The silence stretched endlessly with no end in sight as Ethan's Clarke stared back at me with mere inches separating us.
I couldn't breathe, my entire body tensed and in a state of shock.
The first thing that I noticed was how close he was, close enough that he was already intruding into my personal space.
The next thing I noticed was the face that he had flawless skin that would have dermatologists fighting to know his skin care routine.
Then I noticed how beautiful his eyes were, a stormy grey that sometimes we're dark with anger and sometimes light whenever he was amused or happy.
Of course I hadn't seen him happy that many times, usually it was when he was making fun of me or when he was cornering me like cat that had found its prey.
Once again, I admired how handsome he was. He had a chiseled jawline and eyes that drew you in like months to a flame. His lips were full and his and his face was perfectly symmetrical, one that usually graced the covers of magazines or the huge screen.
Compared to Finn, it was like comparing a lead actor to an extra, Finn being the extra of course.
I swallowed hard, wetting my lips with my tongue as I suddenly felt thirsty. I regretted it as soon as Ethan Clarke's eyes darted to my lips and stared at them.
My face instantly heated up as I moved back an inch, trying to put some space between us.
I didn't know what to do or what to say. The tension that had settled into the kitchen because of the incredulity of the situation was stiffling to the point that I wished I had opted to go to bed on an empty stomach.
After a couple of seconds, Ethan Clarke's eyes moved from my lips to my face, I felt my face redden even more.
Then he laughed.
A loud, boisterous laugh echoed in the kitchen.
After a couple of seconds of confusion passed, I, without thinking of the repercussions said, "You're drunk."
Ethan's chuckles slowed before it dwindled into nonexistence. Then slowly as if he was watching to see my reaction, he reached up, his hand moving to the short distance between us before he touched my cheeks.
Then he smirked. "And you're blushing."
I turned my head slightly to the right, his hand dropped away.
"Now, now," Ethan Clarke began, "Don't stop now just because I caught you. Keep going. I'm having fun."
I faced him again, brows furrowed together. "You're drunk," I said once again, the stench of the alcohol he'd been consuming now filled the entire kitchen.
"Back to stating the obvious, now are we?" He smiled at me as he got up to his full height and reached up to loosen his neck tie further. He huffed as he untied the tie and left it hanging around his neck. "What? Am I not allowed to drink anymore?"
I sighed, knowing that the last thing I wanted to deal with today was a drunk Ethan Clarke. He was annoying when he was sober, when he was drunk, he was just insufferable.
"I didn't say that," I said with the tone that I usually said to the callers when they called in. It was usually supposed to be comforting, and professional. Sometimes, it just sounded like you were talking to a kid that your were reprimanding. "What you do in your personal life doesn't conserve me at all, Mr Clarke. I was just worried that you might do something you'll regret tomorrow."
He watched me with an arched brow as amusement crossed his face. Then he walked to the cabinet by the door that led to the wine cellar, opened it and pulled out a bottle of rum before he walked back and sat down at the counter, facing me.
He poured himself a glass before he downed it, his eyes fixed on mine the entire time. "So you won't mind if I just stay here the whole night, drinking this entire bottle?"
I looked at the almost full bottle of rum and knew that given how intoxicated he already was, it could almost be dangerous if he planned on finishing that.
I looked at him once more, he studied me with a smirk that almost looked daring. Feeling like he was cornering me, I shrugged, "Like I said, what you do with your personal life doesn't concern me."
Ethan Clarke let out a low chuckle before he nodded and poured himself another glass before downing it in the next second.
No matter how much he annoyed me, I felt a wave of concern rush through me.
Was he really planning on finishing the entire bottle? What exactly made him behave this way? A failed business deal? A financial loss? Or maybe even a broken heart?
"Leave then," he said, his voice demanding and at the same time broken.
"What?"
He looked at me with a look of frustration. "Didn't you say you don't care? Why are you still here?"
I shrugged, not knowing why I didn't take his direction and leave him.
Was it because I knew that as a human being, I shouldn't leave something clearly distressed alone at a time like this? Was it because I knew that if I left, it could almost be dangerous for him?
I walked over to him and sat down on the bar stool two away from him.
His brows hooded over his eyes as he stared at me. "What are you doing?"
With a look of confidence, I reached over and grabbed my plate of forgotten steak. "Having my dinner. You interrupted me while I was having my dinner. I'm just finishing it up."
He kept watching me as I sliced into the steak, forked the piece and ate it.
"Stop staring down much. You'll burn a hole through me."
"Why are you doing this?" he asked.
"What are you talking about? I already said I'm eating my dinner."
After a couple of seconds of silence, Ethan Clarke nodded slowly before he poured himself another shot and downed it.
