She turned to him as the fire suddenly bloomed and said, in the bossiest tone she could muster, “That fire better not go out anytime soon.”
Rahul glanced at her, his eyebrows raised. “I’m sure. I took this wilderness training course a couple years ago, and fire building was one thing I always aced.”
Caterina sighed and spread out her coat on the floor before sitting on it. He was always so levelheaded and good-natured. “Is it hard?” she asked, looking at him in the flickering firelight.
He walked to where she sat, spread out his own jacket, and sat beside her, his legs stretched out in front of him. From up close, she saw the knees of his jeans were faded and nearly threadbare, as if he’d had the pants for years. “Is what hard?”
“Being nice. Being a kind person. Doesn’t the world take advantage of you at every opportunity?”
Rahul appeared to consider this as he looked into the crackling flames, the lenses of his glasses dancing with firelight. “I guess there are people out there who’d like to take advantage of that. But I try to surround myself with people I trust. Like Leo and Grey or Jaya and DE.” Something very much like sadness passed across his features as he said those words. Caterina waited, but he didn’t add anything else.
Feeling the heat of the fire on her skin, Caterina said softly, “I was taught never to trust anyone. Everyone has the capacity to hurt you.”
Rahul studied her expression. “I guess that’s technically true. But statistically, certain people have a lower chance of hurting you than others.” He cleared his throat, and Caterina could tell he was wondering whether to say whatever thought was on his mind.
“Just say it,” she said, looking straight ahead.
He didn’t ask her what she meant. “Alaric, for instance. I wouldn’t have advised you to, ah, embark on a two-year-long relationship with him. His heart was never in the right place. Not like yours is.”
Caterina smiled thinly and glanced at him. “Most people say I don’t have a heart, you know.”
“Most people are wrong,” Rahul said simply, holding out his hands to absorb the warmth of the fire.
“I always took it as a compliment. When people said that, I mean. It was evidence that I was doing what I’d always been taught to do—look out for number one, be ruthless, be cunning, never let anyone too close. That nickname I have? Queen Cat? I love it.”
“Why?” Rahul looked genuinely curious.
Caterina adjusted her legs, tucking them to one side. The cabin shuddered a little as the wind howled, poking at the windows, looking for a way in. “Cats are the ultimate narcissists, a study in being heartless. They’re cold, and yet people live to serve them. Put a cat and a bear together, and the bear’s going to run away when the cat hits it on the nose. Why? Because cats have the don’t-fuck-with-me attitude that can put something twenty times their size in its place. That’s what I’ve always coveted.”
“Cats also poop in a box and murder things just because.” Rahul’s face turned bright crimson a moment after he uttered the words. “S-sorry. I just, I have a problem saying things without thinking them through first. Not when I’m RC, obviously. But i-it’s… Sorry.”
Caterina allowed herself a little laugh. Her shoulders relaxed as they often did around Rahul. “It’s okay. You’re right. I guess I don’t want to be all cat. I enjoy modern plumbing.”
Rahul grinned, looking relieved. A knot in one of the logs in the fireplace popped, and they both turned to watch the fire again, silent for a few moments. There was a smell of damp and rot in the cabin, but Caterina didn’t mind. At this moment, she’d rather be here than on the Italian Riviera.
RAHUL
He glanced at her sidelong, her strong profile looking more delicate than it ever had. Her eyes were soft, almost unguarded. Rahul plunged forward with his thought, even though alarm bells in his head told him not to. “Do you… do you remember the winter formal?”
She looked at him, tilted her head a little, her long wavy hair brushing the tops of her thighs. “Of course I do. It wasn’t that long ago.”
Rahul swallowed. “Right, yeah. But I mean… do you ever think about it? About you and me dancing together?” He ran his fingers over a soft, worn patch of denim at his knees.
Caterina studied him, the firelight playing in her brown hair. “Sometimes,” she said quietly, and Rahul’s heart battered against his chest. “Do you?”
“Yes. Yeah. I do. That was when I—” He stopped short. He’d been about to say, That’s when I fell in love with you. Disastrous. “When I saw you in a completely different light.”
A half smile tugged at her lips, but her eyes were cool. “And what light was that? The ‘Caterina’s not perfect like she makes herself out to be’ light?”
Rahul rushed to speak, his fingers clenched together on his lap. “No, not at all. Before that night, I’d always noticed you from afar. How pretty you were”—here, his cheeks heated; he probably shouldn’t have said that, but it was too late now, so he continued—“how many friends you had, that kind of thing. But you were also just one of the ultrarich kids, always surrounded by other ultrarich kids. But that night…” Rahul shrugged and ran a hand through his hair. “You looked so young, somehow. So exposed.
