The Wildcard

Chapter Thirteen

Cayden handed me a steaming mug of coffee before settling next to me on the plush leather sofa in his lounge.

He’d called his driver around immediately, bundled me into his lap in the back of an Audi 4 x 4, and not said a single word to try to pry the details out of me. He’d just traced his fingers up and down my spine like a child – soothing me without pressure or expectations – just silence. He’d allowed me to stare out at the world rolling past the window through the tinted glass – he’d given me a reprieve from the outside – a spot in which to place myself, away but not apart. That was the most precious gift he could have possibly given me. And that blessed silence did more than calm my screaming, throbbing nerves – it felt like it connected us somehow – like a bond was forged in that moment between our souls, and for once, it didn’t completely petrify me.

His touch wasn’t sexual, it just skated over the surface of my skin – but I felt ... stable ... sort of.

“I brought cream and sugar,” he set the dish on the sleek black glass coffee table before settling back with his own mug, “I didn’t know how you liked it.”

He chuffed sardonically to himself, his face solemn as he stared down into his own mug. His shoulders slumped against the back of the sofa, I felt like I was seeing a side to Cayden that few people ever did – for one, I doubted he made coffee very often for anybody (I vaguely remembered his admission on the very first night that we’d met, of the Swedish maid). But it went deeper than that – he looked almost resigned, not a look I’d expect from a man who, by his own admission and everybody else’s, got whatever he wanted purely because he didn’t quit. Ever.

Lips thinned, with a muscle twitching at the corner of his jaw, and his eyes far, far away in thought, he clutched the mug of black coffee in his strong hands – one index finger running carelessly up the side of the black porcelain – he looked as though he’d finally learnt how to say enough is enough.

He’d taken off his jacket, but he was still otherwise dressed completely for the office – the heel of one Gucci loafer resting idly on the toe of another – except for the tie, which he’d pulled away from the corded muscles in his thick neck almost the second we walked through the front door.

“Thank you,” I muttered quietly, reaching for the tiny jug of cream – refusing to dwell too long on the domestic feeling I was getting.

I couldn’t bear the look in his eyes – his body language – in light of the last half an hour, it all served to show me that he was pulling away; that we were now just two intimate strangers on a sofa. The thought alone suffocated me suddenly – my chest expanding unnaturally to drag in as much of the stuffy, humid air as it could.

Perhaps it was just my vulnerabilities, after the phone call from my mother, or maybe it really had built up to this over time, without my even realising, but I panicked desperately at the sight of it; that awkward, almost complete ambivalence in his eyes. Clattering my coffee onto the table, I turned and reached for him desperately, clutching the collar of his shirt in my fists as I clambered into his lap.

I knew that I’d regret my actions – I knew I was once again regressing to this desperate, needy version of myself that I’d come to loathe – but I couldn’t help it – I could never help it, not with him.