Chapter Nine
MISHELLA
Scott drops me off at the front door of Kathryn Robbe’s medical office, which is attached to her home somewhere in a neighborhood on the other side of Central Park. It is far from the sterile environment I spent the morning dreading, and I am more relaxed than I ever thought possible—under the circumstances. There is even a little cartoon bubble taped to the ceiling overhead, emblazoned with the words I Hate This. It eases the discomfort, perhaps a little, of having my womb examined from the inside out.
“Okay, then. All finished.” Her tone is crisp but friendly as she pulls out the speculum, and I release my breath in a relieved whoosh. Does any woman ever “breathe normally” through a pelvic exam? “Why don’t you get dressed then join me in the other room?”
“Of course.”
The “other room” is a cozy office reminding me a little of similar spaces in Palais Arcadia at home. The furniture is just as grand, though made of darker woods. A pair of Turkish carpets overlap on the polished wood floor. Bookshelves line an entire wall, and the big desk looks like the workspace of a busy but happy person.
A few elements not like home: the pair of plush chairs in the center of the room, also formed of dark wood but cushioned in cream velvet. The upholstery matches the colors of an ornate tea table, centered between the chairs.
“Do you like tea?” Her eyes, the color of sherry, smile as much as her lips. Her hair, pulled into a stylish French twist, is almost the same hue. She would be described as a handsome woman, and looks enough like Cassian that she could pass as his older sister. “If not, I can grab some lemonade from the fridge.” She motions to a kitchenette, off to my left.
“Tea is fine.” I smile as I sit, folding my hands in my lap and crossing my ankles. “And those cookies look even better.” There have to be at least three dozen of the assorted confections, arranged on a multi-tiered tray.
“Ohhhh. Someone else with a sweet tooth.” She winks. “Cas told me I’d like you.”
Cas?
I hide the jealous spike with an answering smile. “Thank the Creator I ate a filling lunch.” A salmon filet, served by a sedate Prim—who has decided to warm to my presence, inch by agonizing inch. I think she even stopped scowling, for a flash, when I complimented her about the meal.
“Well, these are light. And calories consumed during business don’t count.” She shrugs and chuckles. “And I kept the lab coat on, so we can consider this business, right?”
I try not to smile too brightly. If she only knew how close to “business” this really is for me. Or maybe…she does know. By the powers, how much information has “Cas” supplied her with?
I lick my lips. Decide to borrow a gutsy page from Vy’s book, and “suck it up” with the direct approach. It is not graceful—but sometimes in life, one simply cannot be.
“So…exactly what is your relationship with…Cas?”
She concludes a sip of tea. To my pleasant surprise, gives a smiling nod. “Bull by the horns. Now I really like you.”
That is not my answer but I feel far from pressured to point it out. Sure enough, as soon as the woman finishes nibbling a pink macaron, she replies, “Do you mean am I a lover? Or an ex?”
I take a fortifying bite of cookie for myself. To quote my best friend again, Gawd…delish. “I suppose that is what I mean.”
Once more she nods, that atta girl sparkle in her oh-so-American eyes. “The answer is no, and no,” she offers. “I went to university with Cassian. We went on one date, which nearly ended in disaster.”
I scowl. “How so?”
“Depends on who you ask: him or me.”
“Well, you are sitting here.”
“But he’s at the front of your mind.” She arches knowing brows at my confirmation of a blush. “Long story short: the man is too damn serious.”
I practically choke on my next bite of cookie. “You are speaking of…Cassian? Cassian Court?” The man with the charm that will not stop captivating me? With the smile that will not let up on assaulting my heart, and the laugh that flips my stomach each time it takes over his lips?
“Six feet-three? Eyes like the Emerald City skyline? Hair so perfect, it belongs on a kid half his age auditioning for a boy band? That Cassian Court?”
We laugh together. That is a very good thing, since it disguises my urge to wistfully sigh at her description instead. I finish with a curious cock of my head. “And yet…you fought with him on your first date.”
“On our only date.” She settles back a little further, crossing her legs at the knee, absently circling her raised ankle. “Half of one, at that—thank God.” An impressive eye roll gets inserted. “All that damn intensity, in one man. He was out to set the world on fire before we were able to legally drink. ‘Relax’ definitely wasn’t a word in his vocabulary, even with dorky bowling shoes on his feet and beer disguised as soda in his hand.”
“Bowling…shoes.” A frown sets in before I can help it. Racking my brain for the Arcadian translation of the word equates to a blank screen—but this “bowling” must be important. They even have special shoes for it.