“When you were watching Alaric, I could see the heartbreak on your face so plainly. I knew I couldn’t undo the things that had happened, but I wanted to stay anyway and take your mind off them, even if for just a few minutes. When you danced with me, it felt like you might break in my arms. I still remember how you looked up at me at one point and said, ‘Isn’t it funny how all the pieces of your heart can still love the person who broke it in the first place?’ We talked so much that night; hours passed like seconds. And when we were done, I felt the tears on the lapel of my tux. You’d been crying while we were dancing. I don’t think I’d ever even thought about you crying before that.”
He cleared his throat, wondering if she thought he was weird for saying all that out loud. And then it occurred to him that he’d felt comfortable enough to say all that out loud to Caterina. Whoa.
Caterina was staring at him, unreadable. Even if she did think he was weird, he needed to say this next bit.
“And after that, every time I looked at you in the hallways or on social media, surrounded by your friends, looking hard and sphinxlike, like nothing could touch you, I knew the truth. I felt like I’d gotten a glimpse into the kind of person you really are, when no one else had.”
Caterina played with a wooden button on the jacket under her. “Dancing with you felt… safe. I felt protected for the first time in forever. Experience has taught me that new people are almost always on the brink of hurting me, of taking what they want and not caring what they leave behind.” She looked at him from underneath her long, fake eyelashes, and his heart melted a little. “But I didn’t feel that way with you.”
Rahul held her eyes. “I would never hurt you. Not knowingly.”
Caterina nibbled her lip for a second, as if weighing what she was about to say next. The fire crackled in the space between her words. “I was so afraid I was being gauche, that you’d run off and tell everyone that Caterina LaValle was a sad, soggy mess. But you didn’t. You just held me and danced with me. Why?”
Rahul listened to the insistent tapping of snow at the windows for a moment before responding. “You were more beautiful—rawer and truer—that night than ever before,” he said simply.
A ghost of a smile hovered on Caterina’s lips. “Even with smudged mascara and a red nose?”
“Especially with smudged mascara and a red nose. You were hurting. I wanted to be there for you.”
Caterina looked down at her silk pants–clad thighs. “I… I was worried for the longest time that you’d tell someone. But the days passed into weeks and then into months and you never did.”
“You asked me not to.” He didn’t say that he’d fallen in love with her that day with a helpless thud, and he’d do anything from that point on to
keep her safe. That’s what he’d learned that day in the ballroom—although Caterina LaValle seemed like the toughest, most independent girl in the entire school, she might be the one who needed protecting the most.
She looked up at him, shaking her head a little, oblivious to his thoughts. “And Rahul Chopra always keeps his word.”
He couldn’t decipher the look in her eyes, a flickering emotion that she was trying to bury. “I do.” He paused, not wanting her to take his next statement as pity, but wanting to say it anyway. “I’m sorry people have hurt you so much.”
Caterina’s look changed into something icy smooth, and his heart seized. But then she sighed, deflating, and Rahul sighed too in relief. “That’s life for a LaValle, I guess. I can’t tell you the number of times I thought someone was my friend, only to find out they were after something else I had—money or connections, usually. That’s why I run a background check on almost everyone I let into my life now.”
Rahul glanced sharply at her. “You ran one on me?”
She nodded, studying his reaction. “Yes. A quick one. Just to be sure. Well, Oliver did; he’s the one who helps me with things like that.”
He considered this. “And what did you find?”
She smiled a little. “My three favorite words: nothing of note.”
“My life in a nutshell,” Rahul mumbled.
Caterina frowned. “That’s not true at all.”
Rahul shrugged, feeling that kernel of embarrassment he seemed to feel so often now in his own skin.
They sat in silence for a moment, letting the fire’s heat wrap them up in its arms. Then Rahul said quietly, “Not being able to trust people sounds really lonely.” Rahul didn’t have many friends, and the friends he had he’d fallen out with, which felt bad enough. But to make the decision to have no friends, to trust no one… It would be like being stranded.
“I’m surrounded by people,” Caterina replied, which really didn’t address what he’d said. But Rahul decided to let it go. Another minute passed in silence as they listened to the snowstorm building around them. Caterina glanced sidelong at him. “You’re very easy to talk to.”
“Am I?” Rahul quirked his lips to one side. “I don’t think most people would say that about me.” RC, maybe. But Rahul? No way. Most people didn’t even notice his existence.
“Most people wouldn’t say I have a heart, and most people wouldn’t say you’re easy to talk to,” Caterina mused. Her brown eyes glittered. “It sounds like most people don’t know us.”
“No, they don’t.” He studied her expression, understanding that she was telling him something important. She’d let him have a little piece of herself; she’d shared something with him that no one else knew.
“What about your parents?” Caterina asked suddenly, as if she wasn’t able to contain herself any longer. “You hardly ever speak about your family, either, I’ve noticed.”
Rahul leaned over, picked up the lighter off the floor, and flicked it on. Watching the flame dance, he said, “It’s not a very interesting story.”
“You don’t want to talk about it.” Caterina looked a little disappointed, