Sharon raised her blue eyes to the brown eyes just some inches away, her heart pounding despite herself. Especially as Alex's smile, both predatory and charming, widened, and he lowered his head.
She froze, until she felt a breath on her neck, followed by a subtle sound of inhalation that made an electrifying tingle run all over her body.
Sharon trembled. She snapped out of her daze and she pushed Alex back.
"Get away from me!"
Alex didn't mind her reaction. His smile undiminished, he retreated a few steps further.
Sharon struggled to bring her breathing back under control as she defensively glared at him. At the same time, she gave herself some time to calm down by keeping herself busy with smoothening her clothes.
It was no wonder many girls fell for that playboy. She closed her eyes to chase out of her mind the image of his charming smile, and even more charming eyes, and she muttered to herself, like she was reciting a saving mantra:
"The Lenner are not good people… The Lenner are not good people… Alex Lenner is not a good person…"
When she opened her eyes with a deep breath, her heart had resumed a more normal operation, and her mind had returned to where it should have always been. She didn't care about Alex's amused smile. She gave him a stink eyes:
"What do you think you were doing?"
Alex didn't mind. He casually replied:
"Showing you the last point that gave you away. Your smell…"
He winked at her, then turned back to return to his couch.
"The next time you do something like breaking into someone else's apartment, remember to buy new clothes that don't have your smell, and to clean yourself of your usual smell before anything. By the way, you have a nice smell."
The last sentence was thrown at her with the nonchalance of someone used to complimenting women, but it made Sharon recall the close contact just earlier, and her heartbeat at that moment. She took a deep breath as he threw himself onto the couch once again, and stopped lingering on the subject of how Alex recognized her.
"Let's forget about the rest and return to the reason why I am here tonight."
With a casual gesture that said 'please, carry on', Alex let his guest continue with her misfortune-filled last month.
"I almost had an accident today."
"Oh. Lucky you."
"And I know you had an accident today. It is all over the net."
"That was not an accident. That was me playing the hero."
Sharon took a deep breath to swallow all the annoyance from the incessant interruptions, then played her trump card, the foundation upon which she had built her reason for coming to Alex again, though with her voice raised in frustration:
"And don't tell me, Alex! Lenner!, that you did not see me feeling pain everytime you disturb that side of yours where I suppose you've got a big bruise from your heroics! I refuse to believe that you, who can remain calm while tied to a chair in the middle of the night and threatened in your own home, you, who managed to recognize me from simple, disparate clues, are just a carefree playboy with no brain! I refuse to believe that you did not think about the words on the paper with the red string in the wooden box throughout the whole month!!"
"So what?"
The simple question stopped Sharon's fast breathing after her tirade.
"Huh!?"
She was startled, while Alex a raised eyebrow at her:
"So what, if you refuse to believe? What does that matter to me?"
"You!"
Anger rose inside Sharon's heart, but Alex abruptly sat up, his face losing the casual smile he had been sporting, and he fixed his eyes on her:
"'Kid, fate is a marvelous thing, but it has never been kind to you. However, what one can not do, two will be able to. Even against the world, together, you will be able to stand.
With the red string tied, your fates are now entangled, like two sides of the same coin, sharing fortune and misfortune.
Of course, there is nothing that can't be undone. You will just need to find out how by yourself, then get the true treasure. Hehe…
Beware of the peaks of the full moon.'"
Her breath and her anger stalled, as he repeated the words that had come back to haunt her after a month ad verbum, the sneer on his lips growing to become obvious toward the end. He stood up, and pointed at the sky outside through the floor to ceiling window of the balcony:
"What, are we two sides of the same coin now? Will you tell me that it is because of the full moon that you can feel the pain from the bruise I have? Even if you believe those fallacies, I don't! You can see yourself out! As I said, I have to sleep."
Alex expressionlessly turned his away, and walked to pass by Sharon's side and leave.
Sharon looked at him, her eyes empty but never leaving him, then her anger came back when she recalled the fright from earlier, not after the accident she had barely missed being caught in, but from the call from the hospital, from her mother's state that suddenly took a dive. And all her anger turned into a sneer:
"I never knew that Alex Lenner was truly a coward. If you didn't believe in those words, why did you keep them in mind, with your weak visual memory?"
She took a deep breath, and turned to face Alex's back:
"You can bury your head in the sand like an ostrich, but I refuse to have those I care about suffer just because of you and your twisted family's matter! I won't leave here before I find a solution! Let's see if you'd rather be a coward, or if you'd rather deal with an annoyance in your life. I promise you I will be one!"
To make her point, she crossed her arms below her chest, making it more prominent, but with no one who could be bothered to enjoy the sight at that moment.
Alex paused in his steps, and slowly turned to the blonde. He looked at her with a calm expression, and none of his usual smile. Sharon held his gaze. After a deep look, he turned around.
He walked to the room she recognized as his bedroom. Before her heart could sink further, he came back out, a box she instantly recognized in his hand.
He threw it at her after barely crossing half the distance between them, and left a single sentence behind:
"You are the one who involved yourself in my twisted family's matter, and I don't care why. Find the solution you are here looking for, then make yourself scarce. I don't want to see you here tomorrow."
Sharon's heart jumped as she caught the precious box. By the time she raised her head again, she only saw the bedroom door being closed, and heard the distinct noise of it being locked.
*Clack*
Thus, she was left alone in the large living room, with in her hands the small wooden box which she lowered her head to look at, and only a deafening silence to accompany her.