Better man lesser book 2, p.12
Better Man (Lesser Book 2), page 12
Through the windows, I could see him lift a bar stacked with weights and do curls with it.
It was a morning like any other. Nothing special. Back to normal as usual.
My temper got the best of me, and I marched across the grass to the front of the window where he could see me. His forehead was bathed in sweat, and his bare arms were tight with so many veins I could see them through the window. When I caught his gaze, I flipped him off with both hands.
He was about to do another repetition but let the bar hang there. His handsome face was marred by his furrowed eyebrows and utter confusion.
I marched off and headed back to the main house.
He caught up with me a moment later. “Baby, what was that—”
“Oh, don’t you dare baby me.” I turned around in the hallway and faced him, so angry I was immune to that chiseled body covered in beads of sweat. He was only in his gym shorts, everything above the waist naked skin. “You finally get me back, and it’s just back to business?”
His face remained confused, and his eyes shifted back and forth as his mind processed my anger. “I planned to take you out to breakfast this morning, but I thought I could squeeze in a workout since you wake up so late.”
“You think I care about breakfast?” I asked incredulously. “I want to wake up one single morning and see you next to me. You know how shitty it feels to reach out and feel a cold bed? Did you even sleep there, or did you sneak off to your room?”
His muscular arms hung by his sides as he stared at me.
“Well, there’s my answer.” I stormed off again.
“Baby.”
I flipped him off over my shoulder.
“Camille, listen to me.”
“Finish your workout, asshole.” I reached the bottom of the stairs and grabbed the rail.
He snatched my wrist with a viper’s grip and kept me locked in place. “I just got you back, and this is not how I want to spend my time.”
“Me neither.” I twisted out of his grasp.
“I didn’t mean to offend you—”
“Well, you did. I find it very offensive that you refuse to sleep with me after all this time. That you wait until I fall asleep before you sneak into your room and set your alarm so you can run to the gym first thing. Yes, I’m fucking offended, Cauldron.”
His eyes still looked angry, but there was no rebuttal.
“I was stuck with your brother for weeks, almost raped, and now I’m back, and you’re taking me for granted all over again.”
“Not sleeping with you doesn’t mean I take you for granted.”
“But it’s how a man treats his whore. Is that what I still am to you? A whore?”
His anger slowly migrated into every feature of his face. “I won’t justify your nonsense with a response.”
“Then I’ll just let you get back to your workout.” I grabbed the banister and headed up the stairs. “Clearly, that’s a lot more important than our relationship—”
He shoved me against the wall on the staircase. Still coated in sweat from his workout, he looked at me with a furious gaze. “What do you want from me?”
My eyes flicked back and forth between his.
“I asked you a goddamn question.”
“I assumed everything would be different…”
“Be clear. Be concise.”
“Don’t play stupid with me—”
“Do I look stupid to you?” He raised his voice, acting like the enemy rather than the man who made love to me for hours on end.
“I don’t want separate bedrooms. I don’t want separate lives. I want to sleep beside you, even if that means your damn alarm wakes me up at the crack of dawn and I roll over in my sleep and try to ignore it. You went all the way there to get me back, just to keep me at arm’s length? That doesn’t make any sense.”
His hands were against the wall, blocking me in. He stared with that terrifying look, his breaths still deep from the workout he’d abruptly abandoned.
“It’s either all of me or none of me, Cauldron.”
“I said I would try, didn’t I?”
“And this is trying?” I asked incredulously. “Grave would do anything to have me, and you couldn’t care less.”
I knew I’d said the wrong thing because he looked livid. “What the fuck did you just say?”
I stared.
He inched closer to my face. “Don’t compare me to him ever again.” He lowered his voice, but it was more terrifying than if he’d yelled at the top of his lungs. It was sinister, packed with warning. “Understand me?”
I held my stare.
“I asked you a question.”
“I stand by what I said,” I said quietly.
He pulled his hands off the wall and stepped back, his look callous. “Then maybe you should go back to him.”
“Or maybe you should just give me what you promised.”
“I said I would try,” he snapped. “I never promised you a damn thing.”
“Going back to the way things used to be is not trying—”
“You think I fuck other women the way I fuck you?” He was back in my face, one hand against the wall. “You think I bury myself between a woman’s thighs all night long the way I do with you?”
