Chapter 58: Love or Lust?

Chapter 58: Chapter 58: Love or Lust?

Garrett stayed on the couch long after the door had closed, staring at it like it might eventually offer some kind of explanation.

It didn’t.

He replayed the last few minutes slowly, piece by piece, trying to find the exact moment things had gone wrong. Had he moved too fast? He didn’t think so. It hadn’t felt rushed, not from where he’d been sitting. It had felt like the natural end of everything the evening had been building toward.

Had he misread her? That thought sat worse than the others, turning over slowly in his head. Except the more he tried to make that fit, the less it actually did.

She’d spent the entire evening closing the distance between them. Chosen the seat beside him. Stayed there under the same blanket instead of pulling back. Told him outright that she liked being close to him, no hesitation in it when she’d said it. She hadn’t pulled away once, not through any of it, not until the exact second he’d actually leaned in.

So why had she run?

He sat with the question, turning it over from every angle he could think of, and none of them landed anywhere solid. It didn’t add up, not cleanly, not in a way that let him settle on an actual answer.

Then his phone buzzed once against the couch cushion.

Garrett glanced down at it, already expecting nothing important, and froze.

[MINOR OBJECTIVE COMPLETED.]

[OBJECTIVE: ESTABLISH A GENUINE ROMANTIC CONNECTION WITH ANOTHER LADY WITHOUT LOSING EMILIANA.]

[COMPLETION REWARD: £75,000]

He stared at the screen, reading it twice, then a third time, waiting for it to make more sense the longer he looked at it.

£75,000.

Any other night, that number alone would have held his full attention for a good while. Tonight, it barely registered past the first read.

What actually stopped him cold was the completion itself.

If Freya had just bolted out of his apartment, visibly overwhelmed, unable to look at him on the way out, how had the system decided the objective was finished? Completed suggested something resolved, something settled. Nothing about the last five minutes had felt resolved.

’Unless it’s not judging what I think it’s judging.’

He turned that over slowly, uneasy with how little he actually understood about what the system counted as genuine, or where exactly that judgment came from. He couldn’t see behind the notification, couldn’t ask it to clarify, couldn’t do anything except sit here with a completed objective and an evening that had ended with her running out the door.

That mismatch bothered him more than the money did. More than anything else about the whole night, if he was honest with himself.

He was still staring at the screen, no closer to an answer, when a knock came at the door.

Knock!

Garrett’s head came up.

He wasn’t expecting anyone. Definitely wasn’t expecting Freya, not after the way she’d left, not this soon.

He set the phone down slowly and got up, crossing the apartment in a few careful steps, and pulled the door open.

Freya stood there.

Garrett stood there for a second, genuinely thrown, taking in the sight of her standing in the corridor when he’d fully expected the apartment to stay empty for the rest of the night.

"Freya."

"Can I come in?"

He stepped aside without answering, and she moved past him, arms wrapped loosely around herself. She still looked rattled from earlier, but this time she wasn’t heading for the door.

She stopped near the middle of the room.

Garrett closed the door behind her.

For a moment, neither of them said anything.

The apartment felt different than it had twenty minutes ago, the easy warmth from earlier replaced by something more careful. Both of them were aware of exactly what had happened, neither quite sure how to address it.

Freya was the one who finally broke the silence.

"Do you actually like me?"

Garrett held her gaze, waiting.

"Not because you think I’m attractive. Not because you were having a good time tonight." Her voice stayed steady, though he could hear the effort behind it. "I mean actually. Genuinely. Or did you just get caught up in the moment back there?"

He took a second before answering.

"I like you," he said finally. "Not just tonight. I like spending time with you. Talking to you. Having you around." He held her gaze steadily. "I’m attracted to you too. I’m not going to pretend that’s not part of it. But it isn’t the reason I’ve been doing any of this."

Freya’s arms tightened slightly around herself.

"So you weren’t just... lusting after me?"

Garrett didn’t flinch from the question.

"I wanted to kiss you," he said. "That’s true. I’m not going to sit here and pretend I didn’t want that, because I did." He paused. "But that’s not all this is. If it was, I wouldn’t have cared this much about figuring out what I did wrong the second you left."

Something in her posture eased.

"I probably moved too fast," Garrett added. "I know that now. Should’ve read it slower."

Freya was quiet for a moment, processing that.

Then her arms finally unfolded, some of the guardedness leaving her expression.

"Okay," she said softly.

"Okay?"

"That’s..." She let out a breath that sounded almost relieved. "That’s what I needed to hear."

Garrett studied her.

He still didn’t completely understand what had happened earlier, but at least one thing was becoming clear.

Whatever had sent her running hadn’t been because she didn’t want him around.

She’d come back because there was something she needed to know.

And now she’d gotten her answer.

The relief in Freya’s expression didn’t last long.

Her gaze drifted past him for a moment, as though she were gathering the courage to ask something she’d been holding back. When she looked at him again, the ease from earlier had disappeared.

"What about Emiliana?"

Garrett went still.

He’d known the question would come eventually. He just hadn’t expected it tonight, especially after everything that had already happened.

"I’ve seen you with her," Freya continued, her voice careful. "More than once. I know there’s something between you two, so I need to know."

She held his gaze.

"Do you like her? Why do you spend time with her? And where does that leave me?"

Garrett didn’t answer immediately.

Not because he wanted to avoid the question, but because he didn’t have a simple answer. Whatever he said now would matter, and he wasn’t going to give her something convenient just to make the conversation easier.

"Emiliana matters to me," he said finally. "I’m not going to pretend she doesn’t. What’s going on between us is complicated. More complicated than I know how to explain right now."

Freya’s expression remained steady, but her eyes sharpened slightly.

"Complicated how?"

"I don’t have a simple answer for that either."

"That’s not very reassuring."

"I know."

She crossed her arms again, watching him carefully.

"I’m not asking because I want details," she said. "I don’t care about gossip. I’m asking because I need to know what I’m walking into. If you really like me while you’re still involved with her, then I need to understand what that means."

Garrett met her eyes.

"I don’t know what it means yet," he admitted. "I’m still figuring that out myself."

The answer clearly wasn’t what Freya had hoped to hear. Her jaw tightened slightly before she looked away.

For a few seconds, neither of them spoke.

The apartment fell quiet around them.

Freya had come back because she needed to know whether Garrett’s feelings for her were genuine. He’d answered that question honestly.

But her second question was harder.

Emiliana was still part of his life, and neither of them could pretend otherwise.

Garrett didn’t have an answer that would make the situation easier. He wasn’t even sure one existed yet.

Freya seemed to understand that.

She stood across from him, waiting, while the question neither of them could resolve remained between them.

What about Emiliana?