Chapter107 – Black crabapple blossoms
Clarissa woke with a start to the shrill sound of her phone ringing on the coffee table.
Still groggy, she sat up, grabbed the phone, and answered with a hoarse, sleepy voice. “Hello?”
“Clarissa? Where are you? Everyone’s waiting to start!” It was Nova—her assistant—and she sounded like she was on the verge of tears.
Clarissa blinked, slowly registering her surroundings. Her head throbbed. She rubbed her temples and replied, “I’m sorry. Something urgent came up. Please ask for leave on my behalf. Let Wesley take the lead today—he can handle it.”
“Clarissa…” Nova’s voice trembled.
“Apologize to everyone for me,” Clarissa added firmly. “I’ll take full responsibility. I’ll explain everything in person tomorrow.”
“Alright…”
Nova hadn’t even hung up before someone on the other end snapped irritably, “Are you done? Sienna finally made time to come, and you’re wasting it!”
It was Ember—agent to Sienna, the top-tier celebrity they were supposed to be working with.
Nova flinched. “I-I’m sorry. Clarissa had something urgent…”
“Oh? So her emergency gives her the right to waste the time of an entire team?” Ember sneered.
Sienna stepped forward with an arrogant air, looking down her nose at Nova. Her heels clicked sharply as she approached.
“No more excuses,” she said coldly. “You’ve wasted enough of my time. I’ll be billing your company for my losses. And I’ll *never* work with you people again.”
With that, she turned and walked out.
Nova’s face went pale. “Ms. Sienna—please—wait! Please, just give us another chance!”
But Sienna didn’t look back.
The atmosphere in the office collapsed instantly. Panic buzzed like static.
“What’s wrong with Clarissa?”
“Sienna’s gone. What now?”
“This is a disaster. The boss is going to blow his top.”
Nova swallowed hard. “Clarissa said she’ll take full responsibility. She’ll come tomorrow and explain everything.”
Just then, a sharp voice cut through the murmuring.
“What are you all standing around for? A model canceled. Big deal. Get to work!”
It was Wesley. Calm. Efficient. Commanding. Everyone fell quiet. Then scattered to get moving again.
......
At last, Clarissa broke free from Atticus’s grasp.
The first thing she did was place her hand on his forehead. The fever had gone down. She exhaled, a breath of relief.
He was still fast asleep.
Quietly, she grabbed the blanket she'd set aside earlier and gently draped it over him. Then, without a word, she turned and walked toward the bathroom.
In front of the mirror, Clarissa stared at herself for a long moment. Her breathing was uneven. She took several deep breaths, trying to collect her scattered thoughts, before heading to Atticus’s room to grab a clean set of clothes.
Returning to the living room, she approached him again. With a sigh, she crouched down and reached out, carefully beginning to peel off his damp shirt.
He looked slim from a distance, but up close, Atticus was solid—broad shoulders, lean muscle, deceptively heavy. It took Clarissa over ten exhausting minutes to wrestle his shirt off, and by the end, she was sweating.
Then came the pants.
She stared at his belt, then at the visible lines of his waist—taut, defined, unfairly perfect. Her eyes involuntarily trailed upward—sharp collarbones, sculpted arms, defined pecs, and those abs...
Clarissa had never really looked at Atticus’s body before.
He was all man now. And his body radiated an intoxicating, dangerous kind of masculinity—raw, potent, and entirely forbidden.
Clarissa froze. Her fingertips trembled. Her breath caught.
“... forget it. Leaving the pants on won’t kill him,” she muttered, flustered, covering her eyes.
She reached down, picking up the clean white T-shirt she had brought for him. But just as she was about to put it on him, something on his chest caught her eye.
Her breath stilled.
There, where his chest met his collarbone, was a tattoo. A trail of black crabapple blossoms—stylized, intricate, almost haunting. It wound upward from the left side of his chest, curling seductively toward his clavicle.
It was stunning. Gorgeous. Elegant. Wild. The ink added a dark allure to him, a kind of beautiful danger that made her pulse quicken.
Without realizing it, Clarissa leaned closer to take a better look—
And that’s when his eyes opened. She jolted back, startled.
But before she could retreat, Atticus’s hand shot out, pulling her forward—straight into his arms.
“Were you checking me out just now, sister?” he murmured, voice low and amused.
Clarissa gasped as she lost her balance, the shirt slipping from her fingers and landing on the floor. She landed on her knees in front of him, suddenly eye-level with his bare chest and sculpted torso. Heat rushed up her neck.
“If you want to look, come closer,” Atticus said with a teasing smirk, his hand catching hers and placing it on his chest.
“Atticus!” Clarissa’s face went crimson as she instinctively tried to pull away. But his hand pressed hers firmly against his skin.
“Touch it,” he said, softer this time. “Feel it.”
Her fingers brushed over the tattoo. But something felt... wrong. The skin beneath the ink wasn’t smooth. It was uneven. Rough. Scarred.
“This is—?”
“You forgot about the fire, didn’t you?”
“You have a scar here too? But… the burns on your arms and legs were healed…”
Atticus’s lips curled faintly. “Want to know why?”
Clarissa’s brow furrowed. “Stop being cryptic. Just tell me.”
He studied her expression, and after a beat, he finally said, “You still care about me, don’t you?”
Caught off guard, Clarissa said nothing. She tried again to pull her hand away, forcing herself to sound indifferent. “If you’re not going to explain, I don’t care.”
But Atticus didn’t let go. Her hand, pale and delicate, rested over the tattooed scar on his heart—and he relished it.
He said with a slow smile. “Can’t handle a little teasing.”
Three years ago, during the fire, he had shielded Clementine from a falling cement beam. The burns had healed elsewhere, but he’d refused scar treatment for this one. Instead, he got the tattoo.
Clarissa stopped struggling. Her eyes lingered on the mark. Her fingers stilled over his chest. Her voice was soft, barely above a whisper.
“Why didn’t tell me before?”
“You were already heartbroken. I didn’t want to add to it.”
Her chest ached. Clarissa had seen the changes in Atticus over the years—how he’d grown. He learned to care, to connect. He joked now. He teased. He risked his life to save someone else.
This was not the cold-eyed boy from her memories. Not the emotionless villain from that damned book. He was human. He was real. Flawed. Alive.
Maybe… just maybe, her efforts hadn’t all been in vain. But the memory of that night surfaced, and her heart twisted.
“If only things could’ve stayed the way they were…” she whispered, eyes dim. “We were siblings. Why… why did it have to turn into this?”
Her voice cracked. And once again, the fragile calm she’d managed to build shattered completely.
Atticus gazed at Clarissa, and a flicker of something dark and unfathomable lit up his eyes.
He reached out gently, brushing away the tears from her cheeks, then wrapped her tightly in his arms.
“So what?” he murmured into her hair.
“I’m your sister!” Clarissa’s voice cracked, rising with frustration and desperation.
“You’re not my real sister, Clarissa. There’s no blood between us,” he said softly, tightening his hold on her. His breath brushed her ear with every word. “Clarissa… we could be more than siblings. Isn’t that better?”
“Nothing has to change,” he whispered. “And if something does change, then maybe it’s just us becoming closer… a real family. Our family.”
He pulled back slightly, cupping her face with a tenderness that sent a shiver down her spine. His eyes were dark, dangerous, yet intoxicating.