“So, that was fucking?” I asked in disappointment. “Because I thought it was something more…”
Heartbeats passed, and he continued his stare. “I don’t talk like a pussy, Camille. I’m not going to say I made love to you last night. I’m not going to watch you sleep until you wake up in the morning. I’m not going to leave you little fucking notes on your nightstand that say how much I miss you or some bullshit like that.” He stepped back. “This is who I am. Plain and simple. I said I would try. Be grateful.”
“Be grateful… Wow.” Quite a bold thing to say. “Maybe I’ve spent the last few years fucking men for money, but I deserve a lot more than your bullshit. I deserve all the things you just mocked, and if you can’t give them to me, then I’ll find someone else who can.”
His reaction was subtle, but it looked like he’d been smacked in the face by an invisible palm. “Is that a threat?”
“It’s a premonition of what’s to come if you don’t try harder.”
His eyes narrowed.
“In case you forgot, Grave is no longer a problem. I don’t have to stay here anymore. I want more out of life, and if you don’t want to be part of that, then I need to move on. It’s as simple as that.”
“Your freedom came at a price. A price I had to pay. So, you aren’t going anywhere.”
“What price?” I asked. “Money? Am I livestock now?”
His eyes flicked back and forth between mine, his brow strained from his look of intensity. “You came here to escape Grave. I’m the reason you got what you wanted, and you should be a lot more grateful for that. You’re demanding more of me—when it should be the other way around.”
“Then what do you want from me? To fuck me until you get bored?”
“We’ll see where it goes.”
“See where it goes…” I shook my head. “So romantic. Cauldron, I don’t need to see where it goes to know I want more with you. If you’re still uncertain about that now, then you’re just wasting my time, making it harder than it needs to be…making it crueler than it needs to be.”
The sweat started to disappear, evaporating off his warm skin. He stared at me, his cheeks tinted red from the workout that still had residual effects.
“I’m not asking for a ring. I’m not asking for forever. I just want to feel like more than a whore.”
“I don’t fuck you like a whore, Camille.”
“You know what I mean. I want to know I belong at your side. That we share a bed. That I’m your woman.”
He gave a quiet sigh. “I’ve told you my darkest secrets, shit I’ve never told anyone else, and you act like that’s nothing.”
“I didn’t say it was nothing—”
“I show my affection in my own way, but that’s not enough for you.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t enough—”
“That’s exactly what you’re saying. Our relationship has to fit within your terms. It has to be exactly what you want, or it’s insufficient. I’m sorry that our first morning together went to utter shit because I wanted to work out—”
“Because you preferred to sleep alone. That you sneak out once the fun is done. Don’t turn this around, Cauldron.”
“You said you wanted me next to you in the morning. I’m not going to lie there and watch you sleep. I’ve got shit to do. Whether I slept beside you or not, I still would have been gone when you woke up. I could have gotten killed when I came to get you from Grave, and I had to make a sacrifice I didn’t want to make to bring you home, so I don’t appreciate all this bullshit first thing in the morning.” The conversation was obviously finished because he walked away. The muscles of his back shifted and moved as he carried himself out the front door. I had no idea where he was going, and I suspected he didn’t either.
Two days passed.
We didn’t speak. Didn’t see each other at all.
I spent my time in my bedroom, taking my meals there, reading the books on the bookshelf, working out in the afternoons when I knew he wouldn’t be in the gym. As the solitude wore on, I missed him more and more, but I refused to cave first. When two days turned into three, I knew he was being stubborn too.
Who would hold out the longest?
Now it was the beginning of October, and the air started to feel cool and crisp like fall. The pool was heated so I could still take a swim, but it felt pathetic to chase after the summertime when it was long gone. All the tourists left the area, and now the village was quiet. Once late November arrived, a lot of the restaurants and shops would close until spring. Life in Cap-Ferrat slowly faded, and I felt like my body turned cold with it.
That evening was particularly chilly, fog coming in from the ocean and filtering through the trees. The sunset was invisible underneath the heavy clouds, and like ghostly fingers, it made its way onto land.
I walked past his bedroom in the hallway. The door was open, and it was obvious the space was empty. I headed downstairs, unsure if he was out for the night or having dinner alone in the dining room.
