Page 56 of Van Cort

RIVER

“I’m sorry, what?” The ringing in my ears won’t stop.

“You heard.”

“No… no… you said words, but…” Is he serious? I need to check because I can’t be right. Air. I’m struggling to concentrate in here. It’s like the walls are closing in around us and-

“I’m asking you to marry me, River.”

Nope. I heard correctly.

The box he thrusts towards me glimmers like everything else in the vault, spun with gleaming yellow and sunset-rich gold. Everything is gold. My eyes spin around, unable to look him in the eye as he just stands there, his arm outstretched.

“Well?” he asks.

“Well, what?” I snap back, adrenaline and panic fuelling my confusion and blocking any real sense. It’s all instinct.

“Do you have an answer?”

I snigger, unable to stop the bubble of hysteria escaping at his impatience. “No.” He’s got to be kidding? Having said that, I have never known Everett to be a joker.

“You’re saying no?” The shock in his voice doesn’t help the hysteria needing to break free again.

I step back carefully, away from the emerald, diamonds and gold staring me in the face.

“I’m saying I don’t have an answer.” Breathe.

I can’t breathe. We’re in a vault. With armed guards.

And he chooses to propose here? Now? “Why? Of all the things you could have said, or done, why did you think proposing would be a good idea?” His brow furrows, like he doesn’t understand the question.

“I love you. I’ve said the words, given you what you want—”

“What I want?” My voice pitches to a higher tone that tells me just how close I am to losing it.

“Love isn’t just three words, Everett.” Too fast. This is all too fast. My mind is racing, falling – free-falling through all of our past conversations, every line, every word to try and find the reason as to why he’s done this here and now.

The fight, showing up at my door, the date, spending the night, the first time he has, yet he couldn’t manage to wait until morning, so still snuck out, even if he kissed me goodbye.

In Vancouver, he made that little comment when we were in town, but that was only a slip. He wasn’t really thinking seriously, or at least, that’s what I hoped. But now… Is this really what this has all been leading to?

“You want me to be your wife?” I ask, as calmly as possible. Maybe repetition will help me understand.

“Yes.”

“And what does that mean? What does being Mrs Van Cort look like?” I have an idea, and it’s not one that I think of when I view myself.

An accessory to show off at gala dinners or charity events?

Am I to provide an heir, like he implied earlier, be the dutiful wife?

That’s the image that springs to mind as we stand, staring at each other.

That’s the base – the very foundation – of everything Van Cort is built on, from my perception.

“Being together. Being bound together. Honour, respect, love.”

“That’s being a wife. Not what I see when I think of marriage.”

“What do you want then? What else do you want from me?”

“What else? You’ve given me scraps, Everett. Everything on your terms. Everything under your control. Your choices. Your decisions. Right from the very start,” I shout. “It’s like I push you, and I don’t know what version of you I’ll get back. And I can’t live like that.”

“I’ve given you more than anyone!” His words echo and bounce off the enclosed space, ringing in my ears, but the sound only stokes my anger. We’re right back to the argument in the office again. He’s decided, and that’s it? No discussion, no talk, just…

“You haven’t even gotten down on one knee?

This is the most important question you could ask me, and you do it here, behind ten feet of reinforced concrete, in a vault, like you’re asking me to sign a contract, even comparing me to what’s in here.

” A bigger part of me than I’m comfortable admitting wants the declaration, the over-the-top proposal, something that means something to both of us.

“This is the most important place for me,” he grits out, his temper flaring.

“This is a part of my soul, maybe the only part left that’s still whole.

This is the heart of me, if you can’t see it…

” His eyes blaze, his usually rock-solid facade slipping under my questions, or more likely, his answers.

I try to wrap my head around what he means by his soul, and this place being his heart, the intensity of the words willing me to see something he’s not spoken. It’s clear he’s uncomfortable here, yet why bring me to propose, of all places, if this also causes him pain?

“Take it. Take it!” He yells, and I reach to hold the golden box that already feels like a weight in my hand. “It was my mother’s. And I want it to be yours. I want you to wear it.”

Those final words slay me, breaking a part of my heart for him.

The mother who died, whom he never met. And I suddenly want to take back all the words I spat in my own confusion and pain, an understanding of sorts becoming clear.

So much of Everett seems to be wrapped up in his family, in legacy, and in the past. Coming here, he’s opened that up and expected me to understand the weight of that with nothing but clues.

It’s enough for my temper to soften, but not to loosen my tongue into answering him with what he wants. I keep my lips shut and the words lodged in my throat.

And the quiet pause stretches out between us.

An impasse, of sorts.

The air grows thick with anticipation. With expectation.

I want to say something, because I can see he’s suffering, but then, shouldn’t he be happy? Shouldn’t I be happy if it’s what I want?

“Can we leave?” I ask, desperate to be out of here. The weight of the room is pressing in on me, and the panic grows in place of the questions. It’s suffocating any way forward, strangling the thoughts out of me.

He nods and sets about leaving this place.

Back through the doors, the codes, the armed-fucking-guards.

