Chapter 196: Chapter 196: Dirty
Chapter 196: Dirty
The moment Liora lowered her head, System Theta reported it.
[System Theta: Host, Liora Voss found you.]
"Then she found me." Elias let out a soft laugh. "This is more exciting for her than seeing it straight on."
[System Theta: Uh...]
System Theta wanted to say that was not the point.
The point was whether Liora would tell Serena.
Then it processed the situation properly and went quiet.
Of course Liora would not tell Serena. She had once been the "second pair of legs" hiding in a room like this, caught in a scene she should never have watched. How could she betray Elias now without handing him the exact same knife to use on her later?
System Theta relaxed.
Good thing it had not asked that out loud.
Elias lifted his eyes again and looked at Yvonne with the same look of surrender, then lowered them almost at once. The movement was obedient enough to seem trained.
"You didn’t sell me out, Yvonne," he murmured. "How am I supposed to repay my benefactor?"
His voice stayed light, gentle, nearly harmless.
His hands were not harmless.
He was still touching the so-called Miracle Hands, stroking the backs of Yvonne’s fingers with slow, absentminded care. Every movement looked careless enough to deny and deliberate enough to provoke.
Yvonne said nothing.
She only watched him.
Outside the stall, Liora rose and turned toward the restroom door. She seemed ready to leave, but before she reached the exit, a muffled sound slipped out behind her.
It was soft.
Barely there.
In a restroom this clean and empty, even a breath could carry. That small, restrained sound carried too clearly, drawn out as if whoever made it knew exactly who might hear.
A little pain.
A little pleasure.
A little too much intention.
Liora paused.
Then the corner of her mouth lifted.
He was letting her hear it on purpose.
Was this his idea of a dessert before the main course?
Fine.
Then she should return the favor.
Liora stopped at the doorway instead of leaving. She took out her phone and looked past the open restroom entrance, toward the shadowed walkway outside.
Serena had not gone far.
She stood in the night air with her phone in hand, her back sharp under the campus lights. For a few seconds, she only stared at the screen.
Then, after a hesitation that looked almost painful from this distance, Serena unlocked it.
She was going to call Elias.
She had come to Westbridge for him. She had already lowered herself by showing up at his school. One phone call could not possibly be worse than that.
Before Serena could complete the call, something made her look up.
A figure stepped out from the darker edge of the walkway.
She had not fully entered the light yet, but Serena knew who it was before the shadows released her.
Silver hair had never been subtle.
Even under the dim outdoor lighting, Giselle Frost looked impossible to miss. Her hair caught what little light there was and held it, pale and bright, like a blade laid beneath moonlight.
Giselle saw Serena too.
She stopped.
The two women faced each other across the path, and the air between them tightened at once.
Compared to their last confrontation, Giselle was much calmer.
The last time, she had not only lost. She had been made to look weak. Serena had shattered the pride Giselle had carried for years, not with violence, not with a clean argument, but with possession.
Back then, Serena had owned Elias.
That had been the real difference.
Not power. Not money. Not composure. Not even victory.
Elias.
He had been the proof that Serena had won.
The realization left Giselle briefly unfocused.
At some point, a man had become the thing that decided the weight between her and Serena Blackwood.
If someone had told the old Giselle that, she would never have believed it.
Now she could not deny it.
She did not speak to Serena. She only gave her one cool glance and continued toward the restroom.
She had left the auditorium for Elias.
She had waited nearly twenty minutes. Elias had not come back. Serena had left the auditorium halfway through, and Giselle had no intention of sitting in her seat pretending not to understand what that meant.
Giselle’s indifference lit Serena’s anger at once.
Being ignored was one thing.
Being ignored by Giselle Frost was another.
Serena said nothing. Instead, she pressed the call button.
Once she brought Elias back, once he returned to her side, she would see how long Giselle could keep that frozen dignity.
Serena raised the phone to her ear.
She had already prepared what to say. She would coax his location out of him first, then find him before Giselle could.
The automated voice answered.
"The number you are calling is currently busy. Please try again later."
Serena’s fingers clenched around the phone.
For one sharp second, it looked as if she might crush the device in her hand.
Who?
Who was calling Elias right now?
At the restroom entrance, Liora hung up and called again.
Her smile stayed mild.
No outside interference should interrupt a performance once it had reached the stage.
Inside the stall, Elias finally separated from Yvonne. He leaned back against the partition and breathed through parted lips, his eyes bright and damp enough to make every glance look like a confession.
He looked down at Yvonne’s hand, the hand that had spent the last several minutes handling him with the same precision that had made her famous, and his mouth curved into a sulky pout.
"Why did you stop?"
Yvonne finally smiled.
It was the sort of smile she gave patients: clean, professional, and almost kind if a person did not know better.
Her lips parted.
"Dirty."
Elias narrowed his eyes slightly.
Dirty again?
The restroom was not the right place for any of this, true. Even a spotless campus restroom was still a restroom.
But with Yvonne’s expression, Elias did not believe for a second that she was talking only about the floor, the sink, or the air.
"Yeah," he said after a beat. "It did get dirty."
His gaze moved to the tie in Yvonne’s hand.
He took it from her with perfect ease, as if she had been holding it out for him all along. Then he tilted his head up and smiled.
"I’ll wash it and give it back."
Yvonne gave a small nod. "Mm."
She turned as if to unlock the stall and leave.
"Here."
The word stopped her.
Yvonne looked back.
Elias held the tie in both hands. Before she could respond, he lowered his head and slowly dragged the fabric across his tongue, careful and thorough, as if he were cleaning something precious. He did not rush. He did not miss the part Yvonne had used against him. He finished, closed his mouth, lifted his chin, and swallowed.
His lips were swollen. His eyes were clear.
"Still not clean enough?" he asked, with an innocence so polished it became another kind of provocation.
For once, Yvonne said nothing.
She took the tie from him.
The silk was faintly damp between her fingers, not dripping, not ruined, only wet in a way that made it impossible to forget exactly how it had become that way.
Her pulse shifted.
Her face did not.
Under Elias’s watching gaze, Yvonne lifted both hands and tied the damp silk back around her collar. Her fingers moved with the same flawless steadiness she used in an operating room. If she felt anything, not a trace of it reached her expression.
Elias studied the result and smiled.
"It looks good."
Yvonne opened the stall door and stepped out.
She crossed the restroom and was about to leave.
Then she stopped.
Liora stood at the entrance.
She lifted her head.
Their eyes met.