At the bottom of the stairs, I peeked inside the study and saw the fire in the massive hearth. It was the first time I’d seen a fire burn in his study, so it was obvious that the fall chill had reached him too.
He sat in one of the armchairs, his hand balancing a glass of scotch on the armrest. In fitted sweatpants and a long-sleeved maroon shirt, he sat with one ankle on the opposite knee, his fingers across his lips, staring at the dancing fire with a focused but blank stare. His jawline was covered with coarse scruff that reached down his neck. His fingers continued to drag back and forth slowly, just below his bottom lip.
I watched him for several seconds before I moved into the room.
His eyes flicked to me at the first footstep, the first inaudible creak in the floorboard. The rest of his body didn’t move. Just the eyes.
I helped myself to the chair beside him, turned slightly his way so I could see both him and the fire.
He remained still, like I wouldn’t see him if he didn’t move.
Neither one of us wanted to speak first.
That was how stubborn we were.
I swallowed my pride and went first. “I don’t want to waste my time—or my heart.”
He turned his head fully and looked at me straight on.
“If you don’t see this going anywhere—”
“Never said those words.”
“Well, you’ve given me no indication if you feel otherwise.”
He gave a slight smirk. “Then you aren’t paying attention.”
“You’ve read my notes that detail every feeling I have for you, and not once have you reciprocated the depth of those feelings. Not even a hint. It’s fine if those feelings aren’t mutual, but don’t string me along if you know there’s no chance they’ll ever be mutual.”
He looked me dead in the eye, his sorrow written all over his face. “In case you haven’t noticed, I carry a lot of shit. I’m not like an average Joe on the street. I have a lot more complexity than the average man.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’m not as articulate as you are with your notes. It means I’m incapable of feeling the same emotions to the same degree. After everything I’ve told you, I thought you’d be more understanding.”
“I am understanding, Cauldron. But you’ve hurt me really badly…in case you forgot.”
He closed his eyes briefly, like being reminded was painful.
“I just don’t want to get hurt again.”
“I can’t promise you that. If anyone does promise you something like that, they’re a liar.”
“Cauldron.”
He continued to stare at me because I already had his full attention.
“I’ll give it some more time…because of the way I feel about you. But if I don’t see any changes, then I’ll leave.” I’d seen it many times before. Women waited around for their men to leave their wives. Waited around for a ring that never came. Waited for the man to say he wanted children, only to wait too long and miss the deadline. I wouldn’t let that happen to me, regardless of my feelings for this man.
He seemed to process my words for a long time, his eyes locked on me but not focused. “Alright.”
SIXTEEN
CAULDRON
I wore slacks and a button-down shirt with loafers. Fall was in the air, but I always ran ten degrees warmer than everyone else, so I ditched the coat. The watch was fitted to my wrist before I stepped into the hallway.
“Going out?” Camille passed in my direction on the way to her bedroom.
“Unfortunately.”
“Unfortunately?” she asked. “Why are you going, then?”
“Don’t have much of a choice.”
“What are you talking about? You never do anything you don’t want to do.”
“But I’m a man of my word.”
Her eyes shifted back and forth between mine as she read my look.
“I told you your freedom came at a price.” I turned away as I adjusted my sleeves over the watch and walked away.
“Want me to come with you?”
I turned back around and looked at her, seeing her in gray joggers and a tight top. Her hair was back, and her porcelain skin glowed without the help of makeup. “Wouldn’t want to ruin your evening.”
After a short flight to Paris, I pulled up to the French restaurant on the corner. There was a line of people outside waiting to get a table even though they already had reservations, and every table was occupied by a couple or a family. I bypassed the line and was wordlessly taken to my seat.
He’d already ordered a bottle of wine and filled both glasses with Bordeaux.
I took a seat and stared at him across from me.
He stared back as he swirled his wine. “The wine is excellent.”
I took a drink but refused to admit he was right.
There was a long stretch of silence between us, of resentment, of a lot of things.
“Grave isn’t happy with me.”
“You did stab him in the back.”
“I knew you wouldn’t hurt your brother.”
“But he lost his girl.”
He gave a shrug. “That woman never wanted him. I’m saving him some time—and his dignity.”