Kathryn breaks into another laugh. “Hard to believe, right? The man of Kiton and Berluti, kickin’ it casual with a girl in a beat-up bowling alley on a Friday night?” She rests her head against a raised hand. “Neither could he.”
“Ambition is not an awful thing.” I almost cannot believe the words are coming out—even in defense of Cassian. Firsthand, I have seen ambition’s toll on a person—two of them—and on a marriage that was really never a marriage. But thanks to Cassian and the benefits of his drive, I shall never be prisoner to that loveless cage. It is all my choice now—and in a flash, I recognize there is a good chance I will never choose it. Not if I cannot have—
What?
What you have with Cassian? What you are only going to have for six months?
Forever is a long time to be alone, Mishella.
“Of course it’s not.” The woman’s murmur, lined with sincerity, saves me from the miserable turn of my thoughts. “But in this city, it’s a drug as lethal as crack or meth—in some cases, more addictive.”
I swallow hard—letting my mind follow her lead. Hating myself for every step into that dark, uncomfortable place. “In Cassian’s case?”
She barely blinks before answering quietly, “I was starting to fear it…yes.”
“Why?”
At that, she does blink. “I think he’s still purging demons.”
I gulp again. No use. My throat is tight and dry—because I feel the truth of her words. I know it. “Wh-what demons?”
Kathryn lowers her leg. Scoots forward. Pulls in both elbows to her knees. Murmurs as if apologizing, “They’re not my stories to tell. And I don’t even know all of them. But…they’re there, Mishella. Spurring him. Haunting him.” The faraway lilt in her voice is suddenly counteracted…by the new smile edging her lips. “Well, they were. Until today.”
I straighten. “Huh?”
“Until today,” she repeats. “Actually, just an hour ago—when he called, right before you got here, and all but ordered me to take great care of you.”
Tiny zings of pride and warmth chase each other through my chest. “Oh,” I blurt.
“Yeah,” she returns, adding a new chuckle, “oh. The man who never attempted his bossy-boss act with me since the bowling alley catastrophe…” The chuckle mellows. “But now, because of you, he’s pulled out his full Smokey the Bear again. It gives me hope.”
I don’t even hear her last words. “He has a bear?” I recall the moment, in Paipanne’s study, back on the island. He had offered to buy me a dog but said nothing about—
“Why don’t we make sure he doesn’t have a cow, much less a bear.” She returns to her soft laughter, clearly proud of herself for the “humor,” but sobers when I cannot even feign understanding of the line. Not for the first time in my life, I yearn for a transplant into Vylet’s body. The woman is able to laugh even at watching grass grow—and actually has.
“Most excellent of plans.”
It is cheerful enough to earn my “game face” as punctuation, seeming to center Kathryn too. Back into doctor mode she rises—literally—standing with brisk efficiency. “Well, I think you’re an excellent plan, at least where it concerns my friend Cassian.” The strange shadows flit across her gaze again. “He’s been by himself for far too long.”
I return to my feet as well. “But…surely I am not the first ‘friend’ he has sent to see you.”
She does not placate me with a denial, which would also be a lie. But what she does say is just as huge a seed for disconcerting thoughts—and even deeper emotions.
“Giving a man ‘friends’ for his body doesn’t do a damn thing for his soul.” She pulls in a prolonged breath. “And fighting off the alone doesn’t mean you’re taking care of the lonely.”
The words dig into the sides of my mind, refusing to leave even after Kathryn handles the “business” of why I have come, then wraps our visit with a heartfelt hug. It clings as she taps her “digits” into the new cell phone Cassian has purchased for me—and even during her invitation for a “girls’ lunch” soon. Though her kindness imparts me with needed confidence, the dark disquiet about Cassian continues to creep in.
Intensity. Ghosts. Lonely.
Beneath the man’s rapier swagger and ruthless business cunning, is he truly a haunted beast in a solitary tower? And what—or who—put him there?
The queries overshadow even my awe about New York’s nonstop pageantry as Scott drives me back to Temptation—only the trip seems exceedingly short. As we roll to a stop, I peer through the tinted windows in wonder. We are not back at the house. Instead, I look out at wide cement sidewalks, buildings blocking the very sun, and edges of chrome and glass everywhere.
“Errrmm…Scott?”
But Scott is no longer in the driver’s seat. He suddenly appears, having opened the limo’s back door, extending a hand to help me out—
Onto the sidewalk before a set of massive glass doors—
gliding open like the gates of a modern palace…
Court Towers
Court Enterprises Incorporated
…with its very own, breath-stealing, king.
