11:45 AM (GMT8)
Another day, that went in the same pattern as it always had. The conferences, the meetings and running around through the long corridors of the agency building. Briefings, the things she had always taken her time to perfection, master and leave in the capable hands of her team. Today was like any other on the outside. Yet on the inside, it felt as if everything had changed.
Simple motions of passing papers, flickering lights and clicking of buttons. The things she did everyday, the eyes that stared deeply into her with concentration. Everything had changed, right under their own noises.
Dallas still stood in the corner of the room, arms crossed over his chest in silence as his eyes burrowed into the side of her skull. Darkening yet sparkling eyes of lavender sharply hitting their gaze against the tan shade of her skin. The once lingering stare she enjoyed, had her cheeks blushing– Now had her body riddled with goosebumps. Every nerve, every little hair stood up on its ends by the sheer feeling of his eyes locked on her.
She wanted to hide, but that wasn't the woman she was known as. So she stuck it out, continued as she did with her team and his own in tow. With the same confidence in her voice, the strength of her posture, the cold and calculated stare at the people under her authority.
Even as the final meeting for the morning had ended, as the agents filled out– She quickly but suddenly placed her things into her bag. Slinging it over her shoulder, shutting off the projector and moving out of the room in haste as her heels clicked. She knew he was going to follow her, as he had been trying the entire morning to strike up any sort of conversation with her.
Amelia didn't want to hear anything he had to say, not when he may be involved in this entire plot against her. The one man she trusted, the one she gave her heart and soul to after many walls built up in defense. All fallen down, and now unable to be built up once more.
His hard soles move faster behind her, as if he was running to catch up with her.
The young woman ignores the hurrying footsteps as she opens the front door of the agency, moving down the granite steps to the parking lot where her car was parked. People all around her are conversing, enjoying their day as they always had. While she hurriedly reached into her coat pocket to find her keys. Amelia struggles for a moment before pulling them out to click her car door open.
"Amelia! Amelia!"
His voice rings in her ears, and with a swift motion she feels the tight grip of his hand on her arm. In that moment her entire body tenses, freezing in place before her hand can yank the car door open to escape.
He doesn't sound out of breath, but determined in his chase after her. "Amelia! Why are you avoiding me?!" He asks, his voice strained in dismay. She couldn't tell if it was an act, or he truly wished to know why she was avoiding him.
There was no way she was going to tell him, no matter what he said to her. The smooth words and calm demeanor of his would not have her wavering in her words. Finally she looks towards him, slowly turning her gaze to meet his eyes. Those eyes that once brought her heart to song, that collided with his harmony with ease.
Now they struck at her core, had her hands shaking and skin prickling once more with the familiar feeling of goosebumps. It was obvious by his own facial reaction of surprise, her face was spread with fear. Something now that he was so close with just the two of us, she could no longer hide.
"Why do you look.. So afraid of me?"
She gulps, not moving a muscle under the tight grip of his palm. The wind blowing gently in their mist, the clouds covering overhead. It felt as if she was in a moment where time would freeze, stand still around the two of them. Amelia had no words, the cat had caught onto her tongue at last. Not a single word leaves her mouth, not even letting herself breathe.
"Amelia, why won't you just answer me! Answer me!" His shout has her flinching, and in that moment her instincts kick in. Pulling her arm away from his grip with force, eyebrows furrowing over her eyes.
The fire was igniting at last, the anger coursing through every little vein that could push itself further into her body. The shaking of her hands turned into tremors of wrath, the heat rushing through her skin.
"How dare you touch me like that! Grab me like I'm your fucking property!" Amelia shouts, looking up at him with fire in her eyes. Her reaction has his eyes widening with shock at the smaller woman who had never once raised her voice towards him.
Until now, until this very moment where her fear could translate itself into anger. For all the things he may be hiding, for the moments in which he may have slipped away to cause her even more pain. A man who was supposed to protect her when she needed him most, let her cry to him with her woes and sorrow. Dallas was supposed to be everything she had wished for in a man, even be the man she would one day marry.
