Chapter 15
CASSIA
The study is quiet now.
We straighten our clothes. Return to opposite sides of the room like civilized people who didn’t just tear into each other against the bookshelves.
The leather couch holds no evidence. The scattered papers have been restacked. But the air between us has changed. Thicker. More dangerous.
I’m pretending to review quarterly summaries. Numbers blur before my eyes. My mind keeps circling back to how he looked at me when I shattered around him. The intensity in his focus, like he was memorizing me.
“You’re not reading those.”
His voice cuts through. I glance up. He’s in the armchair, whiskey untouched, watching me instead of his documents.
“Same page. Fourteen minutes.”
I set down the papers. No point pretending.
“What were you like before all this?” He leans forward, elbows on knees. “Before the arrangement. Before me.”
The question lands wrong. Personal in a way we’ve been avoiding.
“Boring, for the most part.” I keep my voice light. Deflection through humor.
“Exceptional at spreadsheets. Mediocre at small talk. The kind of person who gets seated at the kids’ table at weddings because no one knows where else to put her.”
He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t let me off the hook.
“That’s what you did. I asked who you were.”
I tuck my hair behind my ear. Stall.
“I was the contingency plan.” The words come out before I can soften them. “Elena was the investment. I was the backup generator. Useful if everything went wrong. Otherwise, just furniture.”
“Your parents treated you that way?”
“My parents loved me.” I say it because it’s true. “They just didn’t see me. There’s a difference. Elena was loud, impossible to ignore. I learned early that the quieter I was, the smoother things ran. So I got quieter.”
He’s studying me with that intensity that used to unnerve me. Now it feels like being counted. Measured. Every number accounted for by someone who actually reads the spreadsheet.
“You had plans. Before all this.” It’s not a question. He’s been paying attention.
“A forensic firm in Chicago recruited me.” I allow myself a small smile. Bitter at the edges. “I had the offer letter for two weeks. Used to take it out at night and read it like a love letter.”
“What happened?”
“Elena was spiraling. Our mother was sick.” I shrug. One shoulder. Casual. Like it doesn’t still sting. “Someone had to stay.”
The silence stretches. He doesn’t fill it with platitudes. I appreciate that.
“And then she ran.” I smooth the edge of the paper on my lap, pressing the crease flat. “And Chicago became a letter I stopped reading.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is lower. Rougher.
“My father died reaching for my mother’s ghost.”
His jaw locks. He turns the whiskey glass in his grip but doesn’t drink. The silence stretches, and I understand he’s not going to say more. Not because there isn’t more. Because the words won’t come.
I already know the rest. The nightmares I’ve heard through walls. The study that still smells like his father’s cigarettes. Eleven years of a son holding together what grief tore apart.
“Someone had to step up,” I say.
His stare meets mine. Dark. Knowing.
My breath hitches. My hand stills on my lap.
Four heartbeats of silence. Five.
The same trap. Both of us. But I can’t say it out loud because my throat has closed around the recognition.
“We’re a matched set,” I manage. Voice low.
His mouth curves. Not a smile. More honest than that.
“I swore I’d never need anyone.” He sets down the glass. The clink against the table is too loud. “Not after watching what it did to him.”
“Did it work?”
His focus holds mine. Heavy. “I thought it did.”
He rises. Crosses to where I’m sitting. Stops in front of my chair and looks down at me with an expression I can’t name.
“Elena ran.” His voice drops. Rough. Each word dragged out like it costs him. “And I got you.”
He swallows. His jaw works.
“You’re not a fucking backup plan.”
That’s all. He can’t say more. I watch his fist curl at his side, the knuckles going white, and I understand that those six words took everything he had.
I should deflect. Should crack a joke about spreadsheets or make some self-deprecating comment that lets us both off the hook.
Instead I say, “I don’t know how to be anything else.”
“I know.” He reaches down. His thumb traces my jaw. A touch that used to make me flinch.
“You’re the same,” I whisper. “Eleven years of not needing anyone.”
His thumb stills against my skin. Then, rough: “And then you walked into my study.”
He doesn’t finish the sentence. Doesn’t have to.
“This is terrifying,” I whisper.
“Yeah.” His grip stays on my jaw. Steady. “It is.”
“You’re supposed to say it’s not. That it’ll be fine. That we’ll figure it out.”
“I don’t lie to you.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“It’s honest.” He leans down. Presses his forehead to mine. I feel his breath, warm and uneven.
“I see you, Cassia.”
Three words. No elaboration. No caveat. Just the raw admission, pressed against my skin like a brand.
My chest aches.
“I don’t know what to do with that.”
“You don’t have to do anything with it.” He pulls back an inch. His stare searches mine. “Just stop running.”
I think about Chicago. About the letter I stopped reading.
“What if I don’t know how to stay and be seen at the same time?”
“Then we figure it out.” His mouth quirks. “I’m learning to need things again, it turns out. You can learn to take up space. We’ll be disasters together.”
A laugh escapes me. Surprised. Real.
“Disasters together.” I repeat it. “That’s your pitch?”
“Best I’ve got.”
And somehow that matters more than pretty promises.
I reach up. Touch his face the way he’s touching mine. The roughness of his jaw beneath my fingers. The warmth of his skin.
He goes still.
“I had a plan,” I say. “For this marriage. Keep my head down. Be useful. Don’t expect anything.”
“How’s that working out?”
“Terribly.” I trace the line of his cheekbone. Watch his stare darken. “You keep looking at me like I matter.”
“You do matter.”
Two beats of silence. His breath hitches against my palm.
“That’s what scares me. I’m starting to believe it.”
“Good.” His voice is rough. “That’s a start.”
He kisses me then. Not hungry like before. Slow. Careful. His palm cupping my face like I’m the thing he’s been afraid to hold.
When he pulls back, I don’t look away.
My hand stays on his jaw. Fingers pressed against the pulse I can feel hammering beneath his skin.
I don’t drop it.