It's three in the morning and as Ethan watches her sleep in a fit of his own insomnia, all he can think about is that he misses her long hair. She told him earlier, when they were awake and doing other things—somewhere in between the kisses and the touches and sometime before the moans and pleas—that she has had it short for the past few years.
He hadn't noticed. He cringes at the thought, but the truth is he's been avoiding her for so long that he just hadn't noticed.
She's twenty four now and he's a little over thirty and what they did was, by no means wrong, but he feels….
Ethan sighs and gets out of bed, careful not to wake Kristina. He walks outside onto the terrace and stares outside. Dead of night and he can still picture every building, all of which have one thing in common. They are all a part of Kristina's family's legacy.
Six years have passed and he hasn't amounted to much more than what he had been before: her father's rival's lackey.
Kristina has always been all that was right in his world, and in an effort to protect her, he did exactly as her parents had wished. He had stayed away. So far away that it amazed him still that he hadn't noticed when her hair got cut a few inches above her shoulders.
Ethan hears the sound of the sliding door and turns around. She's wearing his shirt and he hates how cliché it is, but he finds her so bloody gorgeous in it that he freezes at the thoughts running through his mind.
"You promised you wouldn't regret it," she reminds him, not meeting his eyes.
His eyes widen. "I—I don't," he rushes to say, "I just—" he sighs again, closes his eyes to get the image of her out of his mind so he can concentrate for long enough to come up with an adequate response, breathes deeply, and tries once more. "You're too good for me, Kristina…you always were, and while I don't regret what happened tonight, I don't know if it is…right to…bloody hell, I don't think I'm explaining this right."
She smiles despite herself and wipes away the tears in her eyes. "I'm not an eighteen year old girl looking for a prince any longer, Ethan," she says seriously. "I've gotten past the idea of fairytales—grown up, I suppose—I don't want you to change for me…I never did. All I want is for us to try; and, if it turns out that everyone was right all those years ago, we can be friends or never see each other again."
He shifts at the last option, instantly knowing he could never go back to not seeing her again.
"But we can't go back. There's only forward."
Ethan studies her for a moment, the wind blowing her hair behind her, his shirt fluttering around her, mid-thigh. "When did you get to be so wise?" he asks.
Kristina shrugs. "A lot has happened," she answers mysteriously. "Now, come inside, it's cold out here."
There's a small smirk on his face as he follows her through the glass doors, his eyes following the sway of her hips through his white shirt. His ideas are coming back to him, and he wonders just what she would think if he asked her….