Page 107 of Van Cort

Flashes of our nights at the mansion spring into my mind, and I take the glass to hold on to my frustration at this man. The wine is crisp and smooth and clearly expensive. But I don’t care. I’ve stood up to him and he’s still here.

He hasn’t terminated the contract, and with the realisation that I might be able to stand up to this man, something else eases into place in my chest.

***

“I think this date might be my favourite.”

“Ever?” He laughs at me.

“With you. I meant with you.” We walk hand in hand back down the pier, my heels in my other hand. He didn’t stop at the first bottle of wine, insisting it didn’t matter despite my protest that it was a work night. Adding that we owed it to our meal to honour it with wine and revelry.

“Better than the coffee and the hallway sex?”

“Well, that was different.” That was hot.

“Better than the casino?”

“The bathroom situation knocked that off the top.”

“Better than Vancouver?”

“That wasn’t a date. That was a trip. Not the same. Can we keep it like this? No more fighting, okay?” My voice sounds tired.

“I promise not to fight with you.” He smiles, and my eyes blink a few times.

“You know, it’s hard sometimes to keep up with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can be two different people over the course of a day. It makes my head spin. And it’s tiring.” I swallow. The wine has gone to my head, but maybe I’m starting to realise that that’s the best way to see him. In work. Out of work. “Everett?” I pull us to a stop, his face a little serious, and panic grips me that something’s wrong. “No. Stop. I take it back. I don’t want to spoil anything.”

“You can’t spoil tonight.”

“That’s sweet. Thank you.”

Andre picks us up and drives back to my place. And, to my shock, Everett pauses at the door.

I look back at him. “You’re going to ask, now? Not just assume? See, the neanderthal might be a good look right about now. You know I liked you taking charge when we were at the mansion. In the music room. In the bedroom.”

“You’re asking for…” he trails off.

“I’m asking you to fuck me, and end tonight on a high.”

CHAPTER THIRTY - SIX

BEFORE

LARA - AGE EIGHTEEN

Weeks.

It had been weeks, and yet Lara still couldn’t find the words to tell them what she really felt. What she really wanted.

She knew why. When she fell into bed at night and lay awake pondering what words would be right, to maybe protect him, she knew why she’d waited and put this off, time and time again.

Her hope of avoiding what was to come crumbled to ash and blew into the ether when the acceptance letter arrived. Her path was set. At least from Rhett and West’s perspective. But neither had asked her. Not really.

And with every day, the small, tiny and deadly grain of doubt had grown, as if by leaving it, the very idea grew into something unruly and uncontained.