Author's Note: Sorry for the wait! School has started to pick up and I've been swamped. Thanks for all your reviews; I love them all! I hope everyone enjoys this chapter!
Changes
It was her decision.
Christine looked into Erik's eyes and slowly raised her lips to his in agonizing slowness. Her breath quickened as she tensed, waiting to again feel the windswept emotion of ten years prior, when they had first kissed. Christine saw Erik's partly closed eyes and smiled, then closing her own.
In mere seconds, reality came crashing down on Christine, halting her progress. Bits of logic whirled about her mind. She had a fiancé back home who loved her. She had the ring in her room to prove it. And here she was in a foreign country with an even more foreign man. No, this could not happen.
"Erik," she whispered against his lips. He opened his eyes. Bright green met soft amber.
"Erik, I can't."
She saw for a fleeting moment the pain she had caused with that one simple sentence. All the years of rejection he had experienced had been topped off by her refusal of him. Through his eyes, Christine saw his soul perched upon a precipice, ready to either soar into happiness or plunge into the depths of despair. Down into despair he spiraled. All of this in one instant, for the next his eyes were as cold and impassive as any other time.
Christine untangled herself from his embrace and stepped back. With tears in her eyes, she turned and quickly made her way to the ballroom exit. Her heels made lonely clicks on the wood floor and her dress made the soft swishing sound of an opportunity fluttering away. As soon as she stepped outside the door, she realized just how cold it was away from him.
XOX
She tried to sleep, but succeeded only in throwing the blankets from her bed. Erik's eyes kept appearing whenever she closed her own.
'His expression,' she thought. 'In that second, his eyes held all the sorrow in the world. But if only he knew my reason. I have to tell him. Tomorrow. Yes. Tomorrow, I'll tell him everything. No more secrets. He will know the truth.'
After assuring herself again and again that everything would be righted again tomorrow, Christine drifted off into an uneasy sleep. She dreamt of falling and crashing, because there was no one to catch her.
XOX
Christine woke with a start, not exactly sure what prompted her spirited waking.
'Something is different,' she thought warily. 'Something isn't right.' She could not explain how she knew this; it was an instinctual feeling. Maybe the birds sang a bit too loudly, perhaps the sun was a bit too bright for the morning. Whatever the reason, Christine started her day wary.
She showered and changed, hanging up the beautiful red dress in the closet. She fingered the soft fabric nostalgically. Sighing heavily, she pushed the magical thoughts of last night from her mind. Christine quickly made her way down to the dining hall. She wanted to find Erik. Grabbing an apple from the dining table, she was about to start for the south-west wing when she heard Mme. DesChanels call her.
"Mlle. Daaé. Mlle. Daaé!" The madame walked up to her briskly. "You have a surprise waiting for you in the lobby."
Christine gave the docent a look of surprise. "What is it?"
"If I told you, it would not be a surprise, now would it?" she teased with a wink. "I think you will enjoy it."
Christine cocked an eyebrow. Intrigued, she walked towards the lobby. Getting closer with each step, she then heard a familiar voice.
'It can't be,' Christine thought, already getting upset. 'It simply can't be.'
But it was.
Jauntily leaning upon the front desk, and getting what Christine thought was a little too close to the pretty blonde receptionist, was Raoul.
"Oh no," she voiced and tried to keep her ring-less hand out of his sight, knowing the drama it would cause.
Raoul evidently heard her say something because he tore his eyes away from the receptionist quite quickly.
"Chrissy!" he yelled, wrapping her in a bear hug. She winced at the sound of her 'nickname'. "Aren't you happy to see me?"
Not really caring about the non-committal grunt Christine gave in reply, Raoul continued talking.
"I thought I'd pop in for your last week here. We can get some honeymooning in before the honeymoon, if you catch my drift." He winked, then blatantly slapped Christine's ass and, feeling quite proud of himself, stole a sloppy kiss from her.
Christine pushed him off, her patience wearing thin. "Have you been drinking?" she asked.
"Of course not," he lied. Christine could taste the alcohol on his breath.
'This is only going to make him harder to deal with,' she thought, worried now about how things were going to go.
"Well, take me to our room, Chrissy!" he demanded. "I want to get settled, get some food, and get busy! Oh, and would you mind getting my luggage for me? I had to carry it all the way up the drive and it's quite heavy."
Raoul traipsed off in front of Christine and started to quickly mount the stairs, giving her no time to refuse his demands. Scowling at Raoul's behavior, Christine had no choice other than to lug his heavy suitcase up the 72 steep stairs.
XOX
Little did Christine know that more than one pair of eyes had witnessed Christine and Raoul's reunion. Hidden in a passageway, Erik regarded the scene from a peephole. He could barely handle seeing Christine being hugged by that drunk and pompous idiot, but then to witness him fondling her and kissing her…
His anger only grew as he heard them speak of their honeymoon.
He whisked away, angry and jealous.
"The little lying wench," he spoke maliciously, striking the rough sides of the passageway and splitting his knuckles in the process. "The conniving whore!" He hit the rocky wall again, searching for a physical outlet for his emotional pain. "She strung me along without blinking an eye, all the while being engaged to that pig!" he spat. "I should have known better than to trust a snake like her." He fumed, pressing his hot forehead against the rough, cool stone. Regaining a thin veneer of calm, he hissed "I think it's time for her to go. She will never return." He turned sharply, his cape billowing out behind him, and strode off to the confines of his room.