“That isnotfeminism. That is like some sort of morally bankrupt welfare capitalism.”
Nicholas chuckled. “I suppose that’s one explanation for sticky wage theory.”
“Oh my god, Nicholas,” said Jay, and he laughed hard enough that several people looked over.
“But seriously, Jay, the roleisperfect for you. Give it some thought, at least. Arthur will be reaching out shortly, but I thought you’d appreciate a warning. You always did like to overprepare.”
One of the TSA agents beckoned him over impatiently and Nicholas walked in that direction unhurriedly, tossing over his shoulder, “Just between you and me—you’d probably get it.”
Would I?She thought about that as she toed off her shoes so they could dust for explosives or whatever it was that they looked for in shoes. She took pride in the quality of her work but it was true that people often dismissed her role out of hand—like Annica said,Nobody wants to be a secretaryforever, right?There were too many Harlequins and old pornos about secretaries who had fallen by the wayside. She distinctly remembered a fashion spread that she had seen in one of her mother’s magazines back in the 2000s, advertising office clothes by showing a woman seducing her boss in varying states of undress.
It would be nice to have a job where people actually took her seriously. Even if theyshouldbe doing that now, in her current role, she had accepted it as an inevitability a long time ago, and she was tired of defending the necessity of what she did to people who couldn’t even begin to understand the skills required for her job and didn’t even want to.
God help her, she was tempted.
They got through the rest of security without a hitch and boarding was the fastest she’d ever experienced. There were so many empty seats. When the flight attendant walked them to the front and asked them if they wanted to have anything to drink, Jay shook her head.
“Champagne for me.” Nicholas swung himself grandly into his seat.
With the second course of his liquid breakfast brought to hand, Nicholas pulled out his laptop and immediately began fighting with people over email.
Jay shook her head and leaned back in her seat. The frenzied typing, peppered with the occasional editorial grunt, was oddly soothing. It was nice not to be alone. Undemanding companionship—that’s what they had when they were young, occupying the same shared space like two small doomed planets revolving around a pair of unpredictable suns. Molten fire and icy darkness. It made her think of that documentary that they had watched together before everything had grown so muddled.
Back when she had been his prisoner, and none of this had been her choice.
But I don’t feel like his prisoner anymore.
Very distantly, she was aware of Nicholas declining the offer of an in-flight breakfast. “Can I get a blanket?” he asked, and Jay thought,Mm, a blanket sounds nice.
When she felt something soft drape over her bare legs, she thought she was dreaming.
She cracked open her eye and saw Nicholas adjusting the blanket over her lap. He had the softest expression she’d ever seen on his face, so vulnerable and open that it just about broke her heart. She didn’t dare move, the weight of his eyes like a physical stroke. When he reached up to smooth the hair back tenderly from her face, she nearly jumped.
(I’m not the one who fucks with my eyes closed)
His fingers stroked down her cheek, lingering like he couldn’t bear to stop.Oh, Nick. She struggled to remain still, unwilling to betray herself and end this prematurely and wondering if he could feel her fluttering pulse.Please don’t.
Feigned sleep must have turned into real sleep because when she opened her eyes again, Nicholas was shaking her and his touch wasn’t gentle at all.
After another parade through security and a much shorter wait for their taxi, followed by a much longer drive, Jay was back to where she had started: at his big house with the ridiculous colonnades that still made her heart skip when she saw it rising up on the hill like a mirage because it looked so much like a cage. The sun was rising, filtering through the leaves of the mulberry tree she had once climbed as a child, and the fragrant smell of jasmine and roses drifted on the morning breeze like a balm.What a pretty cage it is, she thought.And what a seductivejailer.
There was just enough time to shower and change. The Chihuly sculpture swayed menacingly overhead from the current they’d let in, making her remember the night that Nicholas had taken her beneath it on the stairs like some sort of satyr the night he proposed, and how it had turned the moonlight on their bodies a ghostly blue.
She would never be free of him.
And she wasn’t sure she wanted to be.
Unable to do her hair the way she wanted, Jay worked mousse into her curls and scrunched them up with a t-shirt between blow-drying after her shower. It felt very high school, back when everyone had wanted those loose waves that looked wet. Her mother thought it was wasted effort. “Why don’t you just flat-iron your hair?” she said, and so for several years, Jay had.
Jay thought her blouse was looking a little rumpled, so she changed into a black blouse with translucent sleeves, and a sweetheart neckline that melted into more that same sheer tulle that fluted around her neck like a ruff. When she got to the door, she saw Nicholas had changed, too, with his shirt left open to reveal a hint of his collarbones.
He didn’t talk much as they drove to the office, turning on his music instead. More fuck-boy rock. She watched his steady hands on the wheel. Did he dream about the past, too?
“I missed you,” he said, when they pulled up in the parking lot and he had cut the music. “The house didn’t feel right while you were gone.”
She looked at him.
“I meant what I said before, too.” His eyes flicked from hers. “On the phone.”