I took another drink.
The waitress came over, a pretty little thing that kept making eyes at me. She took our order then walked away.
“So what is it about this woman?” he asked. “Or is it about the woman at all?”
I wasn’t going to have this conversation with him. He was my father, but he was also a stranger.
“Have you ever considered sharing her? A month here. A month there.”
“She’s not a toy fire truck.”
“You boys sure have treated her as such. A shiny new fire truck straight out of the package. Now that your brother has lost the game, do you still want her?”
“Yes.”
“What is it about this woman?” he asked again, his eyebrows furrowed.
“That’s my business and not yours.”
“Well…this dinner has gotten off to a great start.”
“I agreed to meet you, but I never agreed to be pleasant company.”
He gave an amused smirk. “Just as stubborn as you were as a child.”
“And you’re still the same fucking asshole.”
His smile dropped real quick.
I looked away, staring at the people around us having a great time. We stuck out like sore thumbs, both of us angry with invisible fumes.
“I gave you the information in return for your participation. I have yet to see it.”
My eyes flicked back to his. “Then don’t insult me.”
“It’s not an insult if it’s true.”
The waitress returned with our entrees and placed them in front of each of us. The food was steaming hot, but the two of us were ice-cold. She gave me another look before she walked off, like she’d slip her number into the bill.
Even if I were available, she wasn’t my type.
He dropped his napkin across his lap and started to eat.
I didn’t have an appetite.
“My company is really that unbearable?” he asked, his eyes down on his food as he cut into his meat.
“We haven’t spoken for a decade. What does that tell you?”
“Well, you made a deal, and you’re just going to make it unbearable unless you put some effort in.”
“Effort?” I asked. “It’s hard to put any effort into the man who killed my mother.”
He raised his eyes from his meal. “That’s insulting.”
I didn’t take it back.
“You know I was devastated when I lost her.”
“But you didn’t care enough to quit your bullshit to keep her safe.”
“You know I would have died for her—”
“You fucking failed.” I still heard her screams in my head. Still heard the way her weak body resisted the men on top of her. Still heard the creak of the bed as they rocked her lifeless body. “Because she was raped by three men and then slaughtered like a goddamn pig.”
It was a morning like any other. Nothing special. Back to normal as usual.
My temper got the best of me, and I marched across the grass to the front of the window where he could see me. His forehead was bathed in sweat, and his bare arms were tight with so many veins I could see them through the window. When I caught his gaze, I flipped him off with both hands.
He was about to do another repetition but let the bar hang there. His handsome face was marred by his furrowed eyebrows and utter confusion.
I marched off and headed back to the main house.
He caught up with me a moment later. “Baby, what was that—”
“Oh, don’t you dare baby me.” I turned around in the hallway and faced him, so angry I was immune to that chiseled body covered in beads of sweat. He was only in his gym shorts, everything above the waist naked skin. “You finally get me back, and it’s just back to business?”
His face remained confused, and his eyes shifted back and forth as his mind processed my anger. “I planned to take you out to breakfast this morning, but I thought I could squeeze in a workout since you wake up so late.”
“You think I care about breakfast?” I asked incredulously. “I want to wake up one single morning and see you next to me. You know how shitty it feels to reach out and feel a cold bed? Did you even sleep there, or did you sneak off to your room?”
His muscular arms hung by his sides as he stared at me.
“Well, there’s my answer.” I stormed off again.
“Baby.”
I flipped him off over my shoulder.
“Camille, listen to me.”
“Finish your workout, asshole.” I reached the bottom of the stairs and grabbed the rail.
He snatched my wrist with a viper’s grip and kept me locked in place. “I just got you back, and this is not how I want to spend my time.”
“Me neither.” I twisted out of his grasp.
“I didn’t mean to offend you—”
“Well, you did. I find it very offensive that you refuse to sleep with me after all this time. That you wait until I fall asleep before you sneak into your room and set your alarm so you can run to the gym first thing. Yes, I’m fucking offended, Cauldron.”
His eyes still looked angry, but there was no rebuttal.
“I was stuck with your brother for weeks, almost raped, and now I’m back, and you’re taking me for granted all over again.”
“Not sleeping with you doesn’t mean I take you for granted.”
