Innocent cravings

Chapter 22 – Tangled Hearts

Alice's POV

The words wouldn't leave me.

They clung to me like a shadow as I walked through the halls the next morning, heavy and suffocating.

"Brian invited me to dinner. My fiancé."

Clarissa's smirk replayed in my mind over and over again, like a taunt carved into my chest. I'd told myself not to take her seriously, not to let her venom seep into me. But no matter how much I tried, doubt crept in, threading itself around my thoughts until every memory of Brian twisted into something uncertain.

The kiss.

It should have been enough. The warmth of his lips, the steadiness of his hands, the way he looked at me like I was the only person in the world. That moment should have been all the proof I needed. But Clarissa's voice was louder now, drowning it out.

It was just infatuation. He's back to his senses.

I pressed my books tighter against my chest, trying to breathe as students rushed past me. The school buzzed with noise, but all I felt was the hollow ache of confusion.

Sophie's arm looped around mine suddenly, jolting me from my thoughts. "Okay, you've been walking like a zombie since first period. Spill it."

"I'm fine," I muttered, forcing a small smile that even I didn't believe.

Sophie gave me a look that said she wasn't buying it for a second. "You're not fine. You've got that 'I'm carrying the world's drama on my back but I'll pretend I'm okay' face. Which, by the way, is not cute."

I laughed weakly, the sound brittle. "You're ridiculous."

"True," she admitted. "But I'm also right. Come on, talk to me. Is it about him?"

The way she said him made my chest tighten. I didn't answer. I couldn't.

Sophie sighed, tugging me toward an empty corner near the vending machines. "Alice, if you don't start talking, I'll assume you're secretly planning to drop out and join a circus. Just tell me what's going on."

Her attempt at humor cracked something in me. I sank onto the bench, lowering my gaze to the floor. My fingers twisted at the hem of my sleeve.

"Clarissa," I whispered finally.

Sophie groaned. "Of course it's Clarissa. What did she do this time? Swear she invented oxygen?"

Despite myself, a small laugh slipped out, but it faded quickly. "She... she told me that Brian invited her to dinner. That he's her fiancé. That... whatever I thought was happening between us was just..." My voice broke, and I swallowed hard. "Just infatuation."

Sophie's eyes widened, her jaw tightening. "That snake."

I bit my lip, shame burning through me. "What if she's right, Sophie? What if I was just... temporary?"

She knelt in front of me, grabbing my hands. "Listen to me. Clarissa lies. It's what she does. She feeds on making people miserable. And Brian? He doesn't look at you like you're temporary. He looks at you like you're," She stopped, her eyes softening. "Like you're everything."

Her words should have comforted me, but the knot in my chest only grew tighter. "Then why would he invite her to dinner?"

Sophie hesitated, her brows furrowing. "Maybe there's another reason. Maybe he wants to end it. Did you think of that?"

My heart stuttered at the thought, hope flickering for a split second, before Clarissa's smug smile returned in my mind. "But she sounded so sure, Sophie. Like... like she'd already won."

"Clarissa always sounds sure. That doesn't make it true."

I wanted to believe her. I wanted to grab onto Sophie's certainty and let it drown out the doubt clawing at me. But fear had its claws in deep.

The rest of the day dragged on, every class blurring together. Whenever I caught a glimpse of Brian across campus, my body froze. Once, he even looked like he was heading toward me, his gaze locked on mine.

My pulse skyrocketed, and before I could stop myself, I ducked into the nearest hallway, pressing my back against the cold lockers. My chest heaved as I listened to his footsteps fade away.

Coward.

But I couldn't face him. Not when Clarissa's words still echoed in my head. Not when I was terrified of finding out she might be right.

By the time Sophie dropped me home that evening, my heart felt heavier than it had in days. She kept the radio on, singing obnoxiously loud to make me laugh, and I tried, God, I tried but the ache wouldn't leave.

When she parked in front of my house, she turned serious again. "Promise me something."

"What?" I murmured.

"Don't let Clarissa get into your head. Talk to him. Hear it from him, not her."

