HEART OF GOLD | CORIOLANUS SNOW

𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙋𝙏𝙀𝙍 116

Coriolanus remembered when he'd been here, not as an undergraduate, but as Head Gamemaker, last year, to give the presentation he had prepared for the first time. He remembered standing in this very corridor as Remus Dolittle congratulated his promotion and commended the handling of the Twentieth Hunger Games. He remembered someone shouting, "Run, Lil! Run!" and seeing a girl darting down hall across the Science Center's atrium, long brown hair whipping behind her. He remembered the exact seat in which this very girl had sat in the lecture hall—next to his biggest fan, one Athena Click.

That was, if remembering involved creating memories you wanted to think you had.

The memory of someone yelling was fuzzy, and he could not confirm if those had indeed been the words hollered or he was just being haunted by something else. There had been a girl, but brown hair or otherwise, he could not recall her from the lecture theatre. But he could picture it—he could picture her: streaking down the marble passage, perched demurely in the seat now occupied by a boy and his shock of sandy hair.

With conscious effort, Coriolanus was able to stop himself from focusing on said boy during his speech, but even so, he lacked the self-restraint to open up her contact after the class had finally ended. It had been scheduled just before lunch this year, and Remus was intending to take him out for a meal, as was customary for the hosting faculty, but also to appreciate the couple of hours Coriolanus had to take off from the military to grace the session. The gratitude went both ways.

Despite not delivering any surprise party invitation, more than a few students had swarmed him after Remus's dismissal, requesting everything from photographs to autographs. If not for their tutor's intervention, he might still be stuck in their midst, signing insipid notebooks that reminded him of a pastel pink one, complete with an equally frivolous pen and an even more frivolous owner.

A frivolous owner he loved.

His breath hitched in his chest at the thought. It was not that Coriolanus didn't know—far from it. He had been rigorously trying to deny the fact, to avoid it, which was about as fruitful as struggling in quagmire, so, of course, he knew. He just never had it surface so explicitly.

Except once.

Viviana's opinion of breakup sex had been quite like his own: All the pleasure with no strings attached. Although, he had picked up all the bills for their food deliveries and even let her purchase several gowns and handbags under his tab, both to keep her happy—and quiet. He might have had a bit of a reputation for being a womanizer, but he had always treated them well, and under no circumstances would he allow a favour to be owed, especially since he'd kept going back for seconds.

She wasn't just excellent in bed—she knew how to satisfy him. At the beginning, Coriolanus had assumed it had just been a consequence of his deprivation, but time had changed nothing. The night of Midas Gold's fifty-fifth birthday bash, he hadn't left her apartment until almost twenty-four hours later. Every Sunday since, he had been there.

There was no better excuse to get out of the house. It was the only day of the week Tigris wasn't at work, and whenever they saw each other these days, they were bound to clash. It was really for the Grandma'am's sake. She wasn't nearly as frail as Strabo, but watching her darling grandchildren at odds might be the final straw that sent her to her grave, and he wasn't going to be the culprit of that, too.

Last Sunday had been just like the one that had come before, until it hadn't. Coriolanus was almost leaving, actually. He was fastening up the last of his shirt buttons when Viviana gave an exaggerated sigh. Sprawled with her back on the mattress, she was clad in just the lacy translucent slip she used for a nightgown, which ended mid-thigh and concealed precisely none of her parts. Both her hands were behind her head on the pillow as she stared up at the ceiling.