18. Cassian
CASSIAN
Iknock on her door at ten.
I have not, in two weeks, knocked on a door in this house.
I have walked through them. I have, on the morning of Tuesday last, gone through hers without permission and left a note on a pillow with three words on it, and the note worked, and I have, since, not bothered with the courtesy of a closed hand on a wood frame.
Tonight I stand in the corridor outside the door of the room she chose over mine, and I knock twice, hard enough to be heard, and I wait.
"Come in."
She sits at the writing desk by the window, in a soft cream slip—the one she sleeps in, the one I could sketch from memory now—and her hair falls loose down her back.
The lamp beside her casts a small circle of light.
She’s writing, pen to paper, shoulder tipped toward the page. She doesn’t turn when I enter.
"Maren."
"Cassian."
"It's late."
"It is."
"Will you look at me."
She turns the page over on the desk. She turns the page over carefully, with both hands, as if it is a thing whose face I should not, currently, see. Then she turns in the chair. Her hands are folded in her lap. She looks at me.
The look she gives me isn’t the one I braced for.
It’s steady, almost serene—the same look she carried through lunch and dinner, the same one she gave me in the hallway when my hand brushed her back and she stayed still.
It’s the look of someone who’s made up her mind about herself in the last twelve hours, and whatever she’s chosen, it isn’t forgiveness.
"Cassian."
"What's wrong."
"Nothing."
"Don't — don't nothing me, Maren."
"You said don't sweetheart. I am not sweethearting you. I am giving you the answer you have asked for."
"That is not an answer."
"It's the one you're getting."
I close the door behind me. I close it carefully — I am not, tonight, going to slam doors in her room — and I cross to the desk and I crouch, slow, in front of the chair.
My knees are at her knees. My hands, when they go up, do not touch her.
They go to the arms of the chair, on either side of her thighs, and I look up at her.
"Maren."
"Cassian."
"You went into my office yesterday."
She does not flinch. I have to give her that.
She does not even blink. She holds my eyes the way she has been holding the eyes of a sixty-eight-year-old fund manager since Thursday night, and the small cold thing under my ribs that I felt yesterday morning does the second turn it has done in twenty hours.
"I did."
"What did you read."
"I read what was on the desk."
"Maren."
"I read what was on the desk, Cassian. The desk, by the way, was not locked. The folder, by the way, was not in a drawer. I am not, currently, ashamed of having read it."
"That is not — that is not what I am asking, Maren. I am asking what you read."
"Why."
"Because—"
"Because if you tell me, you can manage what I know. You can decide which of it I can be allowed to be hurt about. You can sort the things in the folder into the things that are real and the things that are spreadsheet, and you can give me the real ones first because you have noticed, tonight, that I am cold to you, and you have decided, in the way you decide things, that the way to fix the cold is with a piece of correctly chosen information. I’m not handing you a way out, Cassian.
You’re going to tell me what you wrote and what it meant. On your own.”
I stand up.
I stand up not because I am angry. I stand up because if I stay crouched in front of her with my knees at her knees and my hands on the arms of her chair I am, currently, going to do a thing I will regret, and I have, in two days, made enough decisions I will regret.
I cross to the window. I press my palm flat against the cool glass.
"All right."
"All right?"
"All right, Maren. I will tell you. Without your help."
I turn. She hasn’t moved. The lamplight makes her the color of the inside of a pearl, her shoulders bare above the slip, the gold chain I fastened on her wrist Monday flickering at her pulse the same way it did Thursday night in the conservatory, and I have no idea how to choose this without choosing the other thing too.
“On September fourth, I spoke with Becca Lin—Vance’s deputy.
During the usual pre-tour briefing she asked if there was, quote, anyone in the picture she should be aware of for the dinner.
I told her possibly. I wrote Maren refs implied on the corner of my desk and drew a line under implied.
I did it because I hadn’t chosen anyone yet.
Because I was treating the idea as a category instead of a person.
