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I frown and keep looking at the view, not sure it is. Why would it be? Who has that right? Fucking around with minds to find answers is one thing, changing someone’s actuality in life is another even for me. And I want my truths, too. I always have. I want to understand why someone would do that to me, regardless of me probably knowing the goddamn answer anyway. Need to hear it, though. Process it. I won’t if I do what I’m considering.
My head shakes, as I turn to face Beatrice. “Would you mind giving her some of your clothes? She’s only got the sweats she’s in. The clothes she arrived in are over at-”
“Of course not. I’ll go do it now. I’ll get her things sent over.” She smiles at me and points at the small table in the orangery. “If you’re going to attempt romance, can I suggest there rather than the twenty seat dining table.” I snort and nod, watching as she smiles again and walks away from me.
Romance.
How that hell that works between us is confounding. We’re already passed fucking, passed touching and kissing and being part of each other. Physicality is engrained, instinctive. I can smell her everywhere I am, feel her in every second of time that passes me by without her. This now, this is about truths that will do nothing other than push her further away in the hope that she might understand enough to stay irrespective of the decision she’ll have to help me make.
I end up showering and changing, then ringing through for the food and waiting in the orangery for her to get to me, chain gripped in my fingers. A maid brings place settings in, a bottle of wine with them, and is then organised to meet her. She’ll bring her down to this space I barely ever use other than to sit and contemplate on occasion, and then we’ll attempt something I’ve only ever considered as irrational thinking before now. A dream is what it was then, a vision that I never held onto for a more than few minutes. Future. Possibilities.
Love.
Quietly chuckling at the thought, I accept that as a reality I am now in. Love. Amusing that she caught me, found a way in to highlight the need I thought I cared little for. She’s been such a little storm chasing me down for her truths. And one kiss was all it took. One feel of her on me, one moment of sensing that body on mine, her arms around my neck, and all my defences were obliterated.
“Gray?”
I stand instinctively, the chain still clasped in my hand, and look at her. Red dress.
Unused to seeing her in anything but black, I focus on her face. Still pale, but now brightened in beauty by the colour on her skin. She frowns and looks around the large room, eyes peering at the all the vines and lights above us. She seems as lost as me for a few seconds, and she wanders the space, bare feet padding the cold slabs underneath her.
“Shoes?” I ask.
“Didn’t feel like wearing them,” she replies, looking upwards. “I run better like this.”
“I don’t want you to run.”
I don’t. I don’t ever want to see her running from me again, despite the fact that she should.
“I’m not sure you’re worth staying for.” Her body swerves back to me, a relaxed sway bringing her to within inches of my face. “Are you? I don’t know anymore.”
She’ll have to make that choice when I’m done with these truths.
Chapter 16
Hannah
What is this place? It’s like a mausoleum. Everything’s perfect and pretty, as if designed for family life, but missing actual life. I looked it all over as the maid led me here, taking in the lighter colours and the pristine demonstration of home. It isn’t a home, though. It feels more lifeless than his apartment in Manhattan does.
And at least there, with the dark walls and dark sculpture and dark corners, there’s some representation of him and who he is. Or who I thought he is. This – I lift my hand, swishing and searching the air for the colours I used to see spinning around his face – is more barren of him than anywhere I’ve been with him so far.
“I missed you,” he says.
My hand stops mid-air, hovers by the side of his jaw in surprise, and then slowly drops away into my own slip stream. Mine. Not his. Not combined or connected. I found me again in that bathroom upstairs, found some evolved nature of me who wasn’t scared or confused. I looked at a dress draped on the bed, unsure where it had come from, and suddenly found some sanity when I slipped it on.
I walk towards the chair at the small table and run my fingers over the back of it. It’s intimate. Barely any distance between the two table settings, which is interesting given this huge space around us. I like it. Especially with the darkness eclipsing the light this house wants to show to the world.
His hand is on my back before I have chance to avoid it, the chair being pulled out for me to sit. The same feelings ricochet through me that always come with him. Desire. Need. Want. It’s so strong still. So infuriatingly fraught with craving.
“We’ve never had dinner properly,” he murmurs.
My brow arches, ass sitting slowly. “No. Too busy with lies for dinner.”
“I’ve never lied to you.”
“You never told me the truth either.”
“If I had would you have entertained me?”
