Page 185 of Oleander

I crept back to Cas’s bedroom like a criminal would retrace the steps to their crime scene, to find him where I left him, on the window seat reading his book. He stood when I entered, placing the bookmark inside and setting it down.

I drank him in again, properly. I hadn’t seen him except online for eight years. He looked healthy and vibrant, his skin unmarred and glowing with life, bright blue eyes shining as they looked at me.

“I called you,” I said.

“You did.”

“And you answered.”

“I told you if it was important, then I’d answer.”

“How are you here?”

“Well, I’m living in London now. I caught the first flight over this morning.”

I couldn’t read the look on his face; it was tense, on the cusp of something huge, something I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear.

“Gideon said you never come here, that you’ve refused to set foot in the place .”

He tilted his head a little like it was extremely obvious. “Well, it wasn’t Gideon who asked me to come.”

I went then to sit on the bed, hoping he couldn’t see the way my legs trembled as I walked across the room.

“He doesn’t look good.”

“I know,” he said.

“So… obviously, I can’t remember the call. I don’t know what I said...” I wanted the floor to swallow me whole. I couldn’t look at his face. His perfect fucking face. Christ, I’d missed him. It almost hurt more now that he was here, standing right in front of me. Real. Almost within touching distance. His hair was long again, tucked behind his ears, and curling against the collar of the rich wool at his neck. I wanted to go to him and pull him into me, kiss him. More than anything else, more than knowing the truth about what he’d done, I wanted that.

I said, “You always told me he was a liar. That I should never believe anything he said. So...” I swallowed and looked at my hands. “So, I don’t know what to believe, Cas. I needed to hear it from you.” I still couldn’t decide if I wanted it to be true.

“I know,” he said again. “But I won’t lie to you.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You lied to me about Xavier. Then about what he was doing to you, you lied to my face about that. More than once.”

He nodded. “Yes, because I never wanted you to see me like that. As something small and weak – likehedid.” I could tell this was difficult for him to say, but he pushed on. “I thought if you knew what he’d done to me then it would change how you saw me. And I didn’t want that.”

“It never changed how I saw you, Cas; it never could. It only made me hate him more.”

He gave me a sort of conflicted look. “I know. I know that now.”

I was quiet a moment before I straightened my spine and looked him right in the eye.

“So is it true? What Gideon told me. You’re the one who set up the trust for me? Who paid for Oxford, my car, my fucking dental treatment?”

This, too, was painful, hard for him to say.

“Yes,” he said at last.

I sat forward, elbows on my knees as I covered my face with my hands. “Fucking hell, Cas. Why?Whywould you do this?”

“You know why, Jude.”

I didn’t think I did. I didn’t dare hope that I did. But I could see only two reasons why he’d done it: pity or love. I loathed the idea of the first and could barely stand the idea of the second. Knowing he’d loved me all these years and yet stayed away.

“So you put yourself through years of fucking hell for what? For me?” That’s what Gideon had said.For you, Jude. For you.

He shook his head. “No, it wasn’t entirely like that. It was...” He took a deep steadying breath. “When I first met Xavier, he was different. He was older, experienced, handsome. I was entranced by the life I thought he could offer me. A life away from this place, where my mother’s misery lives in the walls, where Gideon’s lives out in the open in every room. I was determined to escape the moment I could. When my father came to me with his money, earned honestly by all accounts and not inherited, I was going to refuse him outright. I wanted nothing from him. He was the reason I was here and the reason my mother was dead. His name is Liam, by the way, Caspien Liam Deveraux: it’s bloody ghastly. Anyway, I thought I could use his money for something good.”