by Alicia Banks
It was everything that Cassandra thought and even said that she wanted, but now that it was available, of course, she didn’t want it. She wanted to be with him, get closer to him, and she didn’t like the idea of breaking away from that. However, how could she just go along with him? Obviously, it would be strange, and she couldn’t agree to that, either.
“I guess I will work from home. When is that going to start?”
“Maybe the rest of the day. Although, I have some errands I have to do first. Would you mind staying around for a few minutes, so I can run out, and we’ll lock up when I get back?”
She looked unsure when they got back to the office. “Are you sure you want me to stay here, after what you just said? I mean, you have me wondering if I will be okay here alone.”
“I am working on an abundance of caution, but I figured you would want to finish that article you started earlier. It’s up to you, Cassandra.”
She agreed to stay on for a while, though she felt exposed when he left her there alone. Cassandra didn’t quite buy the full story, but that was all she had to work from. Something was going on, but Cassandra didn’t know what it was. She didn’t even have a guess. There was a lot of arguing on Antoine’s side when he was on the phone. Maybe that was who he had pissed off. He talked like he ran more than just a small finance company. Cassandra hadn’t believed that from the get-go.
Once he left the office, she did feel weird being alone, but it was his warning that did it to her. She heard several cars pull up, and though it was for the building next door, she could have sworn that it was bad guys that were coming for her. Antoine made her paranoid and Cassandra didn’t like the feeling of that at all.
The next time she heard the door slam in the parking lot, she didn’t get up to look, figuring it was just someone for the other place. When the door opened suddenly, she physically jumped. It was the man from the tow truck that had helped her before. He wasn’t in his uniform this time, though. Instead, he was dressed in a suit. He looked like a businessman, maybe even one that worked for the mob. He was wearing gold and diamonds around his neck in the shape of a flame. She didn’t know what to think, but Cassandra wasn’t given time for all of that.
“Cassandra, we’ve got to get out of here.”
“What?”
“They’re coming?”
“Who, the ones that are pissed at Antoine?”
Nathan looked confused for a minute. “No, they are my enemies. Come with me now. I thought that Antoine was here, but it’s just you?”
She agreed and he grabbed her hand. Cassandra wanted to take the rest of her stuff, but she wasn’t allowed. Nathan had her get in the car and then he raced off, telling her not to look behind her. Of course, Cassandra looked. She couldn’t fight the temptation, and she didn’t know what to think. It was getting darker earlier, but there was a large shadow and then a fireball that used to be the office. She was standing there only a few moments before, and now the whole place was engulfed in flames. A cold shiver ran through her, along with the realization that she could have been killed.
“Wow, you really saved my ass.”
“I can’t believe that Antoine left you there alone. He knew this was going to happen.”
“He knew that they were going to burn his office down?”
“No, I mean, he should have known that they were going to plan something. I thought he was going to fire you.”
“He said that he wanted to, but then told me that I could work from home. You can just take me there.”
“I don’t think your house is far enough back in the forest. Maybe you should stay with Antoine for a while or get out of town completely.”
“Get out of town? I don’t really have many relatives that I can stay with. What is going on?”
“That’s Antoine’s place.”
“You said it was your problem.”
Nathan sighed. He was driving fast and erratic. She was gripping the dashboard with a knuckle-white grip, though she didn’t know where they were going. She didn’t ask him to stop, after seeing the fire and knowing he’d saved her from something that she hadn’t even seen coming. Cassandra was trusting of them both, though Nathan was the man who’d saved her before.
“Yes, it is my problem. I got something willed to me and now other people are pissed off.”
“Sounds like you need to go to the cops.”
Nathan turned to her. “Sometimes things happen, and we should, but something tells us not to. This is one of those things.”
Cassandra wasn’t sure what he meant, but she felt like it had something to do with Antoine and the wreck.
“You weren’t there that morning by coincidence, were you? He sent you because you’re not a tow truck driver.”
Nathan agreed. “No, not really. Although, I thought I did pretty good.”
“So, what do you do?”
“A little of this, little of that.”
Cassandra rolled her eyes. “So, he sent you?”
Nathan agreed. “He felt bad but couldn’t stop then. He wanted to, but he had to keep going or you would have been in more trouble with who was on his tail. So, he sent me and wanted me to fix it for you. Antoine doesn’t like to owe anyone, and he doesn’t wrong anyone, without going out of his way to make it right.”
Cassandra nodded, though she couldn’t relax. Nathan was driving like a maniac and she just held on. What else could she do? Nathan had given her a lot to think about and like always, choices were few and far between.
***
After ten miles or so, Nathan was going out by her house on the mountain and she asked him what they were doing.
“I thought you said that it wouldn’t be good to stay at my house?”
Cassandra was ready to listen to him now. After the fire and the idea that it could have been her, she was all about asking what they thought should happen.