We settled into a tense silence, the sound of fork and knife cutting into the steak and rum being poured the only thing that could be heard.
I wasn't really one for silence. "What happened today? Business deal fell through?"
For a couple of minutes, it didn't seem like Ethan Clarke had heard me because he kept staring at the rum in front of him, but after awhile, he spoke. "Didn't you say that you weren't interested in my personal life?"
I shrugged. "It clearly looks like you need someone to talk to right now. And I'm not really the type to like unending silence." I cut into the steak again before I placed the knife and fork on the plate. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to."
Again, he didn't say a word. A coupe of minutes passed before he finally spoke again. "I ran into someone today that I didn't want to see. That's all."
"An ex?"
His eyes tore off of the bottle of rum and fixated on me. "Why do you assume it's an ex?"
"Because you look like a drunk that's been run over and bathed in a vat of liquor, you tell me."
He chuckled lightly as he played with the shot glass. "I do smell like a liquor store, don't I?"
I shrugged at him.
"For your information, you guessed wrong. It wasn't an ex. It was a close friend." He chuckled dryly. "He once was at least."
I nodded slowly, sensing there was more to the story that I didn't know or understand.
He downed another shot of rum.
I finished up my steak soon after. Then I got up and washed my plate. The entire time, I felt Ethan Clarke's eyes burning into the back of my head, but I acted as normally as I could.
After a couple of minutes, I wiped up and turned around.
Ethan Clarke stared at me with an unreadable expression.
"I never got to ask," he began, "why did you move to New York?"
My mind gaped open slightly, not expecting him to ask that question, before I started going through my answer.
I knew I couldn't exactly tell him the truth about Finn and I and what had happened so I opted for a textbook answer.
"I wanted to start a new life and experience the Big Apple."
He poured himself another glass but he didn't down it straight away. "And being a maid was the answer to that?"
I bit my lower lip before I shrugged. "I didn't expect to become a maid," I replied. "It just happened. I consider it a pit stop on the way to my dream, I guess."
"And what is your dream?"
For a couple of minutes, I just stared at him with incredulity and suspicion. He actually looked like he was curious to know but at the same time, I held this apprehension towards him because he was Ethan Clarke.
After concluding there wasn't any real harm in answering, I replied, "A manager."
"A manager? That's your dream?"
"What's wrong with it?" My voice filled with veiled anger.
"Nothing," he studied the bottle of rum again, tracing it with his fingers. "I just didn't take you as someone who did management?"
I arched a brow at him, my arms crossing together against my chest. "And what do I seen like? A maid?"
He shrugged. "I don't know," he said after a couple of minutes.
"Don't you think you should stop now?" I asked when I saw he was about to pour himself another glass.
"I thought you sai-
"You think I can afford to not care about your personal dealings right now when you're drinking yourself to death right in front of me right now?" I snapped.
He watched me, shock on his face at my outburst. After a couple of seconds, he spoke. "I'm not going to die from this."
"I'll take you to Building X," I said with finality in my voice.
Surprisingly, he corked the bottle again and nodded.
"Do you mind at least trying to carry your own weight?" I said a couple of minutes later as we made our way towards Building X.
I didn't fail to notice the irony of the situation. Almost a week ago, I was doing the same thing, lugging his unconscious body and here I was helping Ethan Clarke back to his house.
"I am," he said.
I sighed, knowing that he was leaning against me, his weight pushing me down.
After a couple minutes of us arguing, we entered Building X.
"You're the first woman to ever enter my room," he said as we entered his room. "You should feel honoured."
I rolled my eyes even though I knew he couldn't see me. "How about Diana then?"
He leaned down, his hot breath kissed my ears before he whispered almost conspiratorially, "She doesn't count."
I pushed down the urge to jump away. "Here you go," I said loudly enough to pull me away from how weird that had been.
He sat down on the bed, looking like he would faint as soon as his head touched the pillows.
"Do you need me to bring you something? Water?
"Yes please," he replied.
I stumbled back a bit. That was the first time he said please to me. I headed to the kitchen and grabbed water before I brought it back to him.
Ethan Clarke downed it in our gulp.
I took the cup and placed it on the table. "Now get some rest."
He nodded before he leaned back and layed down on the bed. He closed his eyes a second layer and I took that as my cue to exit.
I reached over to turn off the lights before his fingers closed around it and stopped me.
"Don't," he said, his eyes closed. "I don't like the lights off when I sleep."
"Okay," I said pulling my hand back. He doesn't let go and I stare at him for a second. "Let go."
He opened his eyes then and stare directly at me. "Don't leave me," he said, leaving me speechless.
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