Chapter 25 – Cain
“Okay… run this by me one more time.” My sister Rosie demands as she folds her arms across her chest.
I shake my head. “I’m not repeating myself.”
“Cain…”
“You wouldn’t get it,” I say, trying to avoid eye contact with my bewildered little sister.
“Please, enlighten me on why you thought it was a good idea to book a sex therapy session with the model from Rebel’s shoot who you sued? How did you even know that she was a sex therapist?” Her brown eyes are wide as she stares at me in what looks like is a mixture of shock and appall.
I sigh. “It’s a long story.” One that stems back to almost a year ago now of accidental run-ins and nights spent naked where I’ve slowly fallen for the wild woman who makes me happy from a small-town in Connecticut.
I glance out the window of my top floor apartment where snow is gently blanketing the streets of New York City below.
It’s mid-November now, and completely out of the norm for us to get winter weather this early.
I feel even worse knowing I’ve made Rhiannon commute into the city in it but at least I know she won’t be out with Rebel tonight and get stuck somewhere talking to him…
Laughing with him…
Getting snowed in with him…
My jaw clenches and my fists flex at my side.
Not a date my ass.
Rosie stretches out on my couch like she has no plans to leave. It’s the same white one that Rhiannon pointed out never gets used and to be frank, my sister may be the first person to have ever sat on it.
“I have all evening.”
“Well, I don’t. I have a therapy appointment, remember? Don’t you have somewhere to be tonight? Friends to hang out with or something?”
A sad look passes over her face for just a moment before she’s back to her usual self. “It’s Sunday.”
“I’m aware.”
“So, what’s the story behind the girl?” she presses again.
I sigh. Fine. “The whole courthouse meet up wasn’t the first time I ran into her.”
Her brows raise. “What?”
“I met her back in March… at Bryant Park.”
Her brows raise higher. “Uh-huh. And?”
“You’re going to make me spit this out for you, aren’t you?”
Her brown eyes widen to an almost comic size. “You guys slept together back then?”
I nod, waiting for her inevitable outburst. But instead of outrage, she bursts into laughter.
“Oh my gosh, I love her. She’s going to be so pissed when she finds out it’s you who booked this appointment! What are you trying to do? Go for round two?”
I sigh and shove a hand through my hair. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
I want to tell Rosie that I have feelings for her. Ones that didn’t make sense to me at first either but now do. Obviously, it’s not love. I couldn’t say that—I barely even know her!
And let’s not forget the little detail that she agreed to go on a date with my client after she stood in the doorway of my office and watched me masturbate. I saw the way her cheeks had pinked, the pebble of her nipples against her maid uniform and the desire behind her eyes.
And yes, I know what I’m doing is wrong. That I booked this appointment solely so she wouldn’t meet up with Rebel tonight because I’m fucked up in the head. But that didn’t stop me from doing it.
And do I care that I’m cock-blocking one of my clients? Not even a little bit.
Rosie wipes a tear from her eye, trying to catch her breath. “So, what exactly did you put in the appointment inquiry? That you have trouble getting it up and need to talk with someone? Why not just, I don’t know, ask her out like a normal person?”
I scoff. Trouble getting it up is definitely not my problem. In fact, I proved that to myself three times this morning, all while thinking about her smooth skin and imagining how it would feel under my teeth.
“I have asked her out. Sort of.”
Rosie’s jaw drops again, this time for an entirely different reason. “You asked her out on a date?”
“I told her I wanted to give this thing a shot.”
She scoffs. “Men. You need to be more specific.”
“I can’t see how much clearer I could be. She didn’t say yes. She said she’d think about it and then didn’t reply for days.”
“Ouch.”
“Ah, I love having that rubbed in my face.”
She gives me a small, pitied smile. “Sorry. But do you really think using her job to get her to respond was the right approach?”
No. Not at all. But I’m desperate.
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“Uh, why?” her brows knit together.
“Because she was meeting up with Rebel XOXO about some job he had for her or some shit.” I wave my hands and take another sip of my drink.
“Wait, what the hell? So, you scheduled a therapy session with her just to get her to cancel a date with your client?”
“It wasn’t a date,” I grit out, though I’m not sure I believe that. Knowing Rebel, he was going to try to sleep with her.