“I am taking you to Antoine’s house. He lives up this way, too, not too far from you, but deeper in.”
Cassandra did not know what that meant, but at some point, she’d realized that she was just there for the ride. She tried her best to not worry, but she was.
“Is Antoine okay?”
Nathan agreed without looking at her. The driving was getting spotty, as the road was bumpy gravel and dirt.
“Yeah, he’s fine. I have not heard from him. I just heard about the impending attack. I had to make sure that he wasn’t in it, and he wasn’t answering his phone.”
“So, what is this about?”
Nathan shrugged. “Like I said, not my place to say. Antoine will tell you when he’s ready. He will be home soon. All you have to do is make yourself comfortable.”
Cassandra was dropped off at Antoine’s house by his friend and she was speechless. She didn’t know if he was being for real or not, but then he actually left, and she was utterly alone. Cassandra was nervous about what that meant. She believed one hundred percent that she was in danger now. There was nothing like the building she was in moments before, exploding in front of her to do that. Now she knew she was in danger, and Cassandra wanted assurances that everything was going to be okay. There was nobody there to do that for her.
She went in the door using the keys that Nathan had shown her was underneath a fake rock in the yard. Everything about the two men was different than anything she had experienced before. They were secretive and were hiding things from her. Cassandra did not believe for one moment that everything that was going on was because of a will or a company. It felt more dangerous. It felt illegal. Something.
When she got inside, Cassandra told herself that she should just sit down and wait for Antoine to get there. She was in his house, after all, and he didn't even know that she was going to be there. Maybe the two men would talk before he got back to his home, but Cassandra just had a feeling that he was not going to be happy to have her there.
So, she was supposed to wait and be as unobtrusive as she could be. She didn’t want to do anything to
piss him off, any more than being there to begin with. That would have made sense. Cassandra stayed on the couch for several minutes, but then she went toward the rest of the house, unable to just wait around and hope that he came back that night.
Cassandra looked around and found that everything was quite neat and put in its place. It was surprisingly a lot like the office that she went to every day. It had very little furniture and everything was there for a reason. It did not look like there was one knickknack on a shelf or on the walls. Antoine didn't seem to have much use for anything that wasn't useful. There was nothing there as a decoration to make it look pretty. It was just the basics, well-made basics, but just the basics. It made Cassandra wonder why he wasn’t like everyone else, surrounding himself with things that he enjoyed looking at.
There was a lot about Antoine that Cassandra didn't understand. Learning that he had sent Nathan to help her just went in line with what she had come to know about him. When Cassandra had first met him, realizing who he was and what he had done to her, she couldn't stand him. Cassandra had needed the job, so she had accepted it, but it hadn't taken long at all for her to realize that Antoine was a different sort of man.
The whole time she had been attracted to him, whether she wanted to be or not, but now Cassandra knew that it was okay for her to feel the fleeting need every time she laid her eyes on him. It was hard for her to deny it, or to lie about the feeling inside of her, making her wish that there was more that could be done. She had held back because he was the guy that left her, but now, she knew that there was more to it. Now, he was dangerous and probably had kept her from some sort of calamity that she hadn't seen coming. Just like Nathan had done.
Cassandra realized quite quickly in the last hour or two that neither man was what they said they were. They weren’t businesspeople. They did not have business issues. Although Cassandra was sure that some of it was true, there was a lot that was missing.
She got to the end of the house and opened the first door. It was a bathroom, and it was much of the same, plain and utilitarian. There was a color scheme of dark blue and grey and everything went well together, but there was no embellishment. No personality.
The next door that she opened was obviously his bedroom and everything that she thought she knew changed immediately. Another layer was added to her understanding of Antoine.
There were hand-drawn pictures all over and stacks of them in every corner. She took a step back because it was that different from the rest of the house. Why would he hide it in that one room?
Cassandra walked in and started to look at everything in front of her. They were really good drawings and she, of course, believed that he was the creator of them. Several of them were still being worked on. One in particular caught her eye and she picked it up. Cassandra gasped when she got a look at the drawing. It was a subject she knew well, since it was her.
“I would have locked this door, if I had known you were going to be dropped off here and snooping.”
Cassandra let the paper go in her hand, like it was fire burning her, and she looked around all innocently. Cassandra didn’t want him mad at her but at the moment, it looked like she had done that very thing. Why was she so stinking good at it?
“Sorry. I was just looking for the bathroom.”
“You already found the bathroom. You left the door open in there, too.”
Cassandra knew that he was right. All of them were closed before, and he could probably tell exactly where she had been because she had left everything open. Cassandra hadn't thought about that. She tried to smile sheepishly. Cassandra had been caught. She wanted to change the subject, so she asked how he was, considering someone had blown up his office.
“I am fine. I'm glad that Nathan got you out of there in time. I never should have left you there by yourself.”
