Burke paced nervously outside of the restaurant. He hadn't heard from her other than a phone call to clarify the location of where they were to meet. With just one question, so much had been revealed and he had never felt so vulnerable to her.
He wondered if she had felt the same.
Countless minutes passed and he heaved a great sigh, heading into the restaurant by himself. He needed to self medicate before he would allow himself the realization that she wasn't going to come. Reluctantly, he took a seat at the bar and ordered a double scotch. As he waited for his drink, he began to allow himself to wonder what had brought him to this new level of pathetic. He knew he had made an incredibly stupid mistake, letting her go. He knew that he was being egoistic and unforgiving and he had expected so much change from her.
Yet he wouldn't change for her.
An infectious laugh floated through the air and drew his eyes up from the lip of his glass. He knew that laugh. He lived for that laugh. Across the bar, he found Cristina entertaining two separate men of whom she had their full attention. She was a vision in a fitted black dress and her cascading curls. Just a slight hint of gloss adorned her perfect lips and it made him hunger to taste them.
Their eyes met from across the bar and he rose from his seat, nervously adjusting his tie. He approached her slowly, their gaze never breaking. He stepped in front of the man closest to her and took her hand in his, "I was waiting for you."
She didn't remove her hand, and her expression didn't change. "You'll have to wait longer," She answered quietly, doing nothing more than trying to infuriate him.
"For you, I would wait a lifetime."
In a matter of seconds, her audience had scattered and Cristina remained frozen, looking up at him. "You couldn't wait five minutes for me."
"I told you I was wrong," He uttered softly, his fingers curling around her tiny hand.
"Stop. Stop with the words. And the looking. And…just….stop." She said, finally pulling her hand away. "We're not here for that. I'm here for because I have questions and you're here to answer them."
A slight grin turned up the corners of his lips as he leaned in. "If you were here only to have your questions answered, you would have gotten your answers the first day. You would have left that evening. You wouldn't have tried to make a scene with a bunch of men that you couldn't possibly find interesting just to make me jealous."
"It had nothing to do with making you jealous. They think I'm hot. It's natural. There was no trying about it." She answered confidently, sliding from her barstool.
He coughed to cover up a slight chuckle. He loved her confidence. "Would it help if I told you that I may have felt something akin to jealousy when I saw you?"
"I would tell you to shut up and buy me dinner and answer my questions so I could go home," She asked, fighting to ignore the low tone of his voice.
Burke's hand pressed into the small of her back as he led her towards the table he had reserved, unable to resist teasing her just slightly, "What do I get for buying you dinner?"
He could almost see the goosebumps flaring up against her porcelain skin at the suggestive tone of his voice and he knew that he could have her tonight if he wanted to. His fingers traced lightly and he allowed his mind to wander for only a moment to the possibility, but then he pulled his hand away.
Cristina was almost disappointed when he had pulled his hand away, but she didn't let it break her resolve. She took her seat and laid her hands in her lap. All of her questions had slipped from her mind and she was trying to find her focus again. There were so many answers that she had wanted, and all it took was his hand and his voice and he was breaking her. She couldn't let him break her.
Settling into a seat across the table from her, his eyes danced up and down her body, taking her in. "You're stunning."
"I know." She answered looking down over the menu.
He licked his lips a little, watching her. He couldn't let down. He couldn't back off and give her a chance to start thinking again. "I couldn't hear you. I didn't hear you."
She looked up at him with a scowl on her face, "I said 'I know'."
"When I left."
Her gaze softened a little and she curled her fingers into her knees. "You couldn't hear me." She repeated.
"I couldn't hear you. You were talking to me, and I couldn't hear you. The only thing I could hear was the panic in my own head. The only thing that I could see was you not coming and you fighting it every step of the way and……I didn't hear you. I didn't give you a chance. That's how I walked away. Because I couldn't hear you. If I could have heard you. If I could have realized what it was that I was doing? I would have never been able to walk away from you." His voice was quiet, and his gaze penetrated every wall that she'd spent countless hours building.
Cristina was quiet for a long time, fighting not to absorb his words. She picked at the hem of her dress, her eyes fixed on her lap. She didn't think it would be like this. It was supposed to be easy. It was supposed to be nothing more than answered questions, closure and moving on. He was supposed to be cold and detached and he wasn't supposed to look at her like that. He wasn't supposed to talk to her like that. He wasn't supposed to still-
"Cristina, come back to me," He whispered, reaching across the table and tracing his finger along her jawline to turn her eyes up to his.
Her eyes welled a little and she reached up push his hand away. "I didn't ask you that." She finally spoke in a shaky voice. "Excuse me," She stood up from her chair, making a quick exit towards the door.
The air around her was heavy, almost stifling, and all she needed was a minute. She wasn't going to let him get off this easily again. She wasn't going to go running back to her hotel and wallow again. All she wanted was time to reinforce her walls and gather her thoughts.
She knew she was fooling herself if she thought that all it would take to forget Preston Burke and his words was a minute.
Quietly, Burke made his way to her side. He could see that she was still hurting, and it killed him to know that it was at his hand that she felt this pain. His mother had raised him better than that. His mother was also the woman that had placed that seed of doubt in his head and it grew, out of control until he'd made the biggest mistake of his life
"I have an idea," He said, looking out at the harbor. "Why don't we forget about this place. We'll get carryout and some beer. We can go back to my apartment, or your hotel room. Your choice. And we'll talk."
Cristina knew exactly what would happen under those conditions, and she was almost certain that he knew too. She weighed the possibilities, trying to figure out exactly what it was that she wanted out of all of this. It wouldn't be closure if she slept with him. At the same time, she needed it. She needed him. She wanted to feel all the things that she felt when they were together.
She needed to feel alive again.
They stood there in silence for countless minutes; two people together, yet never more alone.
"Don't think about it, Cristina." He finally uttered in a soft voice. "Thinking has obviously gotten us nowhere."
"I don't know how not to think."
"Neither do I." He admitted, "We can learn together."
"It better be good beer. None of that light crap."
"I can buy good beer," He said, hope igniting a flame inside of him.
"And I want beef and broccoli." She added, testing him.
A slight grin spread across his lips, "Anything you want."
"You're not getting into my pants." She said in an even voice, pulling her keys from her bag.
"You're not wearing pants. You're wearing a dress." He answered with a smug grin.
Her eyes met his as she extended a keycard to her hotel room. She could just get a new one when she got to the hotel. The corner of her lips turned up just a little as he took it. "I know."