My lungs cease working at the mere sight of him. That transforms the journey toward him into an interesting experience—knees liquid, heart thudding, palms gummy—while my gaze works to connect a single thought within my brain.
I was naked with that king. Four hours ago. In his bed. In his shower. On his window seat…
The memories lend me fortitude. I need it. I must attempt a feat so outside my comfort zone, only borrowed words from Vy explain it.
Sizing up my competition.
I have always hated the vulgar words, but right now, there is no better phrase for the dozen women and three men who are just as fixated on Cassian as I am—who, I am certain, lust after the same experience I do. To explore the proud body beneath that luxurious suit. To dive fingers into that thick honey hair. To learn if the glints in those emerald eyes are really hints of deeper, hotter desires…
Perfect timing for that thought. Cassian surely reads it in my eyes as we approach each other—then again while taking my hands and yanking me close. Now our bodies are nearly flush…and I almost think he will follow through with a crushing kiss.
For a moment, even here, I wish he would.
Instead, with a tight grunt, he behaves. Lowers his face until only I am privy to his quiet murmur, delivered from barely moving lips. “Dear fuck, armeau. Does that light in your eyes mean what I hope it does?”
I giggle. Just for a moment. “You mean the desire I share with nearly every other woman in this lobby?” Stolen glance one way, then the next. “And a few of the men too.”
“Sucks to be them.” His fingers twist tighter around mine. His stare dips to my lips. “Because the only thing I can think about is where to get you private and alone.”
“I am certain Flynn Whelan might find that an interesting show.”
He growls then huffs. “The only ‘show’ Flynn Whelan cares about is the Canine Classic.”
“The…what?”
“Dogs,” he explains. “Greyhounds, to be exact. They’re his only passion besides his businesses.” His gaze swoops down again, teasing tingling energy into the bodice of my pink cotton dress. “But if you’re that into putting on a show…we can talk later on tonight.”
I sigh as his head lifts again. His gaze is a thousand shades of thrilling, so many verdant colors colliding. I am a heated, pulsing mess, craving the audacity to pull him close then plead for one of his thrilling bites on my neck…
“Behave.” I issue it to myself as much as him. We force ourselves back to the respectable hand hold—though his eyes remain hooded, and I can see his clenched teeth past the slight part in his lips.
When a long minute passes without him adding anything verbally, I prompt, “So…”
His dimples make an appearance. Heart. Thud. “So?”
“Ummm…why am I here, Cassian?” I resist adding a crack about showing me his etchings. The man is likely to take me seriously—and I refuse to be the reason for him missing the key meeting with Flynn Whelan.
“Does there have to be a reason?”
Heart. Thunk. And…mortifying blush. “I…I guess not.”
“Guess I just needed to see that,” he murmurs.
“See what?”
“That blush.” His thumbs brush my knuckles. “I’ve missed it.”
A discreet laugh sneaks past my lips. “As Vylet would say, Mr. Court…you are full of shit.”
“Good thing my cock isn’t already half-hard for Vy, then.”
Heart. Melt. Taking the rest of my body with it.
“How’d everything go with Kathryn?”
“Good.” I sound breathless and smitten. Who am I fooling? I am breathless and smitten. And now that the subject has shifted to us soon being able to act on our lust anywhere we want…a little sheepish. “Good, good,” I rush out. “Everything is…errrmm…working fine. And safely.” I already know he is. Even the memory of holding his clean lab results rushes more heat to my face. I must be the color of a ripe tomato by now.
Cassian shifts a little closer. “Did she…give you a prescription?”
“Better.” I lift a coy smile. “An injection.”
“Ah. Good…good.” He sounds as flustered as I am but when he lets out a long exhale, the force of his lust possesses every molecule of the air. “Ella.”
“Y-yes?”
“How soon can I be bare inside you?”
My gaze is snatched back up to his. My whole mouth goes dry. Somehow, I manage the response. “T-twenty-four hours.”
His hands slide to the backs of my elbows. His stare returns to its green fire, razing into me…through me. By the Creator, my thighs clench at its incursion. My sex throbs, feeling weighted but empty. So empty. Especially after he leans in, whispering words so molten, I am grateful he supports my wobbly walk to the car afterward.
“Twenty-four hours. And starting now, I’m counting every fucking minute.”
