I sighed. I really, fucking, heavily sighed, harder than I did over any business deal, harder than I had in months before Sarah reemerged, harder even than with anything to do with the Morrils.
Because at this point, that memory might as well have one-two punched me in the fucking face with what I needed to do.
Tell Sarah everything.
Tell Sarah the truth.
Which meant telling her that, yes, at first, I’d roped her in with the long-term intention of breaking her, of having her feel the kind of pain that I had felt when we lost Virgil. Admitting to her that as time went by, as I spent more time with her, I could see hints of reflection, both in her artwork and in her words. I could pick up that she had suffered, maybe not to the same extent I had, but suffered all the same.
But…
Fuck.
If anything happened, truth telling or otherwise, it was not going to happen here. My penthouse was where I exerted my authority, closed final deals, brought other women before Sarah into my world for one night. There were too many other memories, too much presence of power for me to do what Virgil had done. I had…
Well, Thanksgiving was coming up. I’d normally spend it with my brothers, but maybe this once, I could take Sarah somewhere.
Where somewhere was, I could not say. It was odd admitting to myself that I didn’t know where, but that would be figured out in time.
And to give myself ideas, I decided to watch Sarah work.
Not now, of course. It was almost midnight, and even I knew that rousing Sarah to paint would, at best, produce mediocre results and at worst push her away for good. No, fortunately, however, I had something better.
Recordings.
I hadn’t told Sarah that I’d recorded her little photoshoot atAllure,but surely, she was not stupid. She knew me well enough to know by now I saw everything that happened atRuby.At the very least, I had the capability of seeing everything that happened at my flagship casino, and any time she set foot into my place, I would have the ability to watch.
I pulled out a tablet, found the footage, and began playing. The first half was relatively boring; it was just her posing with her existing artwork. I noticed that there was one other woman whom I had not invited; she looked vaguely familiar, but it being a slow and somewhat haunted night, I couldn’t quite place it. No matter. If it became clear by the end of the video she had done something, I’d make sure things were taken care of.
Around the halfway mark, she and her friend moved to the side. The conversation looked intense; these being securitycameras, I didn’t have an audio feed, but Sarah’s face gradually morphed from relaxed and perhaps a tad nervous to almost pissed off. I regretted right then not having audio feeds, if for no other reason that I wanted to know what had pissed her off so. She didn’t look angry at her friend, so I doubted it was that.
If it was to do with me, that only solidified the need to do what the memory told me. I was just trying to get ideas at this point for where to tell the truth.
Then the second half began, and something interesting happened.
Instead of skipping through parts, instead of playing at double or even triple speed, I slowed down as Sarah sat down and began painting. She had warned beforehand that art done on the spot, especially in front of other people, would never be as good as art done well-rested, without a crowd, and with a clear idea. I knew it, the photographers knew it, and she obviously knew it.
But even still, artists bare their souls when they worked, even when they didn’t realize it. Sarah could sketch a McDonald’s restaurant, and something about the sign or the windows would give a hint into her inner being. I cared less about what she painted than what it said.
Fuck. This was so unlike me. I was a businessman who dealt in cold realities and played cold games. Sarah Carpenter really was dragging me to a part of myself arguably buried with Virgil.
Minutes passed, and gradually, what started out as one of many things slowly converged into a single image—two people in the forefront, sitting over what looked like a table, with someone above them, watching. The details were not yet fleshed out, but it was clear that she felt watched almost at all times.If only she knew the irony that I would watch this on video later.
I turned off the video, aware of what I had to do.
Stop taking her to galas. Stop setting up public situations. Stop taking her on private jets that would inevitably land in public settings, even if we found ourselves in private situations along the way.
I had to put her in a spot where it was just me and her, and whatever happened, no one would ever be able to witness. Not my brothers, not the Morrils, not even housekeeping staff or butlers or valets or anyone who might gossip elsewhere. It wasn’t just for Sarah; it was for me. Only by being alone could I go from being Cassius Vale, powerful billionaire and the latest Vegas mogul to…
To…
Well, fuck.
Human.
That just sounded weird, almost antithetical to what I had done to this point. And as weird as it sounded, the implications were even stronger. Because if I let myself be human, a mere mortal, then I would almost certainly let go of the plan to break her. I would take her as mine, but I’d stop worrying about vengeance.
And in a sense, maybe that was best.