“Does she even know it’s you?”
I rub my temples, already regretting telling her. “I used a code name... said it was a husband and wife... The Spinsters.”
That sets her off again. She laughs so hard she nearly falls off the couch.
“Alright, you can leave now.” I glare at her.
She gasps dramatically. “What, you don’t want me to stick around and pretend to be your fake wife in therapy? Mrs. Spinster?”
I walk over, grab her by the elbow, and gently usher her toward the elevator doors. “No, Rosie. Go home.”
But she stops in the doorway, suddenly serious.
“Cain, seriously—what’s your plan when she realizes that it’s you?
This isn’t like you. Renting out a hotel room, booking a fake therapy session, chasing after a woman?
You don’t even date. You’re into her. Why not just tell her how you feel?
And not ‘I want to see where this goes,’ but that you’re really into her and then put in the actual effort to prove that to her? ”
I sigh, leaning against the doorframe. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Rosie.
My life—our job—it doesn’t exactly scream I have time for a relationship.
And she’s not part of this world. She wouldn’t get the things I see, the things I have to do for my clients.
Sometimes it’s borderline unethical, sometimes worse.
” I pause, rubbing at the back of my neck.
“To be honest with you,” my voice drops because this isn’t what we do.
We don’t normally get this vulnerable with each other, but something tells me I need to tell Rosie how I’m feeling, “I don’t feel like I’m right for her.
Deep down inside, I know I’m not worthy of being in a relationship with someone so full of… joy. And integrity.”
Rosie’s eyes soften as she squeezes my arm because she gets it. Our careers are cutthroat, and she knows as much as I do, there’s no free time in our schedules and sometimes we have to make difficult decisions that don’t make sense to the public.
Relationships we’ve had in the past fizzle out because who wants to be married to someone who’s already dating their job and the clients that come with them?
“She drives me nuts sometimes. Anytime we’re together we argue.”
“About what?”
“Literally anything. It doesn’t matter the topic, we’re arguing.
I told her that those little stick figure stickers people put on the back of their cars with their family and pets are a liability because you’re giving away information about your family to every stranger you drive past. She told me I was a grouchy old man trying to ruin everyone’s fun. ”
Rosie laughs. “You do try to ruin the fun.”
“I do not.”
“Hey, maybe you should use this as an opportunity to show her that you’re fun. Who knows? She might just be the one.”
The one.
It has a nice sound to it. But then I think about the fact that she’s told me on multiple occasions she doesn’t date.
The fact that she watched me come with her name on my lips, curiously, willingly, and yet never said anything.
The fact that every time she gets close, she does something absolutely unhinged to block my advances or push me away.
Maybe what we’ve had these past few months is just that. Fleeting, carefree moments where both of our guards are down and the reality is we’re both too closed off. Distracted, and full of responsibilities that will never allow us to slow down and just be.
Or maybe it will.
Either way, I intend on finding that out tonight.
With a quick kiss on my cheek, Rosie’s gone, leaving me to my half-baked plan and the hope that she shows up.
◆◆◆
Three hours later, I’m just as anxious as I was when Rosie left the penthouse.
Except now, I’m waiting in room 326 on the third floor of the hotel where I live, dressed in a suit and questioning every single decision that’s led me here tonight.
What the hell am I doing ambushing her like this?
I’ve debated bolting at least a dozen times since booking this room and swiping the key card.
The logical move would be to send her payment for the session, toss in a little extra for the snow she’s had to endure making the trip, and issue a formal apology for the last-minute cancellation.
But no, here I am. Because I know her. She’ll be furious either way, and part of me can’t stand the thought of her thinking I’m a coward even if it’s the fictional Spinsters that she’d be blaming.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, pulling me out of my dark spiral. It’s one of my paralegals likely calling about the disaster of a case blowing up in Los Angeles that I’ve been working on this past week.
Fuck, the timing of this call couldn’t be any worse.
I swipe to answer because I’m married to my career and brace myself while Krystle immediately launches into a rapid-fire monologue about everything going sideways with the appeal.
My head pounds with each word as she details missed deadlines, uncooperative witnesses, and a hearing that’s somehow been moved up two days.