* * * *
It only takes ten minutes to drive from Court Towers to Temptation—but in that time, I must swing through just as many emotions. Everything from desire, need, and teen girl-style giddiness is mixed with a soul-deep recognition of the ghosts Kathryn so eloquently explained to me earlier. Of course I have observed the darkness in Cassian’s eyes before; I simply have been lacking a way of identifying them…perhaps even seeking an excuse for them, like extended jet lag or simply deep-seated concern about business matters.
No more pretending now.
No more simple veils or innocent oversights.
But Kate has given me no more to go on. They’re not my stories to tell, Mishella.
And yet, confronting Cassian about them was simply not an option during our ten minutes together—in glaring public. Letting him make goo-goo eyes at me was one thing; bringing up Kate’s cryptic words another. A huge “another.”
So now I stand, in the middle of his home, knowing what I know—but unable to do anything about it. Knowing that there are, in Kate’s words, things that have haunted him so wholly, he has been obsessed with nothing but work excellence and professional success…
For how long?
For what reasons?
And to what purpose?
In the last week, I have locked stares with the man so many times, there is no more counting them. Every time, it is the closest I have felt to twining my soul with another’s…to knowing the heart that is also my own. When I take him inside my body, it is like welcoming myself home…a shore drawing the tide close…
Has it all been an illusion?
Do I not know Cassian Court at all?
And how, in the space of just a week, can I not bear to live with that information as my truth?
Hodge and Scott are downstairs, detailing the cars—Cassian owns three more besides the Jaguar, all prettier and more demanding of upkeep—and Prim is in the kitchen, baking things that make me want to declare dinner will be nothing but dessert tonight. I use the solitude to wander the rooms of the main living floor…not knowing what I plan to find, but hoping it will be some kind of clue about the secrets Cassian keeps behind such high walls in himself.
With every step, I battle myself.
You met him a week ago.
“A week in which our lives have completely changed,” I defend in a whisper.
Most couples barely know each other’s middle names after a week.
“We are not a couple.” I smile from that one. My inner Vylet even high-fives me for it.
He will not even share every secret with Kathryn.
“And the silence is shredding him!”
My whisper has not made it any less a melodrama—making me wonder why I still cannot laugh about it. Perhaps that is because of the twisting, deep in my belly, confirming that even melodrama can carry truth.
The thought gives me conviction. I walk through each room once again, searching for the tiniest sliver of understanding about who Cassian Court really is. About the secrets that don’t just motivate him…
They’re there, Mishella…haunting him…
I still find nothing.
I peer harder at the sleek walls, glass accents, and elegant furniture, all seemingly custom-crafted for each of his main living spaces. Every inch practically screams of the money spent on it—and the effort expended to separate it from the scrollwork and romance of the building’s exterior. Even the décor pieces are carefully crafted to fit the look: slick, clean, neutral.
None of it matches him.
Not the man I have talked with, laughed with, opened up to, and seen into for the last three days. Not the person to whom I feel more connected than anyone in my life, including Vy and Saynt. Not the lover who has given me himself in return—or so I have thought.
I have sensed them…those missing pieces of him…or rather, felt the empty spaces in him sometimes. The unexplained moments of stillness. The searching casts of his gaze, toward a horizon that does not exist…maybe for a person that is no longer there.
Ghosts.
Spurring. Haunting.
I should be patient. Let him come to me, in his time…
But he has known Kathryn since college—nearly ten years—and he still only gives her the shadows.
I cannot accept the shadows.
Ella…it’s time to live in the light.
I want his light too.
I have six months with him, not ten years.
Fortune favors the brave.
It feels like destiny to remember the words, a favorite expression often used by King Evrest back home. Evrest even credits their importance in helping his journey toward true love—though that is far beyond my ambition right now, and must remain that way.
It must remain that way.
I have no idea where Cassian and I are bound with each other. I only know that he has helped me at least see my light—and now, if I can help him step toward his too…
Determinedly, I search the spaces again. Living room. Game room. Movie theater. All three guest bedrooms. Even the gym. Still nothing. No mementos from travels, nor artwork that is not abstract. No knickknacks that are not completely curated or more than a few years old, and everything in sync with the out-of-a-movie décor.
I only find one photo, atop the desk in the study that is as sterile as a research laboratory. The image depicts a younger Cassian, between childhood and adulthood, probably twelve or thirteen. He hugs a woman with the same thick gold hair and piercing green eyes. If she is not his mother, I am the Queen of Persia.
Is she one of his ghosts?
I lower into one of the chairs in front of the desk—the leather is so stiff, I wonder if my backside is the first to ever touch it—and stare at the picture, fighting a helpless despair.