“But it’s how a man treats his whore. Is that what I still am to you? A whore?”
His anger slowly migrated into every feature of his face. “I won’t justify your nonsense with a response.”
“Then I’ll just let you get back to your workout.” I grabbed the banister and headed up the stairs. “Clearly, that’s a lot more important than our relationship—”
He shoved me against the wall on the staircase. Still coated in sweat from his workout, he looked at me with a furious gaze. “What do you want from me?”
My eyes flicked back and forth between his.
“I asked you a goddamn question.”
“I assumed everything would be different…”
“Be clear. Be concise.”
“Don’t play stupid with me—”
“Do I look stupid to you?” He raised his voice, acting like the enemy rather than the man who made love to me for hours on end.
“I don’t want separate bedrooms. I don’t want separate lives. I want to sleep beside you, even if that means your damn alarm wakes me up at the crack of dawn and I roll over in my sleep and try to ignore it. You went all the way there to get me back, just to keep me at arm’s length? That doesn’t make any sense.”
His hands were against the wall, blocking me in. He stared with that terrifying look, his breaths still deep from the workout he’d abruptly abandoned.
“It’s either all of me or none of me, Cauldron.”
“I said I would try, didn’t I?”
“And this is trying?” I asked incredulously. “Grave would do anything to have me, and you couldn’t care less.”
I knew I’d said the wrong thing because he looked livid. “What the fuck did you just say?”
I stared.
He inched closer to my face. “Don’t compare me to him ever again.” He lowered his voice, but it was more terrifying than if he’d yelled at the top of his lungs. It was sinister, packed with warning. “Understand me?”
I held my stare.
“I asked you a question.”
“I stand by what I said,” I said quietly.
He pulled his hands off the wall and stepped back, his look callous. “Then maybe you should go back to him.”
“Or maybe you should just give me what you promised.”
“I said I would try,” he snapped. “I never promised you a damn thing.”
“Going back to the way things used to be is not trying—”
“You think I fuck other women the way I fuck you?” He was back in my face, one hand against the wall. “You think I bury myself between a woman’s thighs all night long the way I do with you?”
“So, that was fucking?” I asked in disappointment. “Because I thought it was something more…”
Heartbeats passed, and he continued his stare. “I don’t talk like a pussy, Camille. I’m not going to say I made love to you last night. I’m not going to watch you sleep until you wake up in the morning. I’m not going to leave you little fucking notes on your nightstand that say how much I miss you or some bullshit like that.” He stepped back. “This is who I am. Plain and simple. I said I would try. Be grateful.”
“Be grateful… Wow.” Quite a bold thing to say. “Maybe I’ve spent the last few years fucking men for money, but I deserve a lot more than your bullshit. I deserve all the things you just mocked, and if you can’t give them to me, then I’ll find someone else who can.”
His reaction was subtle, but it looked like he’d been smacked in the face by an invisible palm. “Is that a threat?”
“It’s a premonition of what’s to come if you don’t try harder.”
His eyes narrowed.
“In case you forgot, Grave is no longer a problem. I don’t have to stay here anymore. I want more out of life, and if you don’t want to be part of that, then I need to move on. It’s as simple as that.”
“Your freedom came at a price. A price I had to pay. So, you aren’t going anywhere.”
“What price?” I asked. “Money? Am I livestock now?”
His eyes flicked back and forth between mine, his brow strained from his look of intensity. “You came here to escape Grave. I’m the reason you got what you wanted, and you should be a lot more grateful for that. You’re demanding more of me—when it should be the other way around.”
“Then what do you want from me? To fuck me until you get bored?”
“We’ll see where it goes.”
“See where it goes…” I shook my head. “So romantic. Cauldron, I don’t need to see where it goes to know I want more with you. If you’re still uncertain about that now, then you’re just wasting my time, making it harder than it needs to be…making it crueler than it needs to be.”
The sweat started to disappear, evaporating off his warm skin. He stared at me, his cheeks tinted red from the workout that still had residual effects.
“I’m not asking for a ring. I’m not asking for forever. I just want to feel like more than a whore.”
“I don’t fuck you like a whore, Camille.”
“You know what I mean. I want to know I belong at your side. That we share a bed. That I’m your woman.”
