Chapter 11 #2
“Well, it’s great to finally get this review going, Cassandra.
” I hoped it wasn’t obvious I was trying to ensure Eli heard.
“I wanted to kick off by showing you the plan we talked about… it’s probably easiest if I show you.
” I reached down into my briefcase and pulled out a folder, then came around beside her and laid it open.
I braced my hands on the desk and leaned down.
Eli was visible through the gap in the door, but he was tapping on his computer.
I dropped my voice low now, so only Cassandra could hear me. “I’m just going to ask you point blank. Did we sleep together?”
Cassandra froze. Her eyes lingered on mine a moment, then she looked down, pointing to something on the document. “No.”
Relief flooded through me. Okay. This was good. I closed my eyes, letting out a breath. “Thank Christ.”
When I looked at Cassandra again, her eyes were trained on the document in front of us.
She was avoiding looking at me. A phone rang somewhere outside.
“Yo!” Eli said. I strode back to the door. He held up an apologetic hand. I smiled and shook my head, but now had a reason to close the door.
When the door clicked shut, I turned back to Cassandra.
Of all things, she looked like she was trying to suppress a laugh.
For a moment, I was too surprised to speak. Then a flame of irritation hit me. “What’s funny?”
Her smile faded, and she leaned forward onto the desk. “You.”
“What the hell happened on Saturday?” My voice was hard now, challenging her to cut the shit.
“You really don’t remember?”
“When I drink too much, I don’t remember anything. It’s why I never drink too much.”
“But you did, on Saturday.”
My stomach twisted. “For God’s sake, will you put me out of my misery? If we didn’t sleep together, what happened?”
“Why should I tell you?”
I wasn’t sure if she was joking or… if she was mad at me.
Well hell, I was mad too. I let out a low breath, then walked over to stand opposite her, leaning on the desk once more.
“Cassandra. I just signed my fucking life away. You know that contract gives you everything, with no obligation for you not to fuck me.”
I realized what I’d said a moment too late.
But she didn’t laugh again. “I woke up naked, Cassandra, in an out-of-service hotel room. There was a sign on the door. I was alone, hungover as hell. But you’d been there.
You signed our contract, which makes me think I didn’t completely screw the pooch, and you left me water and painkillers, which was nice. ”
“You’re welcome.”
The stiff pleasantries would have been funny, but I was too preoccupied with needing the truth. “My clothes were laid out, not by me.”
Cassandra sat back in her chair. “Are you happy we didn’t sleep together, Blake?”
“What? Of course I’m happy.”
Her face fell. Just for a moment before she put on her mask again. She was wounded.
“Jesus, Cassandra, it’s not like that.”
“So, you would have been happy we slept together?”
“Goddammit, you are aggravating.” I pushed off the desk. “What exactly do you want me to say? That I’m attracted to you and I wish we’d started off our professional relationship in bed? When I was blackout drunk? What the hell kind of relationship would that be?”
She’d blinked at the attractive part. Or the relationship part. Some distant, fuzzy memory came to me, just out of grasp. But a clearer memory slotted into its place, of yesterday.
That hazy, headachy, hungover feeling had been swirling around me as I’d gotten in the shower.
But it wasn’t the headache I was focused on as I turned on the water as hot as I could stand.
It was Cassandra. I stood with the hot water beating down on my back, holding my dick in my hand, picturing Cassandra’s face.
I’d stroked hard and fast and angry. I’d wanted her—wanted to have slept with Cassandra and wanted to have remembered it.
Fuck. I wiped the memory from my mind before my dick got any more ideas. I sighed, rubbing my temples. “I shouldn’t have said all the unprofessional stuff I just said.” Wow. Genius, Blake.
“No, you shouldn’t have,” Casandra agreed. But finally, she took pity on me. “I made sure nothing happened, okay? I don’t exactly want to be forgotten about the next day.”
I sank into the chair across from her desk and took a sip of my coffee. “Thank you.”
She said nothing. Then she picked up a pen and began tapping it on the paper in front of her, then realized what she was doing and put it down again. She was nervous.
I should have done that thing my dad taught me. Another thing I hated because he’d taught me and it worked. It was to stay silent, waiting for her to fill in the gaps. But I was tired of waiting. “Cassandra, please. Tell me what did happen. I’m at your mercy.”
“You told me something.”
My stomach dropped, pulse pounding. I swallowed.
“What did I say?” Did I tell her the truth about Lila?
Because if I did, I was scum. Lower than scum.
Lila had schooled me early on that outing someone for them was the worst kind of betrayal.
It was their information to tell, to determine whether it was safe to tell.
And Lila had trusted me with her secret, a secret she hadn’t even told the people she was closest to—her parents.
Cassandra was silent a moment, then said, “You told me you don’t like being alone.”
I almost sighed with relief. “Well, that’s embarrassing.” But at least it was my secret to tell.
I considered keeping quiet to see if there was anything else, but the way she was looking at me, I found myself talking.
“My father—he did this thing with each of us, my brothers, when we were little—he made us spend a night on our own out in the woods behind our house when we were eight. Said it built character. But he’d also rig it so things would happen.
He’d come out and make a twig snap. Play a recording of a wolf howling.
Scared the shit out of us, honestly. If we didn’t make it through the night, he’d make us go out again the next night.
It took me two nights. My brother Conrad four. ”
Mitch had done it in one, but only because I’d told him it was Dad. I figured it out with Conrad and I’d been so pissed, I’d risked Dad’s wrath by telling our baby brother.
I’d let both Conrad and Mitch sneak into my room the night after it was over, let them cry softly into my pillow while I slept on the floor, rage building in my little chest.
“He wouldn’t let Mom read us stories once we started school,” I said.
“He wouldn’t even let her come in to comfort us if we had a bad dream.
” I took a gulp of coffee, suddenly deeply embarrassed.
“I don’t know why I told you all that.” Her expression was so sad that I cleared my throat.
“It’s fine,” I said. “Therapy fodder. But I guess I figured you deserved to know after I shared that with you while I was out of it.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” she said after a moment. “Anyone would hate being alone after that.”
“I got over it,” I said. “I can sleep without a nightlight now.”
She didn’t laugh. “You also told me about your mom.”
I grimaced. “Oh. How much?”
“Just about her condition. That she’s in a home in Seattle.”
Okay, that wasn’t too bad. Just facts. But it was beyond inappropriate for a work meeting. Of course, so was Saturday night. I straightened. “Well, I’m glad we got that all out in the open and I apologize again, Cassandra, for this auspicious start.”
She studied me a moment longer, then said, “I’m sorry too, for driving you to drink on Saturday.
I smiled. “That was on me.”
Her lips twisted like she was trying not to smile. Then she said, “I think thought, that our relationship should remain wholly professional, going forward.”
She was right, of course. But for a split second, I wanted to tell her no.
I wanted to demand that she let me have this freedom; the freedom to want her.
To be around her. To get to know her and have something just for me.
Something fun. Something resembling a normal life, like other people got to have.
“Alright,” I said. I hesitated, remembering her expression when I’d been so gleeful we hadn’t hooked up. “But one more thing before we put this behind us. You have to know that if we had done anything in that room, I don’t think I would have forgotten.”
Cassandra smiled, but said nothing.
I couldn’t help but think I might not be the only one with secrets.