Chapter 19 #2
Diane stands and walks to the side window that looks out onto the garden.
She's feeling something new, because even though talking about the Carters unsettles her, telling Cassidy feels like a kind of catharsis.
She's handing over something valuable, something she's always kept under lock and key—and she's doing it willingly, without asking for anything in return.
"There was no room to argue. My father was furious about my lack of loyalty to the family.
My mother just pressed her lips together and shook her head.
I could picture what she was thinking—what people would say about us.
The Carter girl turning down good August Rackfort.
What a disgrace." A short, dry laugh escapes her, lasting barely a second.
"I left the moment I realized what my life would be—marrying someone I didn't want, giving him children, being a faithful, obedient wife while my parents kept up their status and, naturally, started planning Riley's wedding. "
Cassidy presses her lips together. She's somewhere between angry and confused, but not exactly shocked when it comes to terrible parents.
"Is that when you went to New York?" the blonde asks, remembering that when Diane told her about being a recovering alcoholic, she'd been living in the city.
The head of development at Whitestone returns to her seat.
"I went to Portland. When I got to the bus station they wouldn't sell me a ticket because it was obvious I was underage. I snuck onto a bus heading that way."
Cassidy smiles, picturing a very young Diane slipping onto a bus and hiding between the seats.
"After that there isn't too much to tell.
By then I'd just turned seventeen, and I'd taken four hundred dollars my father kept in a tin can," she says, passing a hand along the back of her neck.
"I got lucky. I washed dishes at a bar until I turned eighteen, then left for New York—as far from everything as I could get. "
"College is nothing compared to everything you went through," Cassidy says, opening her hands. "All of that is what brought you here."
Diane nods.
"That, and the fact that I was sick of sharing a room with two women who gave me ten dollars every time they needed to bring a client in," she says, raising both eyebrows.
"New York had more opportunities, but it was also more competitive, and everything was more expensive than Portland.
It was really hard at first, but things kept getting better until one day the opportunity I'd been waiting for showed up and I didn't even think twice—I packed my bags and came to California. "
The doorbell rings and Diane gets a reprieve. She stands, but before she can walk to the door, Cassidy catches her by the arm.
"I'll get it," she says, and before Diane can argue, she kisses her—deep, the kind that stops her heart cold. "You paid for food yesterday and today. This one's on me."
"You're working on a weekend, Collins," she says evenly, leaving out the words you're helping me. "Feeding you is the least I can do."
"You can do that later," Cassidy says with a wink, and turns to collect the order.
This time there aren't nearly as many bags—just a couple, with two carbonaras and a garlic bread for two. The two women fall into easy coordination: while one pulls out the containers, the other sets out the silverware and grabs the drinks.
"Oh my God, this is amazing," Cassidy says after the first bite.
"Told you," Diane says, letting the corner of her lips stretch into something that almost becomes a smile.
They eat in a silence that feels almost domestic—the kind of ease that, without either of them looking for it, they've built over months.
Who would ever have told Diane Carter she'd end up having dinner on a Saturday night with the insufferable intern Samuel Barnes had smuggled into her department over her objections?
No one, that much is clear. And she certainly couldn't have imagined she'd feel this good sitting next to her.
Cassidy pushes her plate forward and leans back in her chair, satisfied and very nearly stuffed. Diane takes a sip from her water bottle, and glancing at her sideways, she notices something has shifted in the girl. She catches it the moment Cassidy opens her mouth.
"My mother left me at an orphanage when I was a baby," she begins, telling her story—not because she owes it to her, but because she wants Diane to know it too.
"She was just a kid herself, or at least that's what I was told.
So she handed me over and walked away. There was supposed to be a family ready to adopt me—everything was set—but they backed out at the last minute. "
Cassidy shrugs. She doesn't remember any of that, but she remembers what came after.
"I basically grew up there. It wasn't a bad place—I had a bed, hot food, an education, friends.
The problem was no family ever picked me, no matter what I did, and that made me pull back, become more introverted," she says, dropping her gaze to watch the movement of her own fingers.
"Eventually the orphanage couldn't keep me anymore—age out, they call it—and I started moving from house to house.
Some better, some worse. All of them pretty terrible, honestly.
No kid should be living at twelve in a dirty house or eating one can of meatballs a day. "
Diane clenches her jaw. She's felt something cut through her chest, sharp and clean. She isn't sure she wants to hear about the pain of a girl who's worked her way into her body over these past months, but something keeps pushing her to be here, to listen to what Cassidy wants to tell her.
"In one of those houses I met Kenny and Payton," she says, smiling, because her siblings are the best thing she has in her life.
"I was angry at the world. I couldn't understand why I had to live in those places without a real family that actually wanted me.
When I heard their stories—" She exhales, long and slow.
"—I understood I'd gotten the better end of the deal. "
"Were they placed for adoption too?" Diane asks, and the moment she hears the answer, she regrets asking.
Cassidy shakes her head.
"Kenny's dad went to prison and there was no family to take him in.
With Payton, child services pulled her from the home she was living in with her mother," she says, biting the inside of her cheek before going on.
"For some reason—fate, I guess—we ended up together in two of the same foster homes, until Tili and Robert, our permanent adoptive parents, took us in. "
"Sounds like there was a happy ending," Diane says, hoping she's gotten that right.
A shadow settles in Cassidy's eyes for a second and disappears just as quickly.
"It wasn't all perfect, but I can't complain.
We had it really good with them—but they were older.
Tili died first, Robert a few months later," she says, and the memory of both losses sits in her voice.
"We had to let the bank take the house. They'd taken a second mortgage out on it for us, so we could live well.
So Kenny left for Las Vegas when a job came through, and Payton was finishing up her degree—but she took me with her to make sure I stayed on track.
She still does," she says, smiling at the thought of her sister. "I live in her apartment."
Cassidy picks up her water bottle—she's been careful not to drink alcohol in front of Diane—and drains it in two long swallows.
"So we've both had complicated stories, but here we are," she says, pressing both hands flat on the table. "And after everything we've been through, we can't let Frances get away with this."
Diane makes a face of pure disgust. She'd almost managed to forget about the snake who'd crawled back from the past to trip her up.
Cassidy stands and holds out her hand.
"Should we get back to it?" she asks, raising both eyebrows.
In that instant, when those green eyes light up everything, Diane's brain stops working. She stops being rational, because in front of Cassidy she can't be. She gets up from her chair, takes her hand, and kisses her.
"Stay tonight," she whispers against her mouth, pushing aside the consequences of what she's asking.
Cassidy holds her gaze, locked into that deep blue. Her heart is racing and her skin is warm. Her answer is to kiss her again—because from that moment on, words are beside the point.