Chapter 12 – Cora #3
“For you, maybe. Why do you want to make up with me so bad? I can’t leave you.
You said it yourself—we can have a traditional marriage.
You can fuck your secretary, and I can take up tennis.
Sign up for lessons down at the club and get myself one of those tennis pros.
Or I wonder if Drake Chambers plays tennis .
. . think he’d charge hourly to play with me? ”
His teeth clench almost imperceptibly. My heart beats a little faster.
“I made a mistake,” he says, his voice low. “I miscalculated.”
“Yeah, you did,” I agree.
“It doesn’t need to ruin the rest of our lives.”
“My life’s not ruined. The circumstances have just changed.”
“See? You didn’t love me. I was your plan A.” He’s not whining or arguing. He’s just saying.
I lean closer until I’m right in his face. Our eyes are still locked. I can see the tiny band of gold around his pupils that always reminded me of the Eye of Sauron.
“So you wanted me to love you?” I ask quietly, my lips an inch from his. He’s so carefully still. Like I’m a bear he’s met on a trail.
“Love was never a consideration.”
I smile for what feels like the first time in forever. I have no idea what he really thinks or feels, but “never a consideration?” That reeks of bullshit.
His gaze flicks briefly to my curving mouth. Is he nervous? Adrian Maddox doesn’t get nervous.
“Do you want me to kiss you?” I ask. I don’t know what I’m doing.
Fucking with him, obviously, but why or to what end?
I have no idea. I do know that awful feeling in my stomach I’ve been carrying since that night at Maddox Towers has ebbed, noticeable mostly from its absence.
I never do know what I’m feeling when I feel it.
“Do you want to kiss me?” he shoots back.
I roll my eyes “Cop-out.”
“Coward,” he says.
I bend forward until my mouth hovers over his. Every exhale, his breath ghosts my lips.
“Why were you mad at me when you fucked your director of finance?” I ask.
“I don’t know.”
“Wrong answer.” I make to back away, but he seizes my wrist, cuffing it with his fingers, holding me in place.
I try to twist my wrist free. “You’re hurting me.” He’s not, really. I’m too amped to register pain. Still, he’s crossed a line he’s never stepped over before, and I’m not passing up the leverage.
“Where’s your wedding ring?” he asks, holding my hand in front of my face so I can see my bare ring finger.
“I threw it in the river.”
“Bullshit. It’s with the rest of your jewelry. You’re not going to be able to pawn it. I reported it all stolen.”
“Bullshit.” He’s lying. I can tell. Delight swells inside me. He’s not so inscrutable now, is he? My rose-colored glasses are gone, and I can see through him. X-ray vision.
“Any reseller is going to give you pennies on the dollar,” he says. “Sell it to me. Name your price.”
“You couldn’t afford it.”
Tightening his grip, he grabs my other wrist and pushes me back in my chair, pinning my arms to my side. He’s leaning over me now. His face is in mine, my breath ghosting his mouth. I shrink myself, so I can gaze wide-eyed up at him and look as delicate and harmless as I can.
“You’re thinking about headbutting me in the face, aren’t you?” he asks.
Or biting his nose off. “Of course not. I’m not crazy,” I lie.
He doesn’t answer right away. He rakes his gaze down my body and then says, “I know. You’re cornered.” He leans even closer, until I can only see his eyes, and his lips brush mine when he speaks. “I’m not your enemy, you know.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No.”
“You fucked some random because you were ‘on edge.’ Why?”
“I don’t know,” he repeats. “Where were you the six months before you came to New York?”
“What?” My pulse erupts, and I begin to struggle for real. He pins my arms tighter to my sides.
“You quit your job in the spring of your senior year of high school, and you didn’t show up in New York until the fall. What were you doing?”
“What does any teenager do the summer after graduation?” If he glances down, will he be able to see my heart pounding through my shirt? “What does it matter?”
His eyes narrow. There’s the megalodon. Under the fresh surge of panic, my chest twinges almost wistfully. He’s on top again, and I’m back on the bottom. I give up trying to wrench myself free.
He glances down at my limp arms. His expression turns almost rueful, and he sighs. “I didn’t want this.”
“What did you want?”
He lets me go and begins to gently rub my arms. “I wanted you to kiss me.”
“I almost did before you ruined everything. Yet again.”
“Almost,” he agrees. He carefully returns my hands to my lap and leans back. “Cora,” he says. “Listen. We need to work this out. Can we take some time, go away together? Maybe Aspen. Or Gstaad. You love Gstaad. We can bring the kids.”
I’m already shaking my head.
“How about a night out then? Vera can watch the girls. We left Pearl for the evening when she was Winnie’s age.”
“No.”
“That’s it? Just no?” He keeps his voice even, but there’s a note underneath, anger that he’s trying to control.
“That’s it. Just no.” My voice is even, too. My anger is buried so deep, it doesn’t leave a trace.
We stare at each other for a few moments. The wind is gusting so hard outside, it buffets the window panes. The branches of the trees blow in one direction and then another. The red and orange and yellow leaves scramble, sailing this way and that in the air, cartwheeling across the lawn.
Inside, the room is silent, and we are perfectly still.
I think outside and inside are backward. Adrian’s face is impassive. Collected. I watch him, calm and motionless.
But inside—I’m beginning to suspect that there’s a storm in him as wild as the one in me.