“Tell me what to do,” I whisper to the woman in the photo. “I am certain I want the same thing as you. I just want him to be…happy.”
Deep inside, I wish her sweet smile would order me to leave everything alone. But it does not. It delves to something even deeper…confirms what my gut has already told me since the conversation with Kate.
Satisfying his body comes nowhere close to reaching his soul.
To do that, I must find the ghosts.
“But where?” I beseech it of the room itself now, sending the plea upward as my head falls back. I close my eyes and loll the gray matter to the left. Reopen them—
To find my focus yanked like a weight across a thread. Pulled out the study’s entrance, across the central hall, through the breadth of the living room—
To the handle of a door.
Leading to the stairway up to Turret Two.
I know this as a fact, because there’s an identical door on the other side of the living room—the one Cassian has led me through, that will forever hold one of the best memories of my life. But he has all but commanded me to forget Turret Two, dismissing it as “the joint’s required junk room.” Like a proper, smitten lover, I believed him. I still do.
But is not “junk” often another word for “the past?”
And in the past, there are ghosts.
I rise. My heart pounds at the base of my throat. This is it. The X on the treasure map.
On quiet steps, I cross to the door. Half-expect it to be locked. Exhale in relief when it is not.
The air beyond the portal is different than that of Turret One. Chilled and dusty, though my feet do not leave any imprints on the wooden stairs as I start to climb. Thank the Creator.
But there are creaks.
I wince, wondering why I did not notice the sounds when ascending the other turret. Because you were not trying to sneak someplace you do not belong?
A scowl replaces the wince. Cassian has not expressly “forbidden” me to come up here. And I am not “sneaking.” I am searching. There is a difference—
Which thoroughly explains why I jump like a criminal as someone rushes up the stairway behind me. Why my blood turns to ice and my cheeks flame with accusation, as Prim’s infuriated form comes into view.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
CASSIAN
“Mishella. What the hell were you doing?”
I clench my jaw to stop the query from spilling into accusation. She’s already been subjected to that treatment; a minute into the phone call from Prim has betrayed that much already. While still on the line with her, I’d ordered Rob to cancel the rest of my day and used the Court Enterprises on-call car to get home, instead of waiting for Scott and the Jag.
Wasn’t fast enough.
Prim’s wrath has already taken its toll. I see it along the taut slashes of Ella’s shoulders, in every glimmering sapphire surface of the gaze she’ll no longer lift to mine. Instead, she stares across the study and out the window, perched on the edge of that damn chair—reminding me all too much of how stiff and scared she’d been back on Arcadia, that morning when I’d returned with the new contract.
Only now, she’s afraid of me.
My jaw clamps harder. I get down a hard inhalation, battling the bizarre twist in my gut: the beginning of a tornado so distinct, it startles me as much as it terrifies me. I’ve only endured the tornado twice before. Once for Damon, once for Lily. This—thing—with Mishella is nothing like either of those times.
Is it?
I drop my head. Pinch my nose so hard, vessels are likely broken. I can only hope. A bloodbath from my nose is a thousand times better than a hemorrhage from my soul—which this cannot be. Not after a goddamn week…
You sure about that?
Are you absolutely sure that seven days ago, you didn’t walk into that reception hall on Arcadia, behold this woman, and feel every tangle in your brain fall free? Every sprint of your spirit reach its finish line…every hunger of your heart find its fill?
Hasn’t everything since then…just made sense?
Except…that it doesn’t.
“I—I just wanted to know more about you, Cassian.”
And dammit, how it should.
If she were with any other man, it would.
“I know.” Both words are growled, drenched in my defeat. I hate this. Hate that the secrets I must keep have made her feel like the one on trial here. I hate that Prim has become so obsessed with keeping those secrets, she’s turned into the Temptation guard dog. I hate that she and Ella aren’t up on the terrace right now, drinking wine and giggling about—whatever the hell women giggle about. Probably their men. In that case, Prim’s giggles should be about Hodge, and Ella’s should be about—
Not you, asshole.
But the thought of any other man making her smile, much less giggle, turns my ire into barely contained rage—an anger I have no goddamn right to. She’s mine for only six months—and there’s no room in that timeline for dredging up ghosts. She’ll go back to Arcadia with memories of fire, passion, magic, and romance, not with the miserable stories of how fate, helped by two drug addicts I was stupid enough to love, has fucked my ability ever to trust words that mean even more than those. Words like commitment. And promises.
And forever.
Words she fully deserves in her life.
Not the goddamn misery. Or worse, her pity.