Andre is waiting for us when we finally break free of the building and head down the steps, but Everett doesn’t speak a word. His face is a mask of ice – no glint of emotion. I almost miss the reaction he gave me inside, because at least that told me he feels.

I sit in uncomfortable silence, feeling like I’m slipping from reality.

Everett is the reason I’m hesitating over accepting the job opportunity. He’s the reason I question my own sanity sometimes.

He might say he loves me, but does he? Is he capable of that real, burning desire that melts two people into one other?

My head tilts a fraction so I can glance at him, catch a look, a gesture, something that might help me dissect this, but he’s staring out the window – lost to himself.

And isn’t that part of the problem? He might think he’s given me everything, but he’s given me more questions and nothing to make me want to give him the answer he wants.

Andre takes us back to Everett’s apartment. I should be grateful he’s not taken me home and left me there, never to see him again. My inner monologue paints a disturbing picture, more for myself than for him.

As the silence shows no sign of breaking, I wonder what my reaction has done to him.

If he thought what he did was the grandest way he could declare his love – show me his soul – and I rejected him – isn’t it a wonder he’s building his armour back in place?

The inner desire to please that was first a way to fit in and soon became a crutch that ensured I’d always fit in, still whispers for me to make the first move. To check on him.

He opens the door to his apartment, still without a word, and heads to the bedroom.

Would we live here? Would he want to share this space? He likened Vancouver to a home, or at least that it could be. I try to piece the lines and words he’s offered and given me, and attempt to make them equal his proposal.

“Everett?” I call, following in his wake into the bedroom, “I just…” I look up at him, as he pulls the shirt from his back, and three dull, red claw marks reveal themselves.

I think about the other night – the night he stayed. There were no marks then, no scratches I thought might have been visible after the sex in his office.

He throws the shirt to the ground, discarding it, as he continues into the dressing area, hidden from my view at the threshold of his room.

My heart lurches at the implication that he’s been with someone else.

No. It cracks, fissures splitting with the realisation that this is all just fake. His supposed feelings, the proposal.

How can you propose after cheating on someone?

He walks back out of the walk-in and sees me at the door. The look on my face must cause him alarm because the stoic mask that’s been in place since the vault slips, a crease over his eye, the only sign of concern.

“Where did you get them from?” I nod at him. “The scratch marks you’ve just covered up.”

“I seem to remember your talons doing the damage, sweetheart. I’m a little disappointed you don’t recall. I certainly enjoyed it.”

“No. No!” I turn and storm out. “You did not have them when you spent the night with me.” I turn around, needing to see his face as I question him.

“The last time we slept together, you did not have scratches on your back. So, why? Why do you want to marry me if you’re so unhappy that you’ll cheat at the first opportunity? ”

He sighs. “I’ve not been with anyone other than you, River.”

“Fine. You don’t cheat. Then explain it to me.” I dare him. Because I need an explanation that makes sense. I need to know I’m not going mad, and he needs to tell me that it’s a simple mistake.

“I have never, and will never, lie to you.”

“Great. You’re honest. So honest you’re declaring your version of love one minute and cheating the next.

” My anger burns in my veins that he’s done this to me, and I want to push him, shove him towards telling me the truth, exposing all of the emotion he was clearly keeping locked away as securely as the gold in his vault.

“Did you even mean to propose, or was it just an obligation. Do you need a wife to unlock the family fortune or something?” I jest but know I’ve said the wrong thing the second it’s out of my mouth.

He blanches at my words, and it’s on the tip of my tongue to apologise, but I can’t.

Not when everything hangs in the balance like this.

“When you told me that you were giving me a part of your soul, did you mean it? Do you comprehend what it means to love someone so much that you want to spend the rest of your life with them? I’m not sure I do. ”

“I do.”

“Really?” I push.

There has to be an explanation. The questions, the names, the little things that all seem silly and unimportant. One minute he’s angry, the next showing me romance. Yet he proposes like he’s entering a business contract.

Little things.

Over time.

They all make me question whether I know him at all.

“Do you promise me, on my life, the life of the woman who you say you love enough to want to spend the rest of your life with, that you’d never cheat and be with another woman?”

“Yes.” But he turns away, pulling his phone from his pocket and striding out to the main room.

“Everett? What the hell?”

He doesn’t turn around, still on his phone.

My hands grab my head, which is ready to explode, maybe with anger, maybe from confusion, and maybe from sadness that he thinks, in his heart, that the way he’s being with me now, is perfectly acceptable. And how do I justify that?

I follow him. “I’m asking you to explain how those scratches weren’t on you the last time we were together, and you’re busy texting or checking your phone?”

“They were on me the last time we were together. You put them there, River.”

“You said you’d never lie to me.”

“I haven’t lied. You just can’t see the truth.”

“Truth?” I spit at him. “You toss that word around, and I’m surprised it doesn’t burn on your lips, Everett.

” I’m goading him because the unthinkable is starting to form in my mind, and I don’t know what I’m going to do if the only answer left for my sanity is the one that might also break me.

“I’m going to ask you one more time. Do you really want to marry me? ”

“Yes.”

“Then tell me the fucking truth.”