He gave a quiet sigh. “I’ve told you my darkest secrets, shit I’ve never told anyone else, and you act like that’s nothing.”
“I didn’t say it was nothing—”
“I show my affection in my own way, but that’s not enough for you.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t enough—”
“That’s exactly what you’re saying. Our relationship has to fit within your terms. It has to be exactly what you want, or it’s insufficient. I’m sorry that our first morning together went to utter shit because I wanted to work out—”
“Because you preferred to sleep alone. That you sneak out once the fun is done. Don’t turn this around, Cauldron.”
“You said you wanted me next to you in the morning. I’m not going to lie there and watch you sleep. I’ve got shit to do. Whether I slept beside you or not, I still would have been gone when you woke up. I could have gotten killed when I came to get you from Grave, and I had to make a sacrifice I didn’t want to make to bring you home, so I don’t appreciate all this bullshit first thing in the morning.” The conversation was obviously finished because he walked away. The muscles of his back shifted and moved as he carried himself out the front door. I had no idea where he was going, and I suspected he didn’t either.
Two days passed.
We didn’t speak. Didn’t see each other at all.
I spent my time in my bedroom, taking my meals there, reading the books on the bookshelf, working out in the afternoons when I knew he wouldn’t be in the gym. As the solitude wore on, I missed him more and more, but I refused to cave first. When two days turned into three, I knew he was being stubborn too.
Who would hold out the longest?
Now it was the beginning of October, and the air started to feel cool and crisp like fall. The pool was heated so I could still take a swim, but it felt pathetic to chase after the summertime when it was long gone. All the tourists left the area, and now the village was quiet. Once late November arrived, a lot of the restaurants and shops would close until spring. Life in Cap-Ferrat slowly faded, and I felt like my body turned cold with it.
That evening was particularly chilly, fog coming in from the ocean and filtering through the trees. The sunset was invisible underneath the heavy clouds, and like ghostly fingers, it made its way onto land.
I walked past his bedroom in the hallway. The door was open, and it was obvious the space was empty. I headed downstairs, unsure if he was out for the night or having dinner alone in the dining room.
At the bottom of the stairs, I peeked inside the study and saw the fire in the massive hearth. It was the first time I’d seen a fire burn in his study, so it was obvious that the fall chill had reached him too.
He sat in one of the armchairs, his hand balancing a glass of scotch on the armrest. In fitted sweatpants and a long-sleeved maroon shirt, he sat with one ankle on the opposite knee, his fingers across his lips, staring at the dancing fire with a focused but blank stare. His jawline was covered with coarse scruff that reached down his neck. His fingers continued to drag back and forth slowly, just below his bottom lip.
I watched him for several seconds before I moved into the room.
His eyes flicked to me at the first footstep, the first inaudible creak in the floorboard. The rest of his body didn’t move. Just the eyes.
I helped myself to the chair beside him, turned slightly his way so I could see both him and the fire.
He remained still, like I wouldn’t see him if he didn’t move.
Neither one of us wanted to speak first.
That was how stubborn we were.
I swallowed my pride and went first. “I don’t want to waste my time—or my heart.”
He turned his head fully and looked at me straight on.
“If you don’t see this going anywhere—”
“Never said those words.”
“Well, you’ve given me no indication if you feel otherwise.”
He gave a slight smirk. “Then you aren’t paying attention.”
“You’ve read my notes that detail every feeling I have for you, and not once have you reciprocated the depth of those feelings. Not even a hint. It’s fine if those feelings aren’t mutual, but don’t string me along if you know there’s no chance they’ll ever be mutual.”
He looked me dead in the eye, his sorrow written all over his face. “In case you haven’t noticed, I carry a lot of shit. I’m not like an average Joe on the street. I have a lot more complexity than the average man.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’m not as articulate as you are with your notes. It means I’m incapable of feeling the same emotions to the same degree. After everything I’ve told you, I thought you’d be more understanding.”
“I am understanding, Cauldron. But you’ve hurt me really badly…in case you forgot.”
He closed his eyes briefly, like being reminded was painful.
“I just don’t want to get hurt again.”
“I can’t promise you that. If anyone does promise you something like that, they’re a liar.”
“Cauldron.”
He continued to stare at me because I already had his full attention.
