The Wildcard

Chapter Thirty Two

His lips dropped into a sad, satisfied smile – he didn't need to say it – I could see in his eyes that that was exactly the response he'd been looking for. His fingers were running over my face in the dim light, as though he was committing the moment to memory.

He told me once that that was the moment that he really felt like we could make it, and until then he'd been petrified that our shadows weren't compatible – that he'd scare me away once I really saw who he was. I didn't think that that had ever been the case, but looking back, after everything, I saw the insecurities in his actions. To me, now, Cayden is as simple as he was complex at the start.

"I am sorry, though, that it brought her back to you. I just hated that you hung your head, hated that you never even questioned whether six years was enough - as though you weren't even worth it. He got six years, while you've caged yourself up to a lifetime of it; fear, self-destruction. You're worth everything to me, I hated him for making you doubt that more than anything. And there was nothing I could say to prove any different, you just kept running and running. The shit was too deep in your head."

I hated my past for making him feel so helpless, so out of control, knowing what the walls that I kept up around him had done to his ego. I'd never been running from him, it was always me.

"I know," I sighed then, looking away from him, "I wish you'd have told me. I get why you didn't, though, it's not your fault."

I really didn't know how to get this out there. I'd spent so long being like this – my whole life, I think – why would he tell me? I'd known at the beach that we weren't equals in this. Cayden would shoulder my burdens, but he might never share his own with me. His world was built on secrets and violence, and maybe he would never let me into it. Maybe he would never really see me as more than "his little runaway".

I didn't want to be some fragile little child, anymore, just reacting to everyone else, because it was Alex that made me that way – it wasn't me, it was the mould that he'd created. I wanted more for myself. I wanted Cayden to want more for me, as well.

But how could I ever ask for that, after this?

"What has it cost you Cayden?"

He seemed to mull over his words, then, slowly draining his glass, eyes moving around the room, anywhere but at me. I knew him well enough to know that these movements were all calculated to give him time to adjust to the shift in the conversation and work out his next play. I don't think he'll ever realise he isn't an island – his games are just his way of coping, categorizing – they don't mean he cares any less or any more, they are just who he is and how he deals.

"I never paid a penny."

That wasn't an answer. Blowing out my breath in frustration I pulled myself up, taking his chin between my fingertips and turning his evasive eyes back to me. I tried to steel myself over, make him tell me, take control like he could.

"What. Did. It. Cost. You?"

I couldn't understand the smile, or the sparkle in his eyes, he was never the kind of person who wore his heart on his sleeve like that. My jaw lost the tension completely as it dropped in shock – once more we were back onto the rollercoaster that is Cayden's emotional wellbeing!

"Nothing I wasn't prepared to give you just for forty seconds of that kind of fire in your eyes," he whispered as he kissed the corner of my lips softly, "A few favours, nothing to worry about."

""I'm really out of my depth, here, Cayden, but am I to assume that we aren't talking about cups of sugar?"

He chuckled at that, drawing me against his chest and kissing the top of my head.