So, she was supposed to wait and be as unobtrusive as she could be. She didn’t want to do anything to piss him off, any more than being there to begin with. That would have made sense. Cassandra stayed on the couch for several minutes, but then she went toward the rest of the house, unable to just wait around and hope that he came back that night.
Cassandra looked around and found that everything was quite neat and put in its place. It was surprisingly a lot like the office that she went to every day. It had very little furniture and everything was there for a reason. It did not look like there was one knickknack on a shelf or on the walls. Antoine didn't seem to have much use for anything that wasn't useful. There was nothing there as a decoration to make it look pretty. It was just the basics, well-made basics, but just the basics. It made Cassandra wonder why he wasn’t like everyone else, surrounding himself with things that he enjoyed looking at.
There was a lot about Antoine that Cassandra didn't understand. Learning that he had sent Nathan to help her just went in line with what she had come to know about him. When Cassandra had first met him, realizing who he was and what he had done to her, she couldn't stand him. Cassandra had needed the job, so she had accepted it, but it hadn't taken long at all for her to realize that Antoine was a different sort of man.
The whole time she had been attracted to him, whether she wanted to be or not, but now Cassandra knew that it was okay for her to feel the fleeting need every time she laid her eyes on him. It was hard for her to deny it, or to lie about the feeling inside of her, making her wish that there was more that could be done. She had held back because he was the guy that left her, but now, she knew that there was more to it. Now, he was dangerous and probably had kept her from some sort of calamity that she hadn't seen coming. Just like Nathan had done.
Cassandra realized quite quickly in the last hour or two that neither man was what they said they were. They weren’t businesspeople. They did not have business issues. Although Cassandra was sure that some of it was true, there was a lot that was missing.
She got to the end of the house and opened the first door. It was a bathroom, and it was much of the same, plain and utilitarian. There was a color scheme of dark blue and grey and everything went well together, but there was no embellishment. No personality.
The next door that she opened was obviously his bedroom and everything that she thought she knew changed immediately. Another layer was added to her understanding of Antoine.
There were hand-drawn pictures all over and stacks of them in every corner. She took a step back because it was that different from the rest of the house. Why would he hide it in that one room?
Cassandra walked in and started to look at everything in front of her. They were really good drawings and she, of course, believed that he was the creator of them. Several of them were still being worked on. One in particular caught her eye and she picked it up. Cassandra gasped when she got a look at the drawing. It was a subject she knew well, since it was her.
“I would have locked this door, if I had known you were going to be dropped off here and snooping.”
Cassandra let the paper go in her hand, like it was fire burning her, and she looked around all innocently. Cassandra didn’t want him mad at her but at the moment, it looked like she had done that very thing. Why was she so stinking good at it?
“Sorry. I was just looking for the bathroom.”
“You already found the bathroom. You left the door open in there, too.”
Cassandra knew that he was right. All of them were closed before, and he could probably tell exactly where she had been because she had left everything open. Cassandra hadn't thought about that. She tried to smile sheepishly. Cassandra had been caught. She wanted to change the subject, so she asked how he was, considering someone had blown up his office.
“I am fine. I'm glad that Nathan got you out of there in time. I never should have left you there by yourself.”
She waved him off like it was no big deal, like she was used to people trying to blow her up.
“Well, everything turned out fine.”
She walked past him to get out of the room as quickly as she could. She had to ask herself something. Why was he drawing pictures of her? And why did she care so much?
Chapter 6
Antoine
When Antoine got back to the office, he hadn't talked to Nathan yet, and all he saw was everything in an inferno. The fire trucks were already there and they were trying to put out the blaze, but it had already passed to the next building, and it would probably pass to two or three more before it was finally snuffed out. He didn't really care about it too much. It wasn't like he was too committed to the office.
What he was worried about was Cassandra. The first thing that came to his mind was that Cassandra was still in there. He had fought past the fire fighters to look inside. The place wasn’t that big, but she could have been hiding in the back. He had come close to decking one of the firefighters that was holding him back, when Nathan came on the scene and pulled him away.
“She's not in there, man, chill out. You’re making a scene.”
“What?!”
He’d worked himself up. Antoine was not the type of person to lose his cool, ever. He’d learned a long time ago the best way to get through a tough situation was to keep a cool head. In that situation, it felt impossible.
Once he realized that she wasn't in danger, he was able to relax, but the realization that he had freaked out so quickly and so completely was kind of hard for him to get his head around. It's not like Antoine didn't care about people, he did have friends and there were a few family members that he still talked to. But, he had never felt something like the soul-crushing fear that he’d just felt when he thought Cassandra was in the burning building. He didn’t even really know her, so why was he panicking with the thought of losing her?
“Damn, man, I thought you wasn't into the human?”
“It's nothing like that, Nathan. It's just that I didn't want to feel guilty if the human died. That’s all.”
Nathan just kind of shook his head, and even though they both knew that Antoine was lying and just talking shit really, he didn't call him out on it. Antoine was grateful for that because he was already embarrassed enough to have somebody know how quickly he had fallen for her, even though she was human.
Antoine didn't know how to feel about any of it, but he had another shock when he found out that Nathan had dropped her off at his house. Antoine didn’t find that surprise all that good.
