Nathan got wrapped up in his own problems, and although Antoine felt a little bad about it, he didn't feel bad enough to take his mind back off of it. Mentioning the human only made Nathan grin and cause him discomfort. He could do without that.
“So, time for the truth, Antoine.”
They were about to set off on their separate ways and Antoine turned back to look at Nathan.
“What truth?”
“You want that human, don't you?”
Antoine didn't answer, but he had a feeling that he didn't need to. While it was true Cassandra had really bound him up, he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with that. Antoine was not used to feeling such emotions for anyone, let alone a human. It was confusing and troubling. It would be easier if he felt nothing at all.
***
Monday rolled around and Antoine had it in his mind that he was going to get rid of Cassandra. He hadn't figured out a reason why, but he knew that he had to say something. The last thing he wanted was for her to get hurt in the crossfire, and since things were getting more intense, it was best if Antoine got her out of it sooner rather than later. He knew that it wasn't what he wanted, but it was what he had to do.
The problem was, he didn't want to. Antoine did not want other people dictating what he did or didn't do. He was funny that way, and the idea of someone else telling him that he couldn't be with her was enough to bother him. He felt an immediate rebellion inside of him or it was just an excuse. Antoine did not want to get rid of Cassandra. He really enjoyed having her around, even if it was hard on his senses. Being close to her like that was complicated, only because he wasn't supposed to touch her.
They started out like they usually did and after he told her good morning, he went to his desk and for the first time, he truly wished that he had a proper office. Then, he could just shut the door and she wouldn't be right there, ready to bother him with her presence. While he wanted to believe that he was above it all, the last couple of weeks had proven otherwise. He was just as easy to persuade as his fellow people. Maybe there was just something about humans, he wasn't sure, but this human was really getting underneath his skin. He asked if she wanted to go out and have lunch. She hesitated and finally said yes. Antoine told himself that he would get rid of her then.
The lunch time hour felt excruciatingly slow to arrive, and Antoine found himself looking at the clock on the wall way too much. It had been something he had added to the office to look official, but in the end, it became his downfall because he could not take his eyes off of it. It moved so devastatingly slowly, and it was not at all bringing him closer to an inevitability that he didn’t want.
When it was finally time to go to lunch, he had nerves running through him and he tried to prepare himself, laying out what he would say and then trying to guess her reaction. Would she be mad? Would she finally blurt out that she knew who Antoine was? Because he was quite sure that she did.
Antoine didn't know what to think. All he knew was what he had to do. There was no way that he could go with his friend’s other suggestion. He wasn't taking her up to the cabin. That would just make everything worse.
***
When they got to the restaurant, she asked him if he was okay. He looked up, surprised by her question.
“Yeah, why?”
“No reason. I'm just not used to you being so quiet. You haven't screamed on the phone all day.”
He looked at her strange. “Is that something I do often?”
Cassandra grinned. “Yeah, it's quite entertaining. I don't know who you're yelling at, but you definitely like to yell. We need to get some proper popcorn in the office.”
Antoine didn't know what to say to that. He didn't realize that he was so gruff, but when he thought about it, he knew it to be true. What surprised him was instead of her being afraid of it, she found it interesting. Entertaining even.
Why was this woman so different from anyone he had ever known before? She just made it all that much more complicated. Why did she have to be so great?
They got into a conversation and Antoine just let himself get pulled into it. He did not under any circumstances want to fire her. The longer he sat across from her in the midst of a pretty good conversation, the more he realized that he didn't want it to end, at all. But he couldn't let something happen to her, either. That left only one option, and since Antoine had thought it was too ridiculous to even think about, he did not even have a plan. He had no idea how he was going to make it seem possible. It was not like he could just ask her to go stay in the woods with him for no reason. She would never go for it, no woman would.
Then, there was the suggestion that he could just make her want to go with him. He knew many of his kind that got basically anything they could ever want like that, but he wasn't that sort. He not only found it completely distasteful, but he also realized that he didn't want someone if he had to do such a thing to get them. He wanted real attraction and desire, or nothing at all.
So, the idea of him being able to use it on Cassandra was almost laughable. There was no way. He did not want to make her do anything. If he was true to himself and there was something that he wanted from her, but it was so against everything that he believed, he had to fight it with every part of his being.
With that understanding, it was better to get rid of her. Not just for the sake of safety, but for the sake of his mental function as well. He couldn't just pretend like he didn't care about her. He did. Too much, and it was painfully obvious to him.
That left him doing nothing. At the end of the lunch, she was still working for him and they went back to the office. But, he went back feeling like a failure. How hard would it have been just to say the words?
Apparently too hard, he thought ruefully to himself. Cassandra was a human that he needed to get rid of, his life getting ever more dangerous, but he didn't want to get rid of her. He wanted, instead, to pull her closer and never let her go.
Chapter 5
Cassandra
“I feel like you want to talk about something or say something, but you won’t.”