I forced a smile, but I couldn't make the promise. Not yet.

Inside my room, I curled up on my bed, staring at my silent phone. His name was there in my messages, waiting. All I had to do was reach out.

But my fingers hovered, trembling, before I pulled the blanket over my head instead.

Avoiding him felt safer. Even if it broke me a little more each day.

The next few days felt like walking through a fog.

Brian was everywhere, and yet I kept running from him. In the diner I pretended to be busy so we wouldn't be alone.

But the harder I tried to avoid him, the more aware I became of him. Every laugh, every time I stare into space thinking of him, every glance I caught from the corner of my eye, it was like my body had been trained to notice him, even when my mind screamed at me to stop.

Sophie, of course, noticed everything.

"You're avoiding him," she said bluntly on Thursday, plopping her tray down across from me at lunch.

I nearly choked on my water. "What? No, I'm not."

Her eyebrows shot up so high they nearly touched her hairline. "You just made a U-turn down an entire hallway to escape eye contact. That's not 'no.' That's the Olympic level of avoidance."

I stabbed my fork into my salad, refusing to look at her. "I just... I don't feel like talking to him right now."

"Uh-huh. And pigs fly," Sophie muttered, leaning forward. "Alice, you can't keep doing this. It's not healthy. If you have questions, if you have doubts, then you need answers. From him. Not Clarissa."

Her words hit hard because I knew she was right. But the fear inside me was louder. "What if Clarissa's telling the truth? What if he really wants to be with her? I don't think I can handle hearing it from him."

Sophie softened, her voice gentler. "And what if she's lying? What if this is all part of her game to keep you running? Then you're just letting her win."

My chest tightened. "I'm not strong like you, Sophie."

She reached across the table, squeezing my hand. "You're stronger than you think. You've been surviving so much for so long, Alice. Don't let her convince you otherwise."

Her words warmed me, but I couldn't shake the ache in my chest.

That night, after my shift at the diner, I collapsed onto my bed with exhaustion clinging to my bones. My phone lit up on the nightstand. For a moment, I thought it was Sophie texting me, but it wasn't.

It was Brian.

Can we talk?

Three words. Simple. Yet they sent my heart into a frenzy. My fingers hovered over the screen, trembling with the urge to reply. To say yes. To let him in.

But Clarissa's voice hissed in my head. Fiancé. Infatuation. Back to his senses.

Tears blurred my vision as I set the phone facedown, burying it under my pillow. I couldn't do it. Not tonight.

Instead, I curled up, clutching the small stuffed bear Sophie had won for me at the arcade. The soft fur soaked up my tears as the silence pressed in, heavy and suffocating.

I hated this. I hated the fear, the confusion, the way my heart longed for him even while my mind screamed at me to stay away.

For the first time in a long time, I wished I could just be like Sophie, loud, fearless, unshaken by the world. But I wasn't. I was me. And right now, being me felt unbearably small.

When I finally drifted into sleep, my dreams betrayed me.

Brian's eyes, his voice, his touch, they haunted me, sweet and cruel all at once.

And when 

I woke the next morning, the ache was still there.

Worse than ever.

Chapter 23 –The Intermediary part one

Brian

The week had been hell.

Not the kind of hell built on fire and brimstone, but the quiet, gnawing kind where every thought clawed at the edges of my sanity. Alice was avoiding me. Not in the subtle, playful way that hinted at shyness, but in the deliberate, gut-wrenching way of someone who had been convinced she needed to cut me off.

And I knew exactly who had driven her to that conclusion, Clarissa.

The night I ended things with her should have been the closing of a chapter. Instead, it had opened a battlefield. I hadn't even given Alice the chance to hear it from me. That was my mistake. My pride had told me to let my actions speak for themselves, to let Clarissa figure it out and walk away quietly. But Clarissa had never been the type to walk away. She would drag her nails down the walls until everyone bled with her.

And Alice? She had bought into the lie.

Three unanswered calls. Two texts left on read. When I stopped by the diner under the pretense of needing coffee, she hid in the kitchen. That cut deeper than I cared to admit.