And I wrote Maren because—Maren, you won’t believe this, but it’s true—since June your name had been showing up in my mouth at the end of long days, and I hadn’t said that to anyone.
I wrote it down because that was where I kept the things I hadn’t spoken aloud. ”
"Cassian."
"I am not finished."
"Cassian, you?—"
"I am not finished, Maren."
She closes her mouth.
"On September 6, I crossed the lobby on my way out of a meeting and saw you, through a glass wall, at a table with your family.
I did not know what was being said at that table.
I saw, only, your face. I went home. On September 7, Henri called me to congratulate me.
The rumor was not yet, at that hour, on the floor — Henri had heard it from the morning bartender, who had heard it from a server who had been at the chef's table the night before.
The rumor was,six hours old by the time I sat down at my desk.
I did not start it. I did not need to. You did.
And when you came up to my office and confessed, I — yes, Maren.
Yes. I saw the use. I saw the use immediately.
I would be lying if I told you I had not. "
"You would be lying if you told me a great many things, Cassian."
"Yes."
"Yes?"
"Yes."
I cross back to her. I do not crouch this time. I stand at her chair and I look down at her, and she lifts her face to mine, and her eyes are bright and her chin is up and her hand, where it rests on the arm of the chair, is white at the knuckles.
"You have been using me."
"At the start. Yes."
"And after."
"After the start, no, Maren."
"The investor dinner."
"Was real."
"Becca's tour."
"Was real."
"December second."
I stop.
"What."
"December second, Cassian. My mother's date. You told her let us think about December second yesterday morning. You told Becca the wedding is December second at seven this morning. You told Becca the wedding is December second before you told me there was, in fact, a wedding on a calendar."
"Maren."
"How do I know that."
"How do you know?"
"How. Do I. Know."
I close my eyes.
"Sebastian."
"No, Cassian. Not Sebastian. Sebastian would die before he told me.
You told me. You told me at lunch when your mouth did the thing it does when you are lying about an appointment.
You told me at dinner when your hand on the glass moved the way your hand on my wrist moved Wednesday morning.
You have been telling me all day, Cassian. I just had to know what to look for."
"Maren — Maren?—"
I have her wrist. I do not remember reaching for it. I am holding her wrist in my hand and her pulse, under my thumb, is going fast, and her face is not surprised. Her face is, in fact, ready. Her face is, I will admit, exactly what I deserve.
"Tell me to leave," I say. My voice is not steady.
"I will leave. I will sleep in my study tonight.
I will tell Sebastian to walk your bag down to the staff shuttle in the morning.
I will pull the December date with Becca by ten.
I will end this — Maren, I will end all of it — if you tell me to. Tell me to leave."
She looks up at me.
She looks up at me the way she looked up at me in the conservatory on Friday, the way she looked up at me in the kitchen on Tuesday, the way she looked up at me the very first time, in my office, when I slid the band onto her finger, and her free hand — the one I am not holding — lifts, slowly, and her palm, when it presses flat against the front of my shirt, is cold.
"No."
"Maren."
"Don't Maren me, Cassian. No. I am not telling you to leave. I am — God help me. I am telling you the opposite."
"Maren—"
"Take the slip off."
"Maren."
"Take it off, Cassian. Now."
I take it off.
I take it off because she has asked me to in the voice of a woman who is, currently, finished with negotiating, and because she has stood up out of the chair and into the small space between my body and the desk, and because the slip is a single bow at her shoulder and the bow, when I pull, opens, and the cream silk goes down her like water and pools at her feet and she steps out of it without looking down.
She is bare under it. She is bare in the lamp light, gold along one side, shadow along the other, the small gold chain at her wrist and the diamond at her finger and nothing else.
I have, currently, no language.
"Cassian."
"What."
"Look at me."
"I am looking, Maren."
"Don't — don't manage this. Tonight. Not tonight."
"All right."
"All right?"