“I’ll give it some more time…because of the way I feel about you. But if I don’t see any changes, then I’ll leave.” I’d seen it many times before. Women waited around for their men to leave their wives. Waited around for a ring that never came. Waited for the man to say he wanted children, only to wait too long and miss the deadline. I wouldn’t let that happen to me, regardless of my feelings for this man.
He seemed to process my words for a long time, his eyes locked on me but not focused. “Alright.”
SIXTEEN
CAULDRON
I wore slacks and a button-down shirt with loafers. Fall was in the air, but I always ran ten degrees warmer than everyone else, so I ditched the coat. The watch was fitted to my wrist before I stepped into the hallway.
“Going out?” Camille passed in my direction on the way to her bedroom.
“Unfortunately.”
“Unfortunately?” she asked. “Why are you going, then?”
“Don’t have much of a choice.”
“What are you talking about? You never do anything you don’t want to do.”
“But I’m a man of my word.”
Her eyes shifted back and forth between mine as she read my look.
“I told you your freedom came at a price.” I turned away as I adjusted my sleeves over the watch and walked away.
“Want me to come with you?”
I turned back around and looked at her, seeing her in gray joggers and a tight top. Her hair was back, and her porcelain skin glowed without the help of makeup. “Wouldn’t want to ruin your evening.”
After a short flight to Paris, I pulled up to the French restaurant on the corner. There was a line of people outside waiting to get a table even though they already had reservations, and every table was occupied by a couple or a family. I bypassed the line and was wordlessly taken to my seat.
He’d already ordered a bottle of wine and filled both glasses with Bordeaux.
I took a seat and stared at him across from me.
He stared back as he swirled his wine. “The wine is excellent.”
I took a drink but refused to admit he was right.
There was a long stretch of silence between us, of resentment, of a lot of things.
“Grave isn’t happy with me.”
“You did stab him in the back.”
“I knew you wouldn’t hurt your brother.”
“But he lost his girl.”
He gave a shrug. “That woman never wanted him. I’m saving him some time—and his dignity.”
I took another drink.
The waitress came over, a pretty little thing that kept making eyes at me. She took our order then walked away.
“So what is it about this woman?” he asked. “Or is it about the woman at all?”
I wasn’t going to have this conversation with him. He was my father, but he was also a stranger.
“Have you ever considered sharing her? A month here. A month there.”
“She’s not a toy fire truck.”
“You boys sure have treated her as such. A shiny new fire truck straight out of the package. Now that your brother has lost the game, do you still want her?”
“Yes.”
“What is it about this woman?” he asked again, his eyebrows furrowed.
“That’s my business and not yours.”
“Well…this dinner has gotten off to a great start.”
“I agreed to meet you, but I never agreed to be pleasant company.”
He gave an amused smirk. “Just as stubborn as you were as a child.”
“And you’re still the same fucking asshole.”
His smile dropped real quick.
I looked away, staring at the people around us having a great time. We stuck out like sore thumbs, both of us angry with invisible fumes.
“I gave you the information in return for your participation. I have yet to see it.”
My eyes flicked back to his. “Then don’t insult me.”
“It’s not an insult if it’s true.”
The waitress returned with our entrees and placed them in front of each of us. The food was steaming hot, but the two of us were ice-cold. She gave me another look before she walked off, like she’d slip her number into the bill.
Even if I were available, she wasn’t my type.
He dropped his napkin across his lap and started to eat.
I didn’t have an appetite.
“My company is really that unbearable?” he asked, his eyes down on his food as he cut into his meat.
“We haven’t spoken for a decade. What does that tell you?”
“Well, you made a deal, and you’re just going to make it unbearable unless you put some effort in.”
“Effort?” I asked. “It’s hard to put any effort into the man who killed my mother.”
He raised his eyes from his meal. “That’s insulting.”
I didn’t take it back.
“You know I was devastated when I lost her.”
“But you didn’t care enough to quit your bullshit to keep her safe.”
“You know I would have died for her—”
“You fucking failed.” I still heard her screams in my head. Still heard the way her weak body resisted the men on top of her. Still heard the creak of the bed as they rocked her lifeless body. “Because she was raped by three men and then slaughtered like a goddamn pig.”