Sure as hell not with the story of how my wife threw herself out Turret Two’s window—and how I haven’t been able to leave her ghost behind for four damn years.
She sneaks another furtive glance up at me. Squirms but sits straighter, like Lily herself is lurking nearby, and gleefully wiggling the phantom flagpole up Ella’s spine.
“I…I am sorry, Cassian.”
“It’s all right.”
She stands in a rush. “No.”
“Ella, really—it’s all right.”
“I mean no, I am not sorry.”
Her fists bunch, pulling at the hem of the sweater she must’ve changed into when returning from Kathryn’s—and visiting me. Best five minutes of my fucking day. Her lips twist but she firms them before jogging up her chin once more.
“I—I am starting to…care about you, Cassian. Probably…more than I should.” She works a bare toe against the floor—making me long to reach up, strip the gray leggings from her, and screw the rest of her unsteady questions right out of her eyes. Yeah, right here. Yeah, right now.
“I care about you too.” My hands drop into their own tight balls. My jaw tautens again. None of it goes undetected by her darting gaze. By now, she has to discern the bottom line. I’m dancing around the real subject as much as she is. “Yeah,” I finally add. “Probably more than I should.”
Another damn placeholder. I’ve never just “cared” about this woman—unless the term encompasses a connection so strong, every circuit of my psyche has felt snapped into hers from the moment our eyes first met. Our mainframes completely synched—
Without any backup drive in place.
Fuck. So dangerous.
“So why is it a crime to want to know you better?”
“It isn’t.” When her brows jump, I emphasize, “It isn’t. Prim reacted the way she did out of—”
“Love?”
I square my shoulders. “Yes.” Pull in another breath. “Out of love. But not in the way you think.” Hell. Could I get any more cliché? The sad answer is yes, because now I have to attempt an explanation about the bond to Prim, without ripping back the scab over the wound named Lily. “You know the funny bit girls have, about friends being a rose garden?” When she gives a small nod, I finish, “Well, Prim and I aren’t a garden. We’re a briar patch. We both bleed a lot—”
“But it would hurt worse to leave.”
Is it a shock that she concludes the thought so perfectly? Rhetorical question. It’s also no news alert when my chest clenches from the aftermath: the look on her face depicting the briar thorns she’s clearly still picking free from her spirit.
Dammit.
I need to fix this.
Disconnecting the mainframe isn’t an option.
“Ella—”
“Cassian.” She takes a measured step back. “I—I understand, all right?” Her gaze turns dark and watery. “You have had years with her. I have had barely a week. She was right in reminding me of my place.”
“Your place?” I rush forward. She retreats again, nearly skittering now. Real smooth, idiot.
“It is fine. Truly.”
“No.” The boulder in my chest is now a quarry, piled with chunks of tension. “Ella…no. Your place here…” I barely hold back from even reaching for her. “You belong in every place.” I need you in all of them.
“Except Turret Two.”
I stab a hand through my hair. “It’s just not—safe—up there, okay?”
Truest thing you’ve spoken all day, mother fucker. She knows it too. Knows it. I feel her perception on the air like a mist before rain. “So we are back to where we started.”
She folds her arms. I spread mine out.
“If you want to know things, I’m right here. Just ask me, favori.”
Her dash of a hopeful glance injects something close to joy. Maybe this hurricane will be just a passing storm after all. With Hodge calming Prim with a run through the park and the door to Turret Two now soundly locked, the spark of trust in Ella’s eyes is my light in that storm. If all it takes now to get there is sharing my favorite color and some inane stories from my childhood, so be it.
“All right.” Ella lifts her head and nods. Sets her gaze steadily to mine. Despite the bid for confidence, she nervously wets her lips. “After my exam, Kathryn and I talked for a little while.”
I smile and mean it. “Good. I knew you’d like her.”
“Well…”
“Well…what?”
“She told me some…things.”
Continuing the smile isn’t an effort. Even if Kate spilled all her “things”—which I highly doubt, knowing Kate and her ethics—they wouldn’t be all the things. Nobody has all of it. Silo the explosives, and no one has the power to blow the world up.
“Things like what?” It’s still conversational. Okay…this really isn’t that hard.
“Like about how you two fought on your first date.”
I even let a full chuckle fly. “You mean our only date?”
“Because you were too serious.”
“Fair statement.”
“She says you still are.”
“Which is why I’m the only one laughing about this?”
“She also said intense.”