"All right, sweet— all right, Maren."
She does not laugh. She does, however, do the small almost-smile she does when she has caught me catching myself, and she takes my hand off her wrist and she puts it at her throat, and she keeps it there with her own hand around mine, and she leans up — bare on her toes — and she kisses me.
It is not the kiss in the conservatory. The kiss in the conservatory was a woman making a point.
This kiss is a woman making a demand. Her mouth opens under mine and her teeth, briefly, find my lower lip and pull, and I make a sound I have not made out loud since I was twenty-three, and she walks me, with her hand still on mine at her throat, backward to the bed.
I sit because she pushes me. I settle on the edge of her bed and she stands between my knees, and I lean forward and rest my forehead against the soft place just below her ribs. She shivers all the way through, her hand going into my hair, and when she speaks, her voice has a tremor at the edges.
"Cassian."
"Mm."
"I am angry with you."
"I know, sweetheart."
"I am — I am not — this is not — forgiveness."
"I know."
"I want — I want you to know that. I want you to know it before — before you?—"
"I know, Maren. I know."
"Then why are you?—"
"Because." I raise my head and meet her eyes. "Because if this is the last time you let me, I’ll take it. And if it isn’t, I’ll take it anyway. I am—Maren. At this moment, the choice isn’t mine. It’s yours."
She does not answer. She does not have to.
She climbs into my lap. She climbs into my lap with her bare knees on either side of my hips, and her hands at the buttons of my shirt, and her mouth at my throat, and the small gold chain at her wrist drags, cool, across the skin under my jaw, and she gets the shirt open and pushes it back off my shoulders and her hands flatten on my chest the way they flattened in the kitchen and she says, against my collarbone, "Lie back. "
"Bossy."
"You said all right."
"I did."
I lie back. She rises up over me on her knees, and her hair falls forward across her shoulder, and she works my belt open with the kind of focus she has been bringing to occupancy reports, and I free myself and her hand, when it closes around my cock, is cool and certain and not hesitating, and I have to, briefly, close my eyes.
"Maren."
"Mm."
"You're — you're going to?—"
"I know, Cassian."
She takes me in.
She takes me in slowly, all of me, and her thighs tighten at my hips and her mouth opens above mine and she goes still, fully seated, her pussy hot and tight and wet around me and her forehead pressed to mine, and her free hand has flattened on my chest where her hand has, in two days, been flattening — the same place, every time — and her thumb is over my pulse.
"Cassian."
"I'm here."
"I know."
"Maren—"
"I am still angry with you."
"I know, sweetheart."
"Tell me — tell me you know."
"I know. I know, Maren. I know."
She moves. She moves slowly, with her thumb at my pulse and her forehead at mine, and I let her — I let her lead, I let her set the pace, I do not, this time, lift my hips, I do not flip her, I do not — for once in my adult life — try to steer.
I let her have it. She rolls her hips and her breath comes wet against my mouth and her fingers, on my chest, splay open and close, and I lift my hand and put it at the small of her back to hold her steady, only that, only the smallest of holds, and she takes me apart that way — slow, steady, without hurry — and when she comes she comes with her face in my throat and her teeth in the soft place at my collarbone and the small word Cassian against my pulse, and I follow her with my hand still at her back and my eyes wide open at the ceiling because I am, I am admitting it now, currently afraid of what closing them would let me feel.
She does not get off me.
She lies on my chest, bare, in the lamp light, with her cheek over my heart and her hand still flat at my pulse, and I do not say anything, and she does not say anything, and I do not, for once, file a thing.
I have, I realize, in the small dark behind my eyes, lost it.
I do not know whose face I lost it on. I do not know whether it was hers or mine. I only know that the man who walked into this room at ten is not the man who is, currently, lying under her in this bed, and that I do not, tomorrow, know what either of them is going to do.
She is still angry with me. She told me twice. I heard her.
I count her breaths against my throat.
I count them until I lose track, and then I count them again.