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I returned to my room and stood in front of the closet I’d been avoiding all week. I’d opened it the first day, noticed what was inside of it and then closed it again because the amount of expensive clothes in it was way too much for me to even fathom let alone know were currently in my possession. Now I had to actually go through them.

I slid the door open and the garments inside of it stared back at me in the same manner everything else in this place did: looking like pure perfection. They were so obviously picked by a stylist who had received tips about the things I would more than likely be okay with wearing.

There were dresses, blouses, tailored slacks, and a few pieces I would have bought myself if I’d been the type to spend that kind of money on clothes. Everything was in my size because of course it was. Everything in this prison fit me like it had been measured against my body while I slept, and I had to stop that thought before it made me spiral.

I needed to think strategically about this. Cain had asked me to dress up, which meant the dressing up itself was part of whatever he wanted from this evening. He wasn’t a man who said things without purpose. The question became what I wanted to communicate with whatever I put on my body.

I didn’t want anything that could be seen as seductive. That much I knew immediately. The last thing I needed was to hand him any signal that could be mistaken for willingness or softening toward him. But I also wasn’t going to show up in something that screamed defiance, because pettiness was its own kind of tell. It would let him know exactly how much this affected me, and I’d already given him that impression too many times.

What I needed was something that indicated that I wasn’t to be fucked with without being obnoxious about it. After checking out several pieces, I realized my eyes kept going back to a deep green dress that hung near the center of the rack. I pulled it free and held it up against my body in the mirror.

The color worked. It had a high neckline and I thought the cut of the dress would skim my body rather than cling to it. It was the kind of dress I would have chosen for a negotiation I intended to win. That was the framing I needed. This wasn’t a dinner date. It was a high stakes meeting, and I knew how to walk into one of those. You dressed for the version of yourself you wanted the other party to remember after you’d gotten what you came for. Tonight I wanted Cain to remember that I’d shown up, met his condition, and walked away with information I wanted. Nothing more, nothing less.

I still had a few hours before I needed to get ready and spent most of that time preparing myself mentally for what was about to come. As it grew closer to eight o’clock, I laid the dress across the bed along with a pair of black pumps on the floor near the foot of the bed and went to shower. The water was the perfect temperature and at the last moment, I decided to wash my hair in an attempt to start the process of bringing more life back to it. I stood under the spray longer than I intended to at first, running through the conversation I wanted to have with Cain.

I was determined to be civil and to give him just enough that it would satisfy whatever he hoped to prove by requesting that I eat dinner with him. When I had an opening, I would ask about Cassie.

By the time I’d dried my body off and blow-dried my hair, it was past seven. I wasn’t surprised that, once again, the dress fit perfectly. I put my hair up into a high bun, which was a slight change from my normal hairstyle, and did a light makeup look. My goal was to look put together but not like I was trying too hard. Once I was pleased with my appearance, I took several deep breaths, straightened my posture and left the room that had become somewhat of a sanctuary and went into the unknown.

14

SUTTON

The first thing I noticed when I walked into the dining room area, which had been transformed since lunch, was that the overhead lights had been dimmed, providing a warmer atmosphere for the room, not to mention there were two candles burning in the center of the long table. The silver cloches I’d come to associate with my meals were nowhere to be seen. Instead, the table had been set the way you’d set it for a more fancy dinner, with china I hadn’t seen before.

Cain stood near the windows in the living room area with his back to me. However, the light shone on the tumbler in his hand and I immediately noted whatever he was drinking was dark in color. He didn’t turn around immediately, and I understood that was the point. I was pretty sure he’d heard the sound of my heels against the floor so there was no doubt in my mind that he knew I was standing there. He simply chose to make me wait, to let the anticipation do whatever work he needed it to do before he gave me the courtesy of seeing his face.

I refused to clear my throat or announce myself. If he wanted to play the game of who would acknowledge whom first, I had nowhere else to be and nothing but time. Instead, I took the time to look around the dining room and take in the atmosphere that he created once more while we stood in this stalemate.

The candles bothered me. They were a deliberate choice, and in no way a professional one. This wasn’t how you set a table for a meeting. Then again, the fact that we’d had sex twice probably made this even less professional than a few candles.

It was then that he turned as if he’d decided the silence had stretched on long enough. The candlelight and the light from New York City’s skyline caught the lighter strands of his dark hair at his temples and the sharp line of his jaw. I hated that even now, even here, my body was ready to jump his bones before my brain could shut it down.

“Sutton,” he said as his gaze studied me including the dark green dress I’d selected. “You dressed for the occasion.”

“You requested it.” I kept my voice flat. “I was basically told requests in this place aren’t optional.”

“They’re not.” He set the tumbler down on the side table without breaking eye contact. “But you had options within the request. You chose that. And that tells me something.”

“It tells you I own a dark green dress now. Courtesy of you and your stylist.”

“It tells me you understand presentation.”

“I understand many things. Presentation happens to be one of the least interesting.”

“Then why choose it so carefully?”

How the hell did he know that? And it was because you were going to read meaning into whatever I wore, and I’d rather control the sentence than let you write it for me. But I refused to give him the satisfaction of saying those words out loud. “I chose a dress,” I said. “Don’t build a dissertation around it.”

This time, his smile actually appeared and I was taken aback because what do you mean he can smile? It was so few and far between that he actually would. It stayed on his lips for a short amount of time before he said, “Come sit.”

There it was again. Of course, he couldn’t say please sit or would you sit. Just command me to do whatever he wants.

I walked to the table and chose the chair opposite the place clearly set for him. It put the length of polished wood between us, which felt necessary and childish at the same time. Cain noticed the choice, but I was intrigued because he did not tell me to move.

He took his own seat at the other end of the table, not at the head where I expected him to sit, but directly across from me. As a result the candles that were placed on the table were sitting between us now, creating an even more intimate setting. Marta appeared from the kitchen and she poured water first, then wine for him, then paused beside me.

I looked at the glass, then at Cain.