Trigger warning: mentions of r*pe/s*xual assault.
Rowan patiently waited for time to pass by and tried busying himself with the work he had to finish. By the time he was done, it was already well after ten p.m. and he was exhausted. Sighing and trying to gather himself to talk to Sera with a clear mind, he sent her a text asking if she was still awake and if it was still okay for him to come. While waiting for her reply, the door to his office opened and Jamie came in smiling like an idiot.
"I don't have the energy nor the time to deal with your bullshit." Rowan found himself saying as he got up from his chair, putting on his jacket. The words spilled like venom from his lips, like they usually did whenever he was frustrated. He hated to admit it but the way Sera's attitude shifted toward him made his chest tighten in pain. The sweet and bubbly girl was gone leaving in her place a stubborn and feisty one. She doesn't look at him with a light in her eyes anymore, they turn sharp and angry whenever she looks at him, and it was all his fault.
"I didn't even say anything." Jamie defended, "Yet." He added after a moment, a smirk adorning his lips.
"What happened with your girl?" He continued. Jamie asked the question and busied himself with the pen holder on Rowan's desk right after as if he was actually interested in inspecting it. Feigning nonchalance was truly one of Jamie's many favorite talents.
Rowan resisted the urge to roll his eyes and shrugged, grabbing his phone and keys. Rowan's favorite way to deal with annoying people is to act as if he is in a hurry, it gives him the perfect excuse to avoid conversations he doesn't want to have. He couldn't bring himself to care that Jamie had already busted his little tricks.
"I'm going to see her right now." He patted Jamie on the back as he passed him on the way out, avoiding talking about anything that concerned her private life. His fake girlfriend and her family problems were no one's concern but his.
Rowan could hear Jamie talking loudly from behind him but he was already out of earshot, so he couldn't tell what he was saying. He sighed again and drove to the address Sera had sent him a minute ago.
❁
She was about to vomit from how nervous she was. Sera paced around her living room, running her hands in her hair a couple of times. She knew that she was okay with telling him, but now that Rowan was on his way, it felt too real. She hasn't spoken about this to anyone, no one knows except her family, and the idea of telling someone else, Rowan especially, terrified her. Her mind wandered to such dark and negative places, expecting the worst reactions from him, expecting him to change how he viewed her completely.
Sera halted her steps and stood in the middle of the living room, zoning out completely after she thought she allowed her mind to think of the absolute worst, the thing she was afraid of most but kept denying; What if Rowan doesn't believe her just like her family didn't?
Her eyes stung with unshed tears and she squeezed them shut just as the doorbell rang. She took a deep breath and went to open the door. The moment she did, she came face-to-face with his hard chest. Even after all the times she had seen him, she still stood flabbergasted at his size and height. She bent her neck to look at his face and was met with his usual scowl.
"Hi." She whispered.
"Hey." It seems he isn't in the best mood.
Regardless, she opened the door wider for him to come in without saying a word.
They sat in her living room and she felt the tension in the atmosphere instantly.
Oh God, this is going to be bad.
"Do you want something to drink?" She attempted to lighten up the mood, but Rowan's intense stare at her face remained the same.
"I have beer..." She trailed off, suddenly nervous from his presence in her small apartment, her space, and from his gaze.
"I thought you didn't drink." His deep voice in the small space slightly surprised her, causing her to be fully aware of his existence right here, at this moment. It didn't feel real.
"I normally buy some for when Wes comes over, but I think Tristan and Elena also left behind a bottle of wine." She went to the kitchen to check in the middle of speaking, trying to run away from his intensity.
When she looked back at him from behind the kitchen counter, he was looking at the coffee table, more like staring daggers at it, his jaw clenched. When her voice came again, small and soft, he seemed to bring himself back into the moment, leaning back on the couch, one hand on his right thigh casually. "Or maybe water..."
"I don't feel like drinking anything right now, Sera. Come sit." He said without looking at her.
