It felt like him.
Tears burned her eyes.
So fucking long.
It lasted for a few seconds before he turned to his opponent again.
"Zee? What the hell are you doing here?"
The words made her eyes flutter shut for a second as reality crashed back on her. She'd hoped for a little more time before the confrontation. For all her outgoing, exuberant personality, confrontations were something she could never get herself to handle. She hated them. And whenever the need arose for one, she avoided them completely. This wasn't how she would've imagined it. She would've gone home and sent him a break-up text.
Now, there was a confrontation to be had and she had no interest in it, her entire attention on the man in the cage. Blowing out a breath, she slowly turned around to face the man she'd be making her ex in three seconds.
"We're done, Alec," she told him, taking in his very handsome profile. He was hot, there was no denying it, and he knew it too.
She saw his dark brows slash down as they did when he was about to mansplain something to her. "What do you mean?"
"Meaning you can go fuck yourself or fuck another girl like the one in the back. We're finished."
"Zee—"
She held her hand up. "Save it."
The crowd went wild at something happening in the cage, and Zephyr felt her emotions crash all over the place. She didn’t want to deal with Alec, but he knew he was caught and he couldn't talk himself out of it, which meant he was going to go on the offensive. In moments, a predictable sneer curled his lips, and Zephyr braced herself.
"It's too late, Zee," he reminded her, as though she needed it. "You’ll be twenty-nine in a month, and your grandmother’s fund will be frozen out if you don’t marry me. I was going to propose to you on your birthday. One fuck isn't worth all that."
Her throat tightened even as rage infused her veins. Yes, her grandmother’s fund. Her lovely grandmother had never married and regretted it her entire life, so she'd made sure that her granddaughter wouldn’t make the same mistake and find herself a life partner. She'd left some old family heirlooms with a clause that Zephyr had to be married by her twenty-ninth birthday to access them.
Now, Zephyr was pretty non-mercenary and didn’t care enough for the money to get married. But the family heirlooms had been in her father's line for over five generations, and the sneaky old lady had known her mother would rather get her married at gunpoint than let something so valuable to their heritage go to charity. Alec had been a catch. She was a middle-class girl, and he was a good-looking man, came from money, and had influence in the city. She loved her parents and they loved her, and she couldn't deny that seeing Alec's profile had made them feel more satisfied with their relationship. Eventual access to her grandmother’s fund was a side benefit. It was probably the only reason she’d considered settling down with him.
"And let's face it, Zee," Alec continued with a soft, almost placating smile that would've looked good had she not wanted to punch it off his face, "you won't get a better offer. You're not a beauty like your sister. Finding a rich, powerful husband like me is a rare opportunity for you."
The audacity of this man truly galled her. Forget asking for forgiveness, there wasn't an ounce of remorse or shame on his face. And like a true narcissist, he'd turned it around on her and her so-called inadequacy, and tried to make her feel insecure by her own sister. That was possibly the stupidest thing he'd tried to do. Her sister was her best friend, her outside beauty not even half of her inside. She loved Zen and was proud of her every damn day. Trying to drive a wedge between them was idiotic.
A loud bell rang from the back and she turned to see the fight end, the beast clearly the winner as he walked to a corner of the room to talk to some bald guy. She looked at his back, marred and tangled with scars, and wondered what had happened to him.
Turning to face her ex for one last time, she stepped closer and patted his chest.
"We’re done, Alec," she declared as the crowd slowly headed to the opposite side of the room. "I’d marry anyone but you."
He chuckled. "You're crazy."
Zephyr smiled. Finally, something he'd said right. "I am. I was also the best you had. Now go fuck everyone you want now. I know I will."
Before he could say another word, she turned on her heel, her target locked on a massive back now covered in a black t-shirt, the fabric stretched tautly across it. As she cut through the crowd, she knew Alec was watching her, and as she headed in the direction she was heading in, she could feel the eyes of the others fall upon her.
And none of it mattered, because if this was him, if she’d found him after ten years…
She had to know. She needed to know. Fuck everyone else.
She was almost three feet from the beast and the guy he was speaking with when she saw the muscles in his back stiffen, his neck turning to sear her with one golden eye.
Liquid, molten gold.
Gold that had once seared her veins.
Him.