Chapter Eighteen #2
His voice is soft. “I’m asking now.”
I snort. “It’s four years too late to ask now.”
He looks at me. He’s finally hearing what his words cost him, and how asking a question might have changed the last five years.
He’s understanding, for the first time, that the sentence I said in his mother’s living room was the last thing I had to give him, and he threw it away without a second thought
The fury hits me fresh, not because he still doesn’t understand but because he finally does, but him understanding changes nothing about the four years I spent alone. “You chose wrong, and you continue to do so. I owe you nothing, and I won’t play your games.”
The fight goes out of him. Not all at once. It drains more slowly than that. What’s left is a man standing in his office looking at a woman he sent away while she was carrying his child. The understanding is arriving in real time. “Casey —”
“Don’t.”
He turns toward the window. He’s trying to do the right thing.
I can see it in the deliberate step away, the space he’s putting between us because he’s finally understanding that closing distance without permission is one thing he does wrong.
He’s trying to give me the room I’ve been asking for since I arrived.
He’s always giving me space, unwanted five years ago, and at his discretion now.
I grab his shirt and pull him back, angry and torn up inside.
I don’t forgive him. I want him, and I hate that I want him, but I choose this mistake.
He’s taller than I remember, broader, and he smells like the same cologne that went through me when I walked past him four years ago.
His mouth meets mine before either of us can reconsider.
It’s not gentle. It’s four years of fury hitting a wall.
We don’t make it out of the office. The desk is behind him, and I’m the one who pushes him against it. The agency stays mine because I started this. His shirt is untucked, then off. My shirt follows. The chain is around my neck, the ring hanging between us, and neither of us mentions it.
Sterling’s mouth moves to my neck, and I tilt back my head, remembering exactly this, the way his body fits against mine, the angle of his jaw under my ear, and the perfect pressure of his mouth on my collarbone before he nipped me in a way that used to make me say his name.
He nips now, but I don’t say his name. I dig my nails into his shoulder instead, because saying his name would make this something it isn’t.
It would be a callback to our lives before. That was part of being in love.
This is a mistake I’m making, fully aware of doing so, but I need the outlet. I need somewhere to pour my exhaustion, fear, and rage. He might as well be good for something. The thought is harsh, but I own it in this moment. All I want from him is release.
He lifts me onto the desk. Papers scatter. A pen falls off the edge, then a folder. Objects that were arranged precisely aren’t anymore. I wrap my legs around him and pull him closer because closer is the only direction that makes sense right now, even though nothing about this makes sense.
He’s careful with me in a way I don’t want.
I take off his belt myself because waiting for him to decide the pace gives him a kind of control I’m not offering.
My jeans come off. His pants follow. He pauses at the threshold, asking with his body what he should be asking with his mouth, and I pull him in because the answer is yes and it’s been yes for longer than I want to admit.
I’m not on the pill, and he’s not wearing a condom. It’s stupid and reckless, and the last thing I need or want is another child tying us together. I still don’t push him away.
He fills me, and the sound I make isn’t gentle, measured, or controlled.
It’s the sound of a woman who’s been carrying everything alone for four years, and for a few minutes, this is the only weight that matters.
He moves, and I match him, and the rhythm is rough, urgent, and graceless in a way that feels more honest than anything we’ve said to each other since I arrived.
I come before he does. It hits fast and hard, arching my back off the desk. I catch my breath on a feeling between anger and relief as a hint of sanity returns. Before he can come inside me, I push him away and scramble back a few inches.
His eyes are wide as he comes on my thigh. “What the...?”
“I’m not on the pill.”
He looks down, reaching for tissues. I sit there for a minute, chastising myself for this moment of weakness. Physically, I feel better than I have in ages. I haven’t had sex since I left him, and it was good, but it leaves me feeling bitter and out of sorts rather than relaxed.
Neither of us says anything kind or anything at all after my terse explanation.
After cleaning up, he reaches for me. I get up without his assistance. “That didn’t happen. It was stupid and pointless. It never happened.”
He looks at me while I get dressed, pulling my shirt on again.
The ring is swinging on its chain, reminding me of my stupid, sentimental need to wear it as a reminder or punishment.
He’s staring at it and clearly wants to argue.
I can see the argument forming, the case for why this matters, the evidence, and the closing statement.
He doesn’t accept terms without negotiation.
After a minute, he just nods. He doesn’t argue or push. He lets me have it, and that’s the most he’s ever given me. It’s also the thing that makes my throat close, because if he’d argued, I could have stayed angry, and angry is easier than whatever this is.
I go to the bathroom attached to Sienna’s room and lock the door. I turn on the shower too hot because I want to scrub away every trace of what I just did.
The water hits my shoulders and runs down my back. The chain is still around my neck because I didn’t take it off. I’ve worn it all this time, and tonight I understand why I haven’t. It’s not punishment or a reminder. It’s something far worse, stupider, and dangerous to my self-preservation.
The ring sits against my skin, warm from the water and from what just happened. I should take it off, but I leave it where it is.
Down the hall, Sienna is asleep with Bart.
She doesn’t know what just happened in her father’s office.
She doesn’t know her mother’s voice broke for the first time in four years, or that her father’s precision finally cracked, or that two people who should know better made a mistake on a desk covered in scattered papers.
She’s four, she’s sick, and she trusts her mother to handle everything.
I’ll handle everything because that’s what I do.
I stand under the water until it goes cold.
Then I get out, dry off, put on clean clothes, check on Sienna, and get into bed beside her.
There’s a warm wool blanket that someone left, and I curl under it.
I try to lecture myself, listing all the reasons sleeping with him in anger was a bad idea.
I really try, but the problem is, I don’t regret it. That’s the worst part.