I'm sat.
No, Sera.
"Okay." Why was she feeling shy all of a sudden, she didn't know. She walked over to where he was like a small scared kitten and bent her legs under her as she sat next to him. His gaze turned to her and she looked away immediately, unable to handle it.
"I'm listening." He said.
Her nails were fascinating suddenly.
"Sera, if you're uncomfortable-.."
"No, no." She had to do this.
"Okay." She exhaled loudly, fixed her hair out of habit when she was nervous, and fixed her stare to the floor. She knew she couldn't speak if he kept looking at her like that.
"I'm sure you know who my father is. He's a very well-known businessman and he often made business deals with other well-known faces, even famous people. My sisters and I usually met some of his friends or partners on occasion, if he invited them to dinner or sometimes he would take us with him to events, to paint himself as a family man, you know how they think."
"He made a business deal with David Farro." She looked up at Rowan for the first time to see his reaction but there was none, his face blank. If he recognized the name, he didn't let it show.
"He was a sweet man, a bit younger than my dad but dad trusted him or made him think he did because of the investments they made together. David was a big name and dad was ready to do anything to ensure the deal was a success. He would invite him to dinners often, go out with him, trying to befriend him and build stronger ties. And so, David was involved in our lives a lot for a couple of months, he was at the house a lot. He uh..."
"He made everyone trust him. Myself included." A quick peek at Rowan from under her lashes again.
"He helped me a lot, he could see that I wasn't getting along with my father that well. He knew that that was my weakness and took it as an opportunity to get closer to me, under the guise of him helping me. I was eighteen and clueless, maybe naive. But he made me think he understood what I was going through, that his relationship with his father wasn't that good either, a bunch of crap to make me trust him. He became my friend. I was stupid enough to think that an eighteen-year-old girl and a forty-two-year-old man were capable of having a completely innocent friendship, I was convinced. My family noticed our closeness, but my father didn't say anything, he didn't care what happened as long as David trusted us and went on with the deal. That deal was all my dad ever thought about. Things evolved and David started inviting me to places, I would go." Hot tears burned her eyes and it was getting harder to speak as the lump in her throat grew bigger.
"My mother warned me once. I defended him. But then she started to encourage my friendship with him out of nowhere and looking back at it now, I know my father talked to her and told her to shut up, afraid of me ruining whatever trust he built with him. He was scared that if David felt that I no longer wanted to talk to him, David would be offended and call off the deal. So, he let a forty-two-year-old man brainwash his eighteen-year-old daughter." Small sobs left Sera's body as she started to hiccup with her gasps and tears. Rowan's hand touched her thigh but she flinched away, scared of her own memories. She was so immersed in the memory of David that her mind saw any touch as a threat. Rowan drew back immediately.
"Until one night," Another sob left her aching chest, "One night I was at his place and a-and..." Violent sobs tore through her chest and throat at the memory and the pain. Her hands came around herself in a protective stance, creating a comfort for herself that no one seemed to create for her back then. Events of that night were still fresh in her mind as if it were yesterday.
"Sera." His voice was sweet. Pained, and restrained but so painfully sweet and she suddenly felt guilty. Guilty that she threw this at him, that she involved him in her mess. Old thoughts of her being broken and damaged which she had hidden away and suppressed resurfaced again.
She sniffled and held herself tighter, she had to say it, he had to know. He probably wanted to ask but didn't know how.
"He went all the way despite my screams." Rowan was shaking in his seat, fury evident in his eyes but she couldn't bring herself to look longer. "My family didn't believe me. My father said David would do no such thing, and if anything had happened it would've happened with my consent since I've been throwing myself at him for so long. None of my family members said a thing, not my mom, or my sister Madison, or Elena. Too afraid of going against my father's word." Her voice was so low and so calm at this point, yet tears still silently streamed down her red and puffy face.
"The deal between them remained, and I left for college that Fall."