I widen my stance enough for a comfortable heel rock. And a heated turn of my stare. “Intensity can be a good thing…in many situations.” Just like that, I fixate on her leggings again—but she doesn’t follow the gist. Her brows are knitted, her gaze still clouded.
“She says you are driven to be that way…by ghosts.”
Fuck.
The quarry stacks up again—in my gut. Outwardly, I cop a cool-ass Clint Eastwood, bravado bullets across my chest, teeth clenched on an invisible cigar. “Ghosts,” I finally repeat. “Was she specific? Gory ones with red eyes or cute cuddly Caspers?”
Ella doesn’t flinch.
I’m not sure whether to be encouraged or unnerved.
Clint, don’t fail me now.
She diverts her gaze from me. Dips a nod at the photo frame on the desk. “Is she one of them? The woman in the photo with you?”
Her redirected sights give me a second to regroup my expression—and my thoughts. While there’s nothing to hide about the picture itself—it’s sitting in the open, after all—I predict the shot’s surface values will be just the start for my curious little Arcadian. Quickly, I start strategies for where she’ll take this.
Because as far as I’ve let her in…
she can’t be allowed to go all the way.
“That’s…my mother.” I feel my lips kick up as I lift the frame. “Her name is Mallory.” I trace a finger around Mom’s face. “She lives in Connecticut now, in a little place I bought her, with a garden and room for her cats.”
“But this was not taken in Connecticut.”
Still not a damn thing wrong with the sorceress’s instinct. Right now, because things are still easy, I give her what she wants. “No. Not Connecticut. This was taken at the Jersey shore.”
Suddenly, I’m there again. Maybe it’s the way Ella always smells a little like the sea or the memories-on-demand corner I’m in, but for one incredible moment, I’m just a kid again, on a grand adventure with my mom and big brother…
“We were there on vacation,” I murmur. “Just something last-minute Mom threw together. She did shit like that all the time.” I laugh softly as the recollection takes deeper root. “We stayed in this…dump…Christ, the walls were so thin, we heard everything the couple next door was doing. Let’s just say I got a crash course in the birds, the bees, and the entire animal kingdom.”
“Oh, my.”
For a moment, I simply gaze at the new flags of color across Ella’s cheeks. She steals my fucking breath. “Oh, yeah. Probably the best two nights of my life up to that point.” When she smacks my shoulder, I laugh. “Hey, you wanted to know!”
When her nose crinkles, my breath returns—in time to ignite my chest’s fucking fireworks show. “Indeed I did. But I believe the proper term here is…TMI?”
“Too Much Information?” I slide a sly smirk. “Nah. Too much information is bragging that my arm-fart of the national anthem kicked ass all over Damon’s. Even Mom agr—”
The abort button is five seconds too late. Ella’s curiosity is already in full bloom, though it’s still the open, did-I-miss-something kind, not the what-the-hell-are-you-hiding kind.
“Damon?” Her innocence cinches the fresh twist in my gut. Dammit, was I really that careless? “Who is that?”
For a second—maybe more than one—I weigh the merit of a simple lie. Simple? Really? How?
Fine. Maybe half the truth. He went with us to Jersey a few times. I was close to him in childhood.
Both statements are completely true. But neither is the full truth.
“He was my brother.”
And sometimes it’s just better to lie in the fucking bed one makes.
She would’ve learned this part sooner or later. Something would’ve given her more than a passing clue, then she’d mention it to her ‘net-savvy little friend over in Arcadia, who’d hunt deeper than the basic wiki and biography websites from which Legal has managed to suppress the information so far. This way, I’m controlling the feed—and exactly how much of my soul is lobbed off in the doing. The wound will be repairable. A more invisible scar after she’s gone.
“Your…brother.” Her murmur is dotted with bewilderment. “Oh. I—I did not know—”
“Few do.” My stomach clenches by another notch. I cloak the discomfort in a haven cold but familiar: the corporate photo pose. Powerful lean against the desk. One hand braced against the top, knuckles down. It says impenetrability. It says back the hell down.
But to someone like Mishella Santelle, it only says here’s your pause for more questions.
“Well, does he live in Connecticut now too? Is he older or younger than you?”
And fuck it, all my heart wants to do is answer—as my soul screams from the incision.
“Older,” I finally grit. “By two years.” My fist grinds so hard against the desk, I expect cracks to fissure the glass plane. “At least…he was.”
Her breath clutches—the sound I’ve been dreading. And now hate.
“W-was?”
