Chapter 26 Sarah
SARAH
“Come to my rooftop penthouse tomorrow night if you want. If you do not come, I promise I will never bother you again. If you come and you wish to leave, I promise I will never bother you again. I ask only that you come and listen.”
That was it.
That was the only thing Cassius had written. No urgency, no implied threats, no curt warnings saying not to waste his time. It was so simple and so… clean, I almost wondered if he’d had an assistant draft it.
But no, something in the wording told me this was really him. Maybe it was him promising to hold himself to a certain standard. Maybe it was the way the text started, still direct and blunt. Or maybe it was just a gut feeling.
My initial reaction, honestly, was to mumble, “Fuck off,” and to put my phone back in my pocket. My father and I were watching a football game, and the last thing I needed was to lose valuable time with him.
But the more time that passed, the less I could watch the game and focus on our conversation, and the more I thought about what Cassius had texted.
One more night, and then I’d either be free or…
I guess I might be back in his orbit. There was something kind of relieving about having that definitive promise from him.
If I ignored it, there was always the chance he’d just keep pestering me, keep magically showing up at events and art galleries I was attending.
I didn’t think he’d be desperate, but I thought he’d be patient. And by being patient, he’d unnerve me.
Or I could go over tomorrow, see him one last time, and make things established once and for all.
Plus.
I missed him, didn’t I?
I could sit here and lie to myself. I could say Cassius was too obsessed with power and the Reapers. I could say that being around him and his burgeoning business empire was terrible for my sanity.
But lies that might be sturdy during the day always unraveled at night, especially when the lights were out and the conversations had stopped, and the past couple nights had not been kind to my sleep.
Maybe it wasn’t missing him per se, but there definitely felt like unfinished business there. Tomorrow night might yet provide that.
If nothing else, the view up there sure was nice.
I couldn’t even pretend I was surprised when I woke up the next day and decided to go back to Vegas.
Every reason that I had pondered the night before had only grown in its velocity and pressure.
I wasn’t sure if I fell asleep before sunrise—certainly, I was awake a few times when the windows began to glow a brighter blue—but by the time I kicked the covers off for the day, I was sure that going to Vegas was the right move.
I simply wrote back, “I will be there tonight at eight p.m.” Much earlier, I figured, and I might be interfering with dinner plans; much later, and I worried this would turn into an erotic encounter that would thrill me for the night but leave me waking with still unanswered questions.
I needed to find that middle ground, where we’d be sober and awake enough to figure out what the hell we wanted but with enough time to, well, do what we did in Wyoming.
Not that I thought that was in the plan. No, I was going to get a clear answer. I was not thinking about sex at all.
… beyond the occasional intrusive thought that I would not let guide my decision-making and actions.
In the ensuing hours, Cassius sent further instructions, the better to minimize my having to wander around Ruby and try to figure out how to get to his penthouse.
The long and short of it was that I could park my car in one of the Ruby lots, at which point one of his staff would pick me up, drop me off at the penthouse elevators, and leave me to ride up on my own.
He promised me that once I got into the elevators, he’d be the only person I’d see unless asked for otherwise.
Easy enough, I thought, and practical enough. In a perfect world, I’d just know how to get straight from ground level to the penthouse, but I’d always had someone to escort me there.
The hours passed, the car ride began, and through it all, I felt a strange ease that I hadn’t expected.
My father never asked any questions, and when I texted the girls, it was about simpler topics.
They would not know I was coming back to Vegas unless I told them as much.
It was weird, I knew, that I was not asking for any backup, but I just felt like all would turn out fine.
Either Cassius and I would have an honest heart to heart, or I’d quickly realize he was never capable of being truly open.
Regardless of either opener, I’d then either realize we’d never stopped caring for each other, or it had always been a game of thinking we felt one thing and yet actually feeling something less.
Somehow, suddenly, I found myself standing outside the elevators leading up to Cassius’ penthouse.
It was funny how life worked like that sometimes, especially in the buildup to a given moment.
I could drive safely, move through the Strip with caution, and then seemingly only “come online” right before the moment of truth.
How did I get myself here? I asked myself as the elevator doors closed.
Too late for that now.
Time to learn once and for all what was going to become of this.
The long elevator ride passed, and I stood there in silence, my chin held up and my hands folded by my hips.
There was an unnerving silence as I waited for the elevator to complete its ride up.
Then it slowed down, it stopped, and there was a brief pause before the elevator doors opened.
Keep an open mind to whatever may come. You are an artist, remember.
