Chapter 31
Vincent
I heard the lock turn on the guest room door at the end of the hall.
The sound carried down the quiet apartment and settled somewhere low in my chest. She had demanded that lock, and I had given it to her because watching her set her own terms felt better than forcing her to accept mine.
Céline was here now, angry with me, locked away from me, and still inside my space where I could hear every small movement she made.
For several minutes, I stood in the living room and let the feeling wash over me.
Her suitcases waited near the hallway. Her coat hung beside mine by the door.
A faint trace of her perfume drifted through the air, soft and floral under the colder smell of rain coming off the windows.
Miss Astoria had already screamed twice from behind the closed door, which meant the cat had found something to complain about or something to claim as her own.
The apartment no longer felt empty. It felt occupied.
Alive. I had waited a long time for this exact moment, and now that it had arrived, I did not want to rush it.
I took off my watch and set it on the side table, then walked into the kitchen. The Thai food had arrived shortly after Sophia and Anya left. I kept the containers warm because I knew Céline would pretend she was not hungry until the hunger itself became another thing she could hold against me.
She did that often. She denied herself ordinary things like food or rest or comfort because admitting she needed them gave someone else a way to get closer.
She hated mushrooms but picked around them instead of sending the dish back.
She liked extra lime in her soup. She drank water between bites when she felt cornered because the small pause let her rearrange her face before anyone saw too much.
I set the table for two. Then I stopped, looked toward the guest room, and added a small bowl near the window for the cat. I found the tin of wet food in one of the bags Anya had labeled in block letters.
FOR THE DRAMATIC WHITE CHILD.
Anya Menon was irritating. Unfortunately, she was also funny.
I opened it, spooned some into the bowl, and carried it down the hall. Outside her door, I knocked once.
She responded with silence at first. Then her voice came through the wood. “What?”
“Dinner.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I did not ask if you were.”
After a pause, the door opened halfway. She stood there with her hair down now, damp strands curling around her face.
She had washed off the last of her makeup, and the black dress from earlier looked softer against her skin.
She looked tired in a way that made the effort she put into everything else stand out more clearly.
Her green eyes met mine, bright and guarded.
She glanced at the bowl in my hand. “That better not be for me.”
“It is for Miss Astoria.”
The cat appeared at her ankle right away, as if she had been waiting for the exact right moment. Céline looked down at her with clear betrayal.
“She has been ignoring me for the last ten minutes, and now she suddenly has perfect hearing.”
“She has her priorities.”
“She has no loyalty.”
Miss Astoria stepped over the threshold and walked straight toward me.
Céline stared after her.
“Unbelievable.”
The cat looked up at me and screamed again.
I looked at Céline. “Is that her approval?”
“It’s extortion.”
I placed the bowl near the window inside her room. Miss Astoria went to it immediately and started eating with total focus. Céline watched me from the doorway.
“You can leave now.”
“I ordered Thai food.”
Her expression changed for a second before she caught it. “From where?”
I named the restaurant she always ordered from.
I saw the irritation cross her face, knowing I ordered from her favourite place and felt a sharp satisfaction settle in my chest. She was here. In my apartment. Eating food I had chosen for her. The small details added up in a way that pleased me more than they should have.
“That is not fair,” she said.
“I was not trying to be fair.”
“No. You never are.”
She folded her arms, but the movement lacked its usual force. She was tired. Hungry too, even if she would rather starve than admit it easily.
“The soup will get cold,” I said.
“Then reheat it.”
“I do not like reheated soup.”
“That sounds like a you-problem.”
“It becomes your problem if you refuse to eat.”
She finally stepped out of the room and closed the door behind her with a roll of her eyes.
At the table, she sat across from me like she was attending a difficult meeting.
She curled one leg under herself on the chair, then caught herself and straightened.
I pretended not to see it. She lifted the spoon, tasted the soup, and for one second her face softened before she pulled the expression back under control.
“Don’t say a thing,” she said.
“I did not say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was not.”
“You were thinking loudly,” she said sweetly, remembering our second conversation at the courtyard.
That made me laugh. Her mouth tightened, but not fast enough. Some part of her liked pulling that sound out of me. She took three more bites before she spoke again.
“You still called my father.”