By the fourth day of being shut out, I realized I couldn't keep waiting for her to come around. If she wouldn't let me through the front door, I'd find another way.

That way turned out to be Sophie.

Alice's best friend. Her shadow, her defender, her constant. I knew from the first time I'd seen Sophie roll her eyes at me across the diner counter that she wasn't impressed by me, not by my reputation, not by my wealth, not by the name I carried. She wasn't like the others. Which made her perfect, and inconvenient.

Because if I wanted Alice back, I had to go through Sophie first.

So here I was, standing outside a small independent coffee shop on a Saturday morning, scanning the crowd until I saw her. She was perched on a high stool near the window, a latte in front of her and a notebook open. Her pen moved quickly, the tip scratching across the page like she was solving all the world's problems in ink.

I walked inside. The air smelled like roasted beans and cinnamon, warm and sharp. A few heads turned, people always looked, whether they meant to or not. I had long since stopped acknowledging it. My focus was Sophie.

She noticed me almost immediately. Her pen froze mid-sentence. Her eyes narrowed. And then, instead of offering a polite nod, she muttered something under her breath and very deliberately flipped her notebook closed.

"Of all the people," she said when I reached her table, "it had to be you."

"Good morning to you too," I replied smoothly, sliding into the chair opposite her without asking permission.

Her brows shot up. "Excuse me, did I say you could sit?"

"No. But if I'd waited for an invitation, I'd still be standing outside."

She leaned back in her seat, arms crossed. "Maybe that's where you should've stayed."

I almost smiled. She was quick. Quicker than most. But I hadn't come here for a verbal sparring match, tempting as it was.

"I need to talk to you, Sophie."

"About what? Stocks? Investments? Your cologne?" Her gaze flicked up and down me, sharp and mocking. "Because I can't imagine what else you and I could possibly have to discuss."

"Alice."

The name hung between us, cutting through the noise of the coffee shop. Sophie's playful mockery drained from her face, replaced with an expression I couldn't quite read. Protective. Suspicious. Ready to fight.

She tapped her fingers on the table. "She told me about you."

That stung. Not because I didn't expect it, but because of how she said it, flat, final, as though the verdict had already been passed.

"And what exactly did she tell you?" I asked carefully.

"That you're engaged. That you've been stringing her along while playing house with Clarissa. That you..." she stopped herself, jaw tightening. "You know what, it doesn't matter what else. Point is, you're bad news."

I leaned forward, lowering my voice. "Clarissa and I are over."

Sophie tilted her head, unconvinced. "Sure. And I'm the Queen of England."

I couldn't help it, I chuckled. "You don't make it easy, do you?"

"I'm not supposed to. Alice is my friend. My family. You think I'm going to let some rich guy with too much charm and not enough honesty waltz in and break her?"

Her loyalty was infuriating and admirable all at once. I liked that about her. Alice deserved people who fought for her like this.

"I'm not here to hurt her," I said quietly, the truth weighing heavy on each word. "I'm here because I can't stand another day of her thinking I chose Clarissa over her. That couldn't be further from the truth."

Sophie's lips curved into a thin smile. "Words. That's all I hear. And I'm not sure Alice needs more of those from you."

She was good. Better than most negotiators I'd ever faced across boardroom tables. She had leverage, and she knew it.

"Then what would convince you?" I asked.

Her eyes sparkled with mischief. "That's the million-dollar question, isn't it?"

For the first time since I'd sat down, I leaned back and studied her. Sophie wasn't the type to be swayed by theatrics. She wanted proof, substance, consistency. The same things Alice valued.

"Convince me," she said finally, drumming her fingers once more. "Convince me you're not just another heartbreak waiting to happen."

Sophie

The nerve of him.

He looked too perfect for a Saturday morning, like he'd just stepped out of a magazine shoot instead of real life. Sharp suit, watch gleaming, hair that probably took a stylist twenty minutes to get right. Meanwhile, I was in jeans and a hoodie with coffee stains on the sleeve.

