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“This is all just another logical process of education. It’s like an atom. How many times can you split it before it combusts. As you know, I research well.”
“You’re likening this place to science?”
“I’m likening it to medicine. Run the risks, make the judgements, and generate a cure if possible.” He leans back and takes his wine with him, watching as I eat some more food. “Human trials are always part of that process. You’re a good trial to have played with.”
Another frown crosses my brow at the distance that last sentence creates. Although, there’s no reason for my irrational response to it. I should close down again, remember what he said and think on the woman I’ve become while I’m here. Singular. Stronger because of it.
I look at the table, attempting to dismiss the thought of us together away from here out of my thoughts. Hard, though. As painful as my skin is in some ways. Especially when I know he’ll be several floors above me while he eats, works, thinks. Every day I’ll be able to look upwards, stare at the building I’m in and track the windows up to his penthouse, all the time thinking about his hands and his mouth and the way he moves on me.
In me.
“That doesn’t explain how you know Malachi,” I mumble, eating a few pieces of fruit.
“I met him in New York at, what can only be described as, a macabre party. I was drunk, and he talked about drugs and the fact that he couldn’t get a decent supply.” I keep staring at the table, trying to lose myself in the monotone drone of his ambiguous words rather than think of the passion the same voice held a while ago. “For varying reasons, I’ve provided that, and now because of that I’m allowed in. The fact that I have more money than sense is also helpful. Most people here do.”
“So, you have to be rich?”
I reach for a glass of water, nodding at the fact that of course you would have to be - diamonds on necks, monogramed signet rings on fingers - and desperate to keep conversation going somehow so I can listen to that voice a while longer. I don’t know why. It’s pitiful really. This need in me for more that he either won’t or can’t give me.
“No, you have to not care about your life outside of here, Hannah, and he has to understand that and decide if he likes you enough to share his home with you. You fit the first part of the profile well. It’s why I brought you here.” That’s all. Nothing other than that.
I didn’t care about my life outside of here.
I take half-hearted sips of the water, wondering if I did or not. Maybe I didn’t. Maybe I just hoped I’d muddle through somehow, find a way of dealing with betrayal and disloyalty and drink my way through it all. But here, and because of Gray, I’ve found something else in myself, something new and exuberant, poised and prolific. Or maybe it’s something old, something that was buried. Rick’s still there, the betrayal profound, but I feel stronger because of here, more able to tolerate the heart that still creaks and groans around the memories of him. It’s this man in front of me that confuses me now. This man that has woven parts of himself into me and then cut ties he helped build.
My eyes lift to look at him, gaze roaming features that have become so real to me in a life that, as he says, is not real at all. Strong jaw under the stubble that’s grown, handsome. Sharp cut angles below those barely laughing anymore eyes.
I sigh as he turns away from my stare, acknowledging in some way that whatever this is it has come to its end, been forced that way. “I haven’t seen anyone else in this part of the house, castle, whatever it is,” I muse, picking at a piece of cheese.
“No. Intriguing, isn’t it? I think he likes you. Or he’s still playing with me. I’m not sure which. Either way, don’t think that his feelings are anything other than games. He isn’t your friend, Hannah. He only has one of those. She’s called Faith.” I nod again, accepting that, too.
“Has he always? Played with you, I mean.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His gaze goes to the flowers in the middle of the table, a transfixed stare in place. “That, I’m not answering. Eat more food. You need it.”
“Why?”
“Because, as far as I’m aware, you haven’t eaten since I picked you up. You’re a human being. Food is necessary for survival.”
That isn’t what I meant.
I wanted information, conversation, thoughts and parts of him he’s not letting me into.
The cheese in my hand tumbles from my grip onto the plate, part of me not caring for his orders and the other rejecting the idea of food anyway. Why bother with it? It doesn’t help make sense of where this man in front of me has gone in the last little while, and it doesn’t help me create a barrier like he’s so good at delivering at the close of a door.
I stand and walk to the bed, choosing sleep rather than conversation with something as barren as he’s become. So close, and now we’re feet away from each other in actual distance and yet a thousand miles because of the tone of his words.
“You need to eat,” he says from the table, in yet another monotone drone.
“No I don’t. Everything’s my choice and nothing to do with you.”
That’s all I’ve got. I’m a maze of questions he won’t answer and a cage of feelings I can’t process. Maybe sleep will help. Maybe I’ll wake up in the morning, or night, or whenever and something in my head will make sense again. I’ll be strong again, able to discern and assimilate my own feelings about me rather than hang on to the possibility of him having any for me.
I climb into the huge bed at the thought and discard the towel to the floor, my eyes looking at the slight pinked patches on it, as I pull the heavy sheets up to my chin. Everything feels low now, as if my highs have been replaced by melancholy and strewn memories.
