not anymore. Kadriye couldn't allow the harmony she'd so laboriously built in the wake of his departure be destroyed anew. Yet it was clear in the way her facade had dropped with no consideration for the guests witnessing her urgent stride that Wyatt still held a certain amount of power over her. Those eyes were still able to make her break into pieces, as much as Kadriye refused herself the realisation. This has to be a joke. The words fizzled on the tip of her tongue, yet between the sound of his voice and the aroma of his perfume, she couldn't utter a single word. A fleeting return to the past, to times when she'd grown to know his scent intimately. The memories were still too vivid, their resurgence being enough to make her snap out of that furious daze and realise the enormity of her acts.
"How convenient." Kadriye uttered with false pleasantry, only prompted by the passage of another guest, to whom she offered a gracious smile, a perfect opposite to the woman whose eyes burnt with resentment only moments ago. "I'm not so sure about the universe. If we're speaking in euphemisms, I'm more tempted to say that the devil has his ways of reaching me. I know you too well, Smith." As she met his eyes, her jaw tightened subtly with the effort to hold his gaze, to bar from memory all the ways in which he'd once looked at her. "You don't simply appear someplace and settle for making yourself all discreet for an entire night. It's too uncharacteristic of you." The skin on her back felt like it was burning with the curious, not exactly subtle stares pining them, and if there was something she abhorred, it was the mere idea of carrying herself in a manner that could invite gossip.
With an exhale, Kadriye straightened her posture, preparing to endure the consequences of her actions. She slipped a slender arm around Wyatt's own, as longtime acquaintances would do out of courtesy. "Martini. Some things stay the same."