Chapter 8 Sarah #2
Cassius stood still, watching me take it all in.
At one point, someone in a tuxedo came over to him and whispered something, but I was too far to hear even if the man in the tux had spoken at a normal volume.
He looked like a waiter, not like one of Cassius’ brothers, but I had long learned never to make assumptions.
A minute after the man left, Cassius walked over to me, slower than he normally would, but not so slowly it could be mistaken as a deliberate tactic. An accidentally deliberate one, perhaps. Then again, Cassius never left anything to normalcy.
“Join me for a drink,” Cassius said. “Come. There’s a table right there.”
I looked back where he nodded his head toward. There had not been one there before, but now, respite with a white tablecloth and what looked like roses in the middle, was a table with two wine glasses. It had all happened without me noticing.
That, I supposed, was the power of Cassius’ wealth. Not that he could buy things that multimillionaires couldn’t. But that he could do so in an effortless manner that made him look invincible.
“Looks delightful,” I said.
Cassius extended his arm. There was something so much more thrilling, so much more hair-tingling about him doing it here, in the privacy of his rooftop, versus on public display for the cameras and the paparazzi.
There was also something strangely more intimate and gentle about it; he wasn’t doing this to show off his power or the type of woman he could get. He was just doing this for…
Me.
I walked over to the table, taking care to steady my walk and not show any nervousness. Just because the moment seemed more intimate, perhaps even sweeter, didn’t mean I could let my guard down. Letting Cassius show any weakness was the fastest way to get run over.
The waiter—butler? Servant? I was not rich enough to know—pulled back the chair, and I took a seat. Cassius sat across from me, the warmest smile on his face he’d had yet, and nodded.
“Pleasant, isn’t it?” he said. “I like to come up here at night and host. It’s a quiet retreat from the craziness of the world below.”
“All the women you must bring up,” I said.
But though I had just meant the remark as a joke, perhaps a poor one but humor nevertheless, Cassius growled at the remark.
“I host people I care about, Sarah,” he said.
He said nothing more, but the unstated assumption rang loudly in my head.
I’m one of the people he cares about. He would not have said something like that by mistake.
As if to double down on the moment, when the waiter came back with a bottle of red wine—unmarked, but undoubtedly a bottle worth thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars—Cassius himself poured my glass.
Now this was going past the point of sweet to suspicious. Maybe we’d already sailed well past that point, but I couldn’t take my curiosity any more.
“What is this really about, Cassius?” I said.
He stopped his pouring and looked into my eyes. Tempting as it was to just give in to those eyes—and damn was it fucking tempting—I held my own steely gaze. Both of us stared the other down, but I would not be broken.
No matter how badly my body tingled with fire and warmth.
No matter how intimate and seductive a setting this was.
I had to keep some part of me above water until I was sure it was safe to swim with this shark.
“This is about you and me,” he said.
I snorted. A start. But a vague enough statement that it could have gone in a thousand different directions.
“How so?”
“How so?” Cassius repeated. “Care to be more specific?”
“Did you bring me here to embarrass me? To break me before everyone?”
The words slipped out before I could censor them, or at least frame them in a proper light.
Cassius snorted, a sly grin forming on his face, but nothing that told me of a definitive direction his demeanor might go in or what he intended.
It could have been confirmation of my suspicion, or amusement that I had ever suspected this in the first place.
“Let’s just say the fact that we are here now, like so,” Cassius said, “shows that I had a change of plans.”
It was easy to read into that as a “yes” to my question. But maybe Cassius’ change of plans was to delay my breaking longer. Maybe he enjoyed toying with his food.
I had to get past the toying. I had to get to the heart of the matter.
“You would have every reason to after… well, what happened.”
“With Virgil?”
Pause.
“Or did you forget his name already?”
I could hear my heart thudding in my chest. So much for Cassius being coy and elusive.
The tension became too much. It wasn’t just tension in the chest; it was in the whole body. I felt like Cassius had put me in a vice grip, leaving me at his mercy. He was not a cruel man, but he was not exactly a merciful one, either. I reached for the glass of wine.
And then, before I could pull it back, Cassius had placed his hand over mine.
The electricity!
The… shock.
The tension.
I had to remind myself to breathe, I’d gotten so enraptured in the moment. My eyes stared at his hand; his fingers were firmly yet gently pressed upon mine. I didn’t dare glance up into his eyes, knowing full well that there was a fine line between submission and surrender.
I let myself glance at his face in my peripheral vision; he had affixed his stony gaze upon me, daring me to look at him. I could not. Would not. Not if I wanted any semblance of control tonight. Not if I didn’t want to end up in his bed tonight.
Which…
Intoxicating.
Arousing.
But just not the time, not yet at least.
Finally, forcefully, I pulled my hand back with the glass in hand. Cassius leaned back, letting out the quietest of exhales. I put the glass to my mouth. Before the wine hit my lips, he spoke.
“My original change of plans was to act as if you were never coming back,” he said. “And I frankly had no reason to think that you ever were. But now that you are here…”
He stood up, glass in hand, and walked over to me. Why did being over six feet tall seem so much bigger when it was standing over you, not just by you?
“You will find I don’t let matters go so easily.”
Cassius smirked, then turned. He headed to a door leading to the inside before he glanced over his shoulder, just enough to ensure I would be heard.
“You are dismissed, Sarah,” he said. “My assistant will meet you at the elevator and ensure you get home safely.”
I took one last gulp of my wine, aware there was no room for argument. It was damn good wine, and my body felt loose and wobbly. Those two facts had nothing to do with each other.
I made my way to the elevator. Cassius watched every step I took.
I had a feeling that even when I would be out of his literal sight, I wasn’t going to be let go of his grasp anytime soon.