Page 15 of The Devil

I don’t. I silence the call instead. Fuck Cassian. I want to hold on to this moment a little while longer.

“You like it?” I ask, gesturing around the house.

“Are you serious?” she asks with a disbelieving smile. “It’s…” she starts, turning a circle, eyes wide taking it all in. “It’s impossible,” she finally says, then looks at me. “And the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

I smile a true, generous smile. I am more pleased than I should be. “With enough money, nothing’s impossible,” I say, deciding something then and there.

She doesn’t want to go back. I won’t take her back. I’ll take hell from Cassian for it but fuck it.

“Come.” I gesture to the dimly lit corridor beyond the kitchen. As we walk toward it, the lights brighten enough to guide us. Her footfalls are silent on the polished concrete.

“Is the floor heated throughout?” she asks, glancing back at me as her fingertips brush along the sometimes-jagged edges of the rock wall. Most have been shaved down but some I left natural.

“Yes. That and the fireplaces heat the space. And can’t get better insulation than this.” I say of the wall. “Although if you’re not careful…” I trail off, touching one of the sharp points.

“Why didn’t you smooth it all down? I mean, if you can build this, surely you could have done that.”

“Because it’s beautiful as is. And beauty is never without its sharp edges.” I say that last part looking directly at her.

Pink warms her cheeks and she smiles.

“Where does this lead?” she asks of the door carved into the rock.

“Pool.”

“Pool?” her eyebrows rise.

“Another impossibility,” I say with a grin. “I’ll show you in the morning.”

When we get to the end of the corridor, I reach around her to open the door. She catches her breath when she steps inside. I stand close enough that I faintly smell her shampoo, a pretty, flowery scent, clean like a fresh spring day. I find myself creepily breathing her in even as I wonder what the fuck is wrong with me.

“This is your bedroom?” She glances back at me before stepping fully into the bedroom which is nearly as big as the living space with the same wall of windows and high ceilings. “This is crazy,” she says, awe and pleasure on her face. She runs her fingertips over the rock wall as she walks along. The rock of the mountain curves deeper around the bed and she stops to take note. “That’s almost cozy.” She glances at me with her eyebrows raised like she’s learned something new about me.

“Or claustrophobic,” I counter. “Depending.”

She shakes her head, faces me, eyes locked on mine. She’s unafraid to look at me, to see me, too. That’s the tradeoff. If I see her, she might see me, too. Is that what I want? Am I ready for someone to see me? To really see me.

I shift my gaze away, watching her through her reflection in the glass as if that could somehow protect me. Protect us from each other.

“No, not claustrophobic. It’s perfect,” she says softly. Her gaze meets mine in the glass like she can’t quite look at the real me when she says what she says next. “You can disappear here.”

I shift my gaze to study her in profile. Her eyes are still on the reflection of me. “Do you want that? To disappear,?”

“Sometimes,” she says.

The pain in that single word is immense. I don’t only hear it. I feel it at my core.

The two of us stand in the aftermath of this confession. Amal bared for me to see. Exposed. By choice.

In the end, she’s the one who breaks the silence.

“You don’t have someone making your bed for you?” she asks, casual as can be. Like we didn’t just have that moment.

She walks around the oversized king bed that sits on wooden pallets. No headboard, no nothing. It’s unmade, the heavy duvet resting half on the floor, a stack of books and a lamp on my side of the bed. Nothing on the other. No one sleeps here but me.

“I told you. I’ve never brought anyone here.”

“No girlfriends?” she asks this without looking at me.