And he still thought he could sit across from me and charm his way through.

Except I wasn't Alice. I saw through the type. I'd seen enough of them try their luck around campus or the diner. Smooth talkers. Perfect smiles. Promises that turned to dust.

But this wasn't just any guy. This was Brian Carter. The Brian. Billionaire. Business heir. The kind of man people whispered about in awe. And the kind of man who, apparently, had my best friend tangled in a mess she didn't deserve.

I stared at him, at those calm blue eyes that didn't flinch under my scrutiny. If he was lying, he was damn good at it.

"You really think," I said slowly, "that I'm going to hand Alice over like she's some kind of project manager position you can just hire for?"

One corner of his mouth tugged up. "That wasn't exactly how I planned to phrase it."

"You don't get it," I pressed, leaning forward now. "Alice is... she's been through enough. She doesn't need confusion. She doesn't need to be someone's rebound. And she sure as hell doesn't need Clarissa's leftovers."

That got a reaction. His jaw tightened. "Alice will never be anyone's leftover. Not mine. Not anyone's."

The conviction in his tone caught me off guard. It wasn't defensive; it was something else. Fierce. Territorial.

For a second, I almost believed him. Almost.

But believing wasn't my job. Protecting Alice was.

"You say Clarissa's out of the picture," I said. "So what, you expect me to clap and say, 'Great, go break my best friend's heart now'?"

"I expect you to listen," he said firmly. "And to understand that I don't want to hurt Alice. I want her. All of her. For as long as she'll have me."

The coffee shop buzzed around us, machines whirring, people laughing, baristas calling orders. But between us, it was silent. Heavy.

I exhaled slowly, realizing this wasn't going to be as simple as brushing him off.

"Fine," I said at last, though my tone was sharp. "You get five minutes. Convince me you're not full of it."

The smug smile he gave me made me want to throw my latte at him. But I stayed put.

Because maybe, just maybe, I needed to hear what he had to say.

Chapter 24– The Intermediary part two

Brian

Sophie's challenge lingered in the air like a gauntlet thrown at my feet.

Five minutes to convince her. Five minutes to prove that I wasn't here to play games, that what I felt for Alice wasn't infatuation, wasn't rebellion, wasn't lust masquerading as love.

I had negotiated billion-dollar contracts in less time, but somehow, this felt infinitely harder.

"You want me to convince you," I said slowly, holding her gaze. "Then I'll start with this, Alice isn't a phase for me. She isn't some passing distraction. The moment I saw her, she dismantled everything I thought I knew about myself. And since then, she's been in my head, in my chest, in every damn breath. I've fought it, Sophie. God knows I tried. But it's not something I can walk away from anymore. Not for Clarissa, not for my parents, not for the company. Not for anyone."

Sophie's arms remained crossed, but I noticed the slight flicker in her eyes. Doubt and suspicion still dominated her expression, but beneath it, something cracked.

"You're really laying it on thick," she muttered.

"Because it's the truth."

Her lips pressed into a thin line. "If it's the truth, why hasn't Alice heard it from you directly? Why is she crying into my shoulder about being made a fool of while you're,what, buying roses and making speeches to me instead of her?"

That landed like a punch. I forced myself not to look away.

"Because she won't let me near her," I admitted. "Clarissa got to her first. And Alice believes her. I've called, I've gone to the diner, I've..." I stopped, swallowing the frustration. "Every door I knock on, she bolts it shut. I can't force her to listen. So I'm here asking you to help me open that door."

Sophie blinked, surprised by the honesty. Still, her guard didn't lower.

"You know what you sound like right now?" she asked, tapping her finger against her cup. "Like every guy who shows up at the diner after ghosting a girl, asking for a second chance. Only difference is you've got a nicer watch and a more tragic jawline."

Despite myself, I let out a low laugh. "Tragic jawline?"

"I meant dramatic," she shot back quickly, though the faintest hint of a smile threatened her lips.

Good. Humor meant she wasn't ready to throw me out just yet.