An image she seemed to give to the worst of the worst, she had never hoped for Dallas to be in that same category.
When they had first met, he was an angel who came to be her saving grace. To teach her, to guide her, to ultimately love her in a romance unlike anything she had ever experienced. He made her stronger, he gave her the tools and methods to become the person she always strived to be. Calm, collected, yet soft and gentle in the private of their own quarters. It was as if the awful things in her life had washed away, it was as if he had made the world right again.
"Demanding I answer you like I'm some– Some simple minded housewife!"
How did it change to be like this? Scorned and hurt, buried under regret and lies.
"Amelia–"
"You don't understand that you will never completely be in control of me."
His hand comes up to his forehead, rubbing at it in annoyance. Teeth grinding against one another, before he lets out a frustrated sigh. Looking back at her once more, he gestures as he steps forward towards her once more. "Amelia for God's sake–"
Amelia steps back, "Get away from me, Dallas! I mean it!"
At her display, it only brings anger to his face. Gravel in his tone as he speaks, "Why the fuck are you pulling away from me?! I'm here to protect you."
He had protected her, but for all the wrong reasons it seemed. The protection was nothing but a lie, to keep her tucked close to him for an unknown purpose. Dallas didn't protect her because he loved her, he protected her because he needed her to be naive.
"You've never acted like this towards me. Not even in the slightest."
She wanted to cry, but she knew she couldn't do it in front of him. It would show he made her vulnerable, he could flip the tables to make her fall in his arms once more. Amelia didn't want that, she couldn't have that no matter how much she loved him. No matter how many wonderful memories they shared, they were never real.
None of it was real.
Amelia steps forward, finally meeting her former lover face to face with the matched intensity. Anger to wrath, fear to discontent– Anything that could bring him to understand that she was not going to fall at the rise of his voice.
"Protect me? You've become erratic and unpredictable as the weeks go by." She starts, arms moving quickly in gesture to him. "How could I ever let someone protect me when I don't even trust them fully?!"
Her words seem to hit a nerve, as Dallas pushes a hand against his chest as he speaks with venom in his tone. "I'm supposed to be here to protect you Amelia, me!"
Those words ring in her ears, and for a moment have her freezing once more in her tracks. The same words she had heard so long ago from a man he had sworn to protect her from. That man who now roamed free under the shades of darkness. A man who he now was possibly working with against her.
He sounded exactly like Jake Aaron Parker.
That truly, broke her heart more than anything else.
More than the betrayal, more than the heart ache and deceit. The mere tone of his voice sounding as if it reflected a distant past, was the worst thing to happen yet. Amelia's fear turned into sorrow, eyebrows angling over her eyes, pure dismay on her facial features. Shaking turned into tremors holding back tears of regret, of disappointment.
Not in him, but in herself yet again. Dallas had become just like every other man who had tried to bring her to her knees. Doing everything in his power to coax the dream she had longed for since she was a little girl, only to snuff its flame as soon as the benefit was done.
Amelia wasn't going to let him see her cry, not one tear would fall from her eyes in his gaze. Instead her face turns back to ice, emotionless as she grabs onto the handle of her car. Yanking it open, she tosses her back into the passenger seat. Once saddened eyes now devoid of any emotion– That vulnerability was gone.
Sternly, she places her keys into her pocket. Taking a moment to look at him, perhaps as if it was the final time their eyes would meet. With the sparkle still in his gaze, the sweeping of his own angelic eyelashes turned into horror. Amelia never wanted to look into his cunning eyes ever again, no matter what she could do to help it.
She stands tall, albeit looking too proud for the situation at hand. Yet she takes longer to take him in, and he seems to do the same. A lingering silence between the two, something that was once comforting. Now the love had gone stale.
"I thought so too, but I don't need a man to protect me."
With those venomous words, she gets into her car. Shutting the door with force behind her, putting the keys in the ignition, beginning to drive off. Pulling out as she sees the man she once loved staring at her with a void look in his eyes. Never moving, always trancing on her as the vehicle pulled away from the spoke they stood with one another.