I twist my lips. Focus my stare out the window, onto something as innocuous as possible. A crow sits atop a chimney half a block away, a black sentinel against the late afternoon sky. Why is that bird so still? And aren’t crows supposed to be magical symbols of something?
“Cassian?”
I swivel toward her. It’s torture but I’m unable to fight it. Magic. It’s not in the crow; it’s right here in her searching gaze, her quiet concern, her soft sorrow…
No. Not sorrow.
Pity.
Fuck.
I am the subject of nobody’s pity.
“This isn’t something I want to talk about anymore, Mishella.”
Her throat vibrates on a heavy swallow. Still, her chin jolts up before she replies, “Is that why the only sound louder than your fist against that desk is the grind of your teeth? Why you look as if you yearn to collapse where you stand, but run as fast as you can at the same time?”
I jerk upright. Shove to my full stance. Pivot away. “This conversation isn’t going to happen. Period.”
I had to go and nickname her after the princess who walked home from the ball carrying a pumpkin and a bunch of mice. Her hand, persistent and elegant, wraps around my forearm from behind. “I think this conversation is long overdue.”
“Then you think really wrong.”
“I do not want to hurt you.”
A laugh twists out of my constricting throat. “Christ, Mishella.” All too fast, the laugh becomes a moan. “Don’t you see?” I focus outside again—seeking the crow. Needing it to get out in a snarl, “You. Will. Incinerate. Me.”
Pumpkin. Mice. This damn, tenacious woman flattens herself against my back, her cheek like a flare to my whole spine…my whole being. “Maybe it is simply time to live in the light again.”
Her arms circle my waist. She feels so fucking good…
I clutch her wrists. Bring her in closer. “But you like the dark better.”
“Maybe the world needs both.”
The husk in her voice follows the fiery path she has already ignited…up my spine then back down. Spreading lower. Lower…
I shudder. She presses tighter.
“Cassian, please. I just want to help.”
Her presence penetrates deeper. Makes me consider, if only for a moment…
What would it be like…to surrender? To really talk about it all? To let someone into the darkness again?
Like you let Lily in?
My breath rushes out, full of relief, as the thought slams in. It’s the steel door I need. The clarity I crave. The passage back to the space I can best keep Ella too. Indeed, like a beacon, it guides my hands atop both of hers. Shoves them down until she’s cupping me. The inferno of my thoughts turns into the perfect fire between my thighs.
“Then help me,” I grate…pushing harder into her grip. Filling her fingers, which now follow my lead. She grips and sprawls and stretches, taking in the width of my bulge…
Her breath quickens against my back. “Oh. By the powers. Oh.”
“Yes. Fuck, yes…”
“No!”
It’s just a gasp but breaks us apart like a scream. I wheel around but already know I shouldn’t be—that my glare, spawned by disgust for myself, is going to look more like impatient fury. Like the expression of a man who expects to get his forty million dollars’ worth out of the woman in front of him. The woman at whose feet he should be falling instead.
The woman who stumbles away, lips trembling, eyes entirely too bright.
“Well.” Her chin jerks high again—while her hands wrestle in front of her stomach. “I suppose apologies are in order. I am…sorry, Cassian. Truly.”
My throat squeezes. “What the hell? You’re sorry?”
“You were right. This conversation really is not happening.” Her eyes drop like a subject being judged by her king. “And now that I am enlightened about everything, it will not again. I give you my promise about that.”
A strange weight slams my chest. “Promise?” I repeat. “Enlightened? I don’t…understand.”
“It is all right. I do.” And why the hell is she smiling now—with such open serenity? “What you really wish for in all this is a bedmate.”
“A bed what?”
“A fuck friend?” She cocks her head. “Is that more comfortable for you? Or do you prefer a calling booty?”
I unlock my teeth long enough to snap, “You are not my goddamn booty call.”
“Hm.” The sound is clipped as her smile taps out. She drops her head again—though not quickly enough. The shiny tracks on her cheeks are unmissable. “That is…an interesting point of view.”
Another sensation invades my chest. It’s not like the normal ache when I’m with her. It’s worse—like my lungs are wrapped in rope and a dull knife is relentlessly sawing to get through. Or to get out?
“Mishella.” The dagger’s in my voice now, an entreaty for understanding. But will that matter? She wants things I can’t give. She wants the past. She wants the truth.
She wants too much.
She lets my plea fall into silence, as she turns and leaves on slow steps.
I watch until she disappears—
and then I can watch no more.
I spin back toward the desk, toward the window through which I crave to drive my fist—especially now with the crow on its sill, smugly eyeing me as darkness takes over the city behind him.