"Look," she continued, leaning forward. "Alice is the type of girl who doesn't bounce back from heartbreak in a week. Or a month. She carries it like luggage, neatly packed but heavy as hell. So if you're telling me you want to be with her, I need more than pretty words. I need to know you're not just chasing her because she's the only one who said no to you."

That one cut deeper than I'd expected.

I straightened in my chair. "Alice isn't the only woman who's ever said no to me. But she's the only one whose no felt like I'd been robbed of air. You think this is about ego? It's not. It's about need. I need her, Sophie. And not because she challenges me, though she does, more than anyone I've ever met. I need her because when she's near, I feel like I'm more than the weight of my family's name. She doesn't see Davenport. She sees me."

For a moment, Sophie's eyes softened. Then, just as quickly, she masked it with a roll of her eyes. "You really rehearse this stuff in the mirror, don't you?"

I shook my head. "I don't have to rehearse what's real."

Sophie

Damn him.

The worst part about this entire situation wasn't that Brian Davenport had shown up at my favorite coffee shop like some brooding knight in a tailored suit. The worst part was that I wanted to believe him.

And that was dangerous.

Because I wasn't the one who'd end up burned. Alice was. Alice, who carried people's words like stones in her pockets, sinking deeper every time someone betrayed her trust.

I studied him carefully. He looked too composed for someone trying to win me over, too calm for a man supposedly desperate. But then again, maybe that was the billionaire training, be the iceberg, never let them see you sink.

Yet when he spoke about Alice, there was something in his voice. A rawness. Like the polished marble exterior had cracked and something vulnerable glimmered underneath.

"So what exactly do you want from me?" I asked, cutting through my own thoughts.

"Your help," he said plainly. "I need you to get me in the same room with Alice. Long enough for her to hear me out."

"And what if she doesn't want to see you?"

"Then I'll take it. But she deserves the truth before she decides."

I chewed on my lip, tapping my pen against the notebook. He wasn't asking for much, technically. A conversation. A chance.

But giving him that meant opening the floodgates to something I wasn't sure Alice could swim through.

"You know what I don't get?" I said suddenly. "Guys like you, you can have anyone. Literally anyone. And you're chasing Alice like she's the last girl on Earth. Why?"

For the first time, Brian didn't answer right away. His gaze dropped to the table, his jaw working, and when he finally looked back up, his voice was low.

"Because she is. To me, she is."

The simplicity of it stole my breath.

I blinked, caught off guard by the weight in his tone. He wasn't playing around. He wasn't even trying to convince me anymore. He was just telling the truth.

And God help me, I believed him.

I tried to shake it off, laughing lightly. "You know, you're lucky you're rich. If some regular guy said that to me, I'd call him dramatic."

He smirked. "And what do you call me?"

"Dangerous."

That made him laugh, deep, genuine, unguarded. The kind of laugh that startled me because I hadn't expected it.

But then he leaned closer, elbows on the table, eyes burning into mine. "Dangerous is fine, Sophie. As long as you understand I'm dangerous for the right reasons."

Heat crept up my neck. Damn it, no. He wasn't supposed to fluster me. I was supposed to keep the upper hand here.

I pushed my chair back, standing abruptly. "Enough. I've heard your speech. You want me to arrange a meeting with Alice. Fine. I'll think about it."

He stood too, towering over me. "Think fast."

I glared up at him. "Excuse me?"

His tone softened, though the intensity never left. "Because the longer Alice believes Clarissa's lies, the further she'll drift from me. And I can't let that happen."

For a second, our gazes locked, and the world narrowed to just that-me, him, the hum of the espresso machine in the background.

And I realized something I hadn't expected.

Brian Carter was serious. Terrifyingly, irrevocably serious.

And that scared me more than anything.

Brian

When Sophie finally left the café, she didn't promise anything. But she didn't slam the door in my face either.

And for now, that was enough.

Because for the first time in days, I felt the tide shift.

If Sophie was even considering helping me, then Alice was within reach.

And I'd do whatever it took to make sure she finally heard the truth, from me, and no one else.