Page 108 of Oleander

“He should be in prison,” I said though without any of the fire with which I’d said it in the past. I was tired. “He used to come here when you weren’t around, you know. I caught them once.”

“I’m sorry, Jude. But I did warn you,” Gideon said, not sounding sorry at all.

I stared at him.

He moved to sit down, taking a large sip of his wine as he did. “I warned you that he would break your heart, and he did.”

I didn’t want to hear it, not from him. Because he had. He had warned me. I’m sure it was too late by the time his warning came, but it didn’t make it any easier to hear.

“He said I’d hate him. That one day I’d hate him so much I wouldn’t be able to bear it,” I told Gideon in a strange, unfamiliar voice.

“The way I have always seen it,” Gideon said as he sipped his wine, “is that we have only two choices when the heart is broken. The first is to allow it to heal. It is quite astounding what the human heart is able to overcome. Though it shall never be quite as strong as it was – its foundations will be forever weakened – it can heal. The second...”

Here, his eyes danced to me. For the first time, I saw something in them that made my blood run cold.

“…is to turn it into so impenetrable a thing, such a fortress, that it will never be breached again.”

I knew what choice Gideon had made. It was more evident to me then than it had ever been. His was a fortress. It was how Cas’s had been hardened, too. But I had already made the promise under the moon to love him, unconditionally. Was I to turn back on that so soon? He’d hurt me, but I wasn’t broken beyond repair. I was young and strong, and I could recover.

I could make myself into something Caspien wanted. Someone who could offer him the life he wanted.

In that very same instant, a new goal emerged within me: I wanted to achieve something, something that would impress him and him alone. He would be my singular critic. I’d never have the riches, status, or even looks that Xavier Blackwell had come to him with. But I could strive for something else.

His respect.

I think even then I understood that I could never possibly mean anything to him without it. I wanted to be his equal. And if that would earn me his love and affection and desire, then all the better.

I’d brought the paperwork with me knowing that I would need a witness, knowing that Lord Gideon Deveraux would be able to fill that duty.

“Would I be able to use your phone?” I asked. Because I hadn’t brought mine, it lay dead under my pillow where I’d spent the night drafting a letter to Caspien that I’d never send.

“Of course.” He gestured across the room.

I could feel his eyes on me as I lifted the receiver and dialled.

Moreland answered on the third ring. He sounded pleasantly surprised to hear from me, as though he’d given up all hope he ever would.

“Eh, so I was wondering – hoping – that the offer was still open. For the trust thing. They haven’t changed their mind, have they?” I stared at Gideon and watched as the very corner of his mouth turned up. As though I’d just accepted a challenge.

“Of course not; everything is still very much on offer, Mr. Alcott.”

I nodded until I realised he couldn’t see me.

“Great. Well, then I’d like to accept it, please. Thank you.”

Part Two:

For now, I am winter

“The broken heart. You think you will die, but you just keep living, day after day after terrible day.”

Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

One

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