Lunch was somewhere small and tucked away—a quiet bistro with sun-drenched windows and a lemon tree growing in the back courtyard. Sienna picked it because it was close, calm, and completely un-Cassian. No flashy skyline view. No twelve-page wine list. Just pasta, lemonade, and a faint smell of rosemary in the air.
They sat across from each other at a patio table, the umbrella casting lazy shadows across the tablecloth. Cassian removed his sunglasses, setting them aside, and stretched his legs out.
"Do people bow to you now?" Sienna asked, twirling a fork in her pasta. "Like, in reverence?"
He gave her a look. "It's a spiritual haircut."
"It's a cue ball, Hayes."
"I'm ignoring you."
She grinned, biting into a piece of garlic bread.
He looked different now.
Not just because of the shaved head—which, against all odds, actually suited him. It made his cheekbones sharper, his jaw more defined, his eyes more striking. Without the usual tousled mess of dark hair to soften him, he looked… serious. Sleek. Like a man who had been peeled down to the most essential version of himself.
And God help her, he still looked good.
Ridiculously good.
The plain black shirt he wore fit him too well. He'd rolled the sleeves up to his forearms, showing the veiny stretch of skin she'd once claimed didn't affect her at all. (It did.)
The sun hit him just right through the slats of the umbrella above, catching the faint sheen of bronze still clinging to his skin from the temple courtyard. He looked like someone who had gone off into the woods to seek clarity and somehow returned hotter.
It was infuriating.
And unfair.
Especially because he was sitting across from her like he hadn't just shattered her carefully constructed composure the night of that kiss.
She reminded herself, again, to forget it all. The kiss. The softness in his voice. The way he looked at her like she was more than just the woman who ran his schedule.
She couldn't afford to carry that look with her.
Not when everything about him screamed danger to her carefully built world.
Not when forgetting was the only way she could keep her sanity. stretched and the wine in her glass lowered, so did the laughter.
Now that the adrenaline had worn off. Now that she wasn't actively holding the company together with paperclips and fury.
Now that he was sitting right there.
She felt it.
The tension.
The silence between the jokes.
Because one second she was looking at him—really looking—watching the way his lips curled when he smiled, the way his eyes softened in the shade. Her heart had betrayed her, skipped a beat, filled with something dangerously close to longing. She wanted to reach out. Wanted to believe in the moment.
And then she remembered.
He had left.
No word. No warning.
Left her to pick up the pieces while he sought peace in a temple, like she hadn't been breaking apart in an office held together by her bare hands and late nights.
The warmth in her chest soured into frustration. Her face didn't show it, but the storm behind her eyes brewed stronger.
It was complicated. He was complicated. And worst of all, her feelings were no longer just about his hands, or his voice, or the way he touched her.
They were about him.
She looked up. "Why did you go AWOL?"
Cassian paused, mouth half-open around a bite of lasagna. He set his fork down slowly.
"I was thinking."
Sienna didn't press.
She knew what he meant.
She knew what he'd been thinking about.
And it made her chest tight, her throat itch.
She focused on her plate instead.
He waited a moment. "You're not going to ask me?"
"Nope." She popped a tomato into her mouth. "Not my business."
He tilted his head, amused. "Everything is your business. You once told the CFO his pie chart offended you."
"That chart was a war crime."
"Still. You're avoiding it."
She gave him a too-bright smile. "Did I tell you Camille texted me? Her boyfriend made her dinner. She cried. It was apparently 'too romantic.'"
Cassian leaned back, watching her.
She went on, babbling about her sisters, MAeve's future dog plans, about Luis's suspicious tea drawer, about how she was considering switching to decaf even though they both knew she never would.
He let her talk.
Didn't push.
Just smiled that small, knowing smile like he saw every wall she was frantically trying to build.
And when the check came, he didn't say anything.
Because they both knew.
She wasn't ready.
And he wasn't going to force her to be.
Not yet.