“Yes. We have covered that already.”
The spoon stopped moving in her hand without warning. She wanted the wound out in the open.
“You paid him to scare me.”
“I paid him to contact you.”
“That difference does not help you.”
“It was not supposed to; I’m just laying out the facts.”
She stared at me.
The rain pressed gently against the windows behind her. Miss Astoria, apparently finished with dinner, jumped onto the window ledge and began cleaning one paw with aristocratic satisfaction.
“I should hate you more,” she said.
“Yes.”
“I do hate you.”
“I know.”
“No, I do not think you do.” Her voice stayed low, which meant the anger had gone deeper.
“You think naming things means you understand them. You think my hatred is interesting because it keeps me close enough for you to study. But you need to hear this, Vincent. You reached into the worst part of my life and made it useful to you.”
“I know.”
Her eyes sharpened. “Then how can you sit there feeding me soup?”
“Because you still need to eat.”
She looked away. I watched the line of her throat move when she swallowed. She hated being cared for by someone she could not trust. I understood that. I also knew it made the moments when she let me anyway feel sharper.
“You are not sorry,” she said.
“No.”
That brought her eyes back to mine.
“I regret that he came to campus,” I told her. “I regret that you were exposed in front of everyone. I do not regret wanting you somewhere safer.”
Her laugh came out soft and bitter. “Safer.”
“Yes.”
“You caused the danger.”
“I sped up a danger that was already there. He would’ve found you eventually, you have a growing social media presence.”
“You sound like a villain explaining himself in a lecture hall.”
“You submitted stolen research to get into my lab.” I retort.
Her face went very still.
“You took Katherine’s work because you wanted into a room you did not believe you could enter alone,” I said quietly. “I contacted your father because I wanted you into a room you refused to enter on your own. The comparison is closer than you want it to be.”
She pushed the bowl away. “I stole a proposal. You weaponized an abusive man.”
“You also stole something intimate from a dead girl who trusted you.”
Her mouth opened, then closed. The silence that followed felt crowded. Katherine’s name sat between us even though neither of us spoke it.
Céline looked down at her hands.
“You do not know what she was to me.”
“I know she created the version of you that Bellamont accepted.”
Her breath caught. “You think I do not know that?”
I stayed quiet.
She leaned back in her chair and turned toward the window. “I regret hurting her.”
I waited.
“I regret that she knew too much about me.”
The sentence landed between us. Not the theft. Not the lie. That Katherine had seen it. Céline realized what she had admitted a second too late. Her face closed.
“Do not analyze that,” she said.
“I am trying not to.”
“No, you are not.”
“No,” I admitted. “I am not.”
She stood up, chair scraping against the floor. Miss Astoria paused to judge us both.
“I am going to my room.”
“You have not finished eating.”
“I am done.”
“You have taken five bites.”
“Then congratulations. You kept me alive for another hour.”
She turned toward the hallway.
I should have let her go. She had the lock. She could use it. That had been our agreement. But agreements felt thinner when she walked away carrying that much anger on her shoulders.
“Céline.”
She stopped but did not turn. “What?”
“If you regret hurting Katherine, why do you keep trying to survive everything that hurting her gave you?”
That was too far. I knew it the moment the words left my mouth.
Her shoulders went tight. Then she turned slowly. The look on her face sent heat straight through me.
“You do not get to ask me that.”
“I just did.”
“I could ask you the same thing,” she started. “You hurt me and then dress it up as a necessary means to an end. You destroy my choices and call yourself honest. You wanted me here, so you made me afraid enough to come.”
“Yes. All of that is true.”
“Then do not sit there pretending I am the only monster in this room.”
She watched me intently while I stood. Chin lifted, eyes bright.
“I have never thought you were the only monster in any room,” I said.
Her breathing changed. I heard it. She had moved closer without noticing. I left enough space for her to step back, but she did not.
“I think you resent me because I look at the worst thing you have done and I do not flinch,” I told her.
“You do not know the worst thing I am capable of.”
She was close enough now that I could see the faint pulse in her throat. The rain kept falling against the glass, steady and quiet, while the apartment filled with the sound of her breathing and mine.
“Don’t come closer,” she said.
“I have not moved.”