Chapter 32 — Ethan: Just for the Night
(Ethan's POV)
She didn't owe me anything. I knew that.
We weren't lovers. We weren't anything, really—just two people with unspoken things between them and a friendship that had started to feel too tight, too dangerous.
But when Arya sat across from me in her gallery office, hands wrapped around a ceramic mug, and said the words I'd been dreading, it still felt like something cracked open in my chest.
"I'm moving back in with Damon," she said, voice soft, eyes not quite meeting mine.
I let out a slow breath, nodding like I already knew. Because I did. I'd seen it coming in the way she talked about him lately, in the way her lips trembled when she mentioned their son. She loved Damon—maybe not the same way she used to, maybe not in the clean, innocent way I wanted her to love me—but it was still love.
"Okay," I said, leaning back in my chair. "I get it."
Her eyes lifted to mine then, searching for something.
You expected me to fight, didn't you? I wanted to say.
But I wouldn't. I never had a right to her. And the last thing I wanted was to make her feel guilty for choosing the father of her child.
Still, it burned. Quiet and slow like acid.
"You're… okay?" she asked.
I smiled the way I always did when I needed to lie. "You deserve to be happy."
She reached across the desk and touched my hand—just for a moment. That familiar softness. That same electricity. "You've been a really good friend to me, Ethan. I hope you know that."
Friend.
The most polite kind of heartbreak.
I left twenty minutes later with a head full of noise and a gut full of things I didn't know how to say.
By the time I stepped into my penthouse, the silence was screaming.
I poured myself a drink. Then another. But the ache didn't go away. My hands trembled slightly, not from the alcohol, but from how badly I wanted to stop thinking.
So I did what I used to do—what I was good at.
I grabbed my keys.
The club was loud, just the way I needed it. Lights flashing, bass pounding, bodies pressed together on the dance floor. I used to rule these kinds of places. Women knew who I was. Men envied me. Everyone wanted to be close to the shine without knowing the man beneath it.
Tonight, I didn't want attention. I wanted to lose myself.
I found her leaning against the bar, sipping something pink and sugary. Long legs, red lips, eyes that screamed yes before I even said a word.
She smiled when she saw me. "You're Ethan Lancel, right?"
I didn't even ask her name. Just leaned close and said, "Come home with me."
She didn't hesitate.
We left before the clock hit midnight.
She giggled in the elevator, hands on my chest, her perfume already coating the air around us.
"You're a lot hotter in person," she whispered.
I kissed her because it was easier than talking.
By the time we hit my bedroom, our clothes were already halfway off. The city lights from the floor-to-ceiling windows painted her skin gold. I knew how this went. I knew the steps. I'd danced this dance too many times.
But as her body pressed into mine, all I could think about was Arya.
The way she smelled like vanilla and paint.
The way her eyes changed colors in the light.
The way her laughter could make everything inside me settle.
I shut my eyes tighter.
Deeper. Faster. Rougher.
Not love.
Just silence.
She moaned my name like it meant something. Like she knew me.
But she didn't.
None of them did.
After, she rolled over and lit a cigarette from the pack on my nightstand, even though I hadn't touched them in years.
"That was intense," she murmured.
I didn't answer. I just stared at the ceiling.
I could still feel Arya's hand on mine. The way she said "friend" like it was a gift and not a wound.
The woman beside me reached for my arm. "Want to go again?"
I stood up instead. "No. You should go."
She frowned, confused. "Seriously?"
I didn't bother explaining. I just handed her her dress and walked out of the room.
I sat on the leather couch in the living room, letting the night swallow me.
I hated this.
I hated that I was back to this.
I hated that I used a stranger to forget the one person who saw me differently.
But most of all, I hated that it didn't work.
I could sleep with every woman in this city.
And I'd still wake up craving her.
Not her body.
Her presence.
Her quiet.
Her storm.
She chose someone else. She made her choice.
And I'd respect it.
But I couldn't pretend I wasn't still breaking a little more every time I remembered the way her eyes softened when she looked at him and not me.
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and dragged a hand through my hair.
This wasn't who I wanted to be anymore.
But without her, I didn't know who else to be.