An artist takes it all in and explores all sides of humanity.
The doors opened.
The first thing I noticed was the cool, gentle breeze of a late November Vegas wind.
The second thing I noticed was one of my paintings on a canvas, framed and waiting for me as I walked in.
No, not just one of my paintings. The very painting that I’d had on display at Allure, that very first night that Cassius and I had run into each other. I approached it, almost wondering if it was a replica. But no, it was very much the real thing.
“The thing about art is the longer you sit with it, the more it reveals to you.”
I spun to face Cassius. He had been standing just out of view from me when the elevator doors had opened; he would have watched me approaching the artwork. Surely, I thought, he was evaluating from the stride alone how this might start.
“A lot of people just want to look at the art for thirty seconds, maybe a couple of minutes if they think they’re diligent, and then they move on, thinking they’ve seen everything,” he said.
He sounded completely in control, yet there was a gentleness to his voice that I hadn’t heard before.
It almost made it seem like the hard edge he’d had the entire last month had actually been nothing more than bravado, the ruthless billionaire hiding the compassionate man Cassius really was.
“To this point, that’s been my life. I study something, or more specifically someone, and after a few minutes—relatively speaking—I move on. ”
He shrugged. He stared at the painting for a few moments, as if to emphasize the point, and then turned to me.
“But every so often in a person’s life, they come across art that forces them to stop, that forces them to really think about what they’re seeing.
Suddenly, they don’t just know there’s more to the artwork than what first meets the eye.
They’re willing to explore, willing to wait and see what more they can uncover, even if everyone around them is wondering what the hell they’re doing. ”
“Cassius?” I said, almost in amazement. But he simply nodded, as if acknowledging my surprise, before continuing on.
“Of course, as we study art, we bring our own biases and preconceived notions,” he said.
“And sometimes, you need to break those down to truly appreciate the art. Sometimes, you need to approach things with a blank slate to truly recognize the beauty in what you see. And sometimes, that means realizing that what you are isn’t as different from what you swear you are not. ”
He took a step forward, closing the gap between us. We were close enough that we could touch each other with our hands, albeit with straight arms. There was more room to close, but we weren’t there.
Yet.
“In the spirit of honesty, Sarah, I called Prince of the Black Reapers last night,” he said. “Not for a favor. But for his experience with his wife.”
“What?”
“I know,” Cassius said, a hint of a smile forming at the corner of his lips.
“I thought for a long time before that call about the Black Reapers. This is no secret to you. And yet while I was ruminating on everything, a thought came to me that I just could not ignore. I am like the Reapers. As soon as I had the thought, I knew it to be true. I tried to deny it, but…”
He shrugged. Strangely, in hearing it, I also recognized how it was true. It was easier for me to do it as an outside observer than for Cassius, but I definitely saw what he meant even without him elaborating.
“But then, for all the faults I thought it would bring, it also made me realize that I was capable of more with you,” he said. “They found true love, even amidst actual violence and carnage. So I called Prince. I asked him.”
Cassius drew in a deep breath and took another step forward. This time, the physical distance between us was not a theoretical distance. He put one hand on my shoulder.
“Sarah, you are like the artwork that you create,” he said.
“The more I think about you, the more I think about us, the more I realize you have been the only person who has ever made me stop to think about who I am and what I’m doing.
Being around you doesn’t just draw out my lust; it draws out something deeper.
I can’t stop thinking about you and seeing what more there is to uncover.
But it also revealed biases of mine. It revealed I did not so easily let go of control. ”
He paused, gulped, and then took my hand with his free hand. I felt my fingers wrap around his.
“I doubt, outside of us, that will ever change,” he said.
“But talking to Prince, I realized that to have what I wanted, I had to let go of outside interests. If I wanted you, I could not have it all. We do not get to have priorities. We only get to have a priority. I was trying to juggle control, vengeance, and love. But the three conflict and never allow the others to manifest. So I had to choose.”
He smiled.
“I have chosen you, Sarah. It pleases me to see that you came back. But I have to know now—what will you choose?”
Gosh, so many different thoughts, so many emotions running through me right now, that I could barely fathom the best response.
No one had ever spoken to me like that, but, more importantly, no one had ever made me feel like Cassius had.
He could have spoken to me with the vocabulary of a horny teenage boy, and I could not have denied the true joy, excitement, and comfort that he gave me.
Knowing that, feeling that, I said what came to mind first.
“There’s one thing you said that’s wrong,” I said with a smile. “You said I came back? I never left. I never stopped thinking about you.”