She waved him off like it was no big deal, like she was used to people trying to blow her up.
“Well, everything turned out fine.”
She walked past him to get out of the room as quickly as she could. She had to ask herself something. Why was he drawing pictures of her? And why did she care so much?
Chapter 6
Antoine
When Antoine got back to the office, he hadn't talked to Nathan yet, and all he saw was everything in an inferno. The fire trucks were already there and they were trying to put out the blaze, but it had already passed to the next building, and it would probably pass to two or three more before it was finally snuffed out. He didn't really care about it too much. It wasn't like he was too committed to the office.
What he was worried about was Cassandra. The first thing that came to his mind was that Cassandra was still in there. He had fought past the fire fighters to look inside. The place wasn’t that big, but she could have been hiding in the back. He had come close to decking one of the firefighters that was holding him back, when Nathan came on the scene and pulled him away.
“She's not in there, man, chill out. You’re making a scene.”
“What?!”
He’d worked himself up. Antoine was not the type of person to lose his cool, ever. He’d learned a long time ago the best way to get through a tough situation was to keep a cool head. In that situation, it felt impossible.
Once he realized that she wasn't in danger, he was able to relax, but the realization that he had freaked out so quickly and so completely was kind of hard for him to get his head around. It's not like Antoine didn't care about people, he did have friends and there were a few family members that he still talked to. But, he had never felt something like the soul-crushing fear that he’d just felt when he thought Cassandra was in the burning building. He didn’t even really know her, so why was he panicking with the thought of losing her?
“Damn, man, I thought you wasn't into the human?”
“It's nothing like that, Nathan. It's just that I didn't want to feel guilty if the human died. That’s all.”
Nathan just kind of shook his head, and even though they both knew that Antoine was lying and just talking shit really, he didn't call him out on it. Antoine was grateful for that because he was already embarrassed enough to have somebody know how quickly he had fallen for her, even though she was human.
Antoine didn't know how to feel about any of it, but he had another shock when he found out that Nathan had dropped her off at his house. Antoine didn’t find that surprise all that good.
“You just left her there, alone?”
“What the hell was I supposed to do? Do you want me to take her back to the house? You know that they could follow her scent right back there. She would never stand a chance and you know it. At your place, it’s so far off, that’s why no one has ever found you out there.”
“How long ago did it happen?”
Nathan told him that it hadn't been long, and that Cassandra had only been there for about an hour. Antoine wasn’t concerned about her getting attacked or anything. He was more concerned about what that was going to mean for the future. How was he going to explain any of it to her? How was he going to stay with her, sleep in the same house with her, and leave the status quo the same?
He asked Nathan what he had said to her and Nathan just kind of shrugged. “I told her that it wasn't for me to say and she seemed pretty willing to take that. I think she was spooked about the way the place went up when she was there minutes before that. You know that first time you almost die feeling that you get? Well, she had it in spades.”
“I think it's even worse for them because they don't heal like we do. They have a longer recovery time, and they are easier to kill.”
“Yeah, she was pretty freaked out about it.”
Antoine just agreed solemnly. He had spent time going through the same thing. He didn’t like the idea that she’d had such a close call.
“I should've fired her when I had the chance.”
Nathan just waved him off distractedly. “You know me, I am not going to judge.”
“Bullshit, you�
��re judging me right now. And, I'll have you know that whatever it is you're thinking, you're wrong. There will be none of that.”
Nathan just grinned wider and that really aggravated Antoine. “I am the one that’s going to call bull on that. You’re in love with that damn human and, well, a little time alone, it doesn’t take a seer to know what happens next.”
Antoine cursed underneath his breath. There was no way that he was going to agree to that. He had not even admitted that to himself, so he certainly wasn't going to say it to Nathan, not when he was smiling like an idiot.
***
What Antoine hadn't thought about was what Cassandra was going to see when she was inside of his house. He didn't have a lot of visitors over, but even then, he put most of his artwork in his bedroom. As long as she stayed out of there, she wouldn't know that several of his newest drawings were of her. It had to be done from memory, of course, but he had a really good memory and it made Antoine realized then, that he probably was twisted up over that human far more than he realized.
When he walked in and saw her with one of them in her hands, it made Antoine feel weird. It was like she was now privy to a secret that he did not necessarily want her to know about. It was his secret and his secretive nature made it hard for him to share much of anything, especially his innermost thoughts.
He barked at her, even though he didn’t mean to. He couldn’t help it. He had not been prepared to see her with her hands on that picture. He didn’t want Cassandra to know that he had feelings for her. She wasn’t to know those sorts of things. It was bad enough that he felt them at all, worse when he realized that she knew about it.
By the look on her face, though, he knew he’d gone too far and was kicking himself about it. He wasn’t used to being extra gentle with women and humans. He didn’t know how to be extra gentle with them. He wished that he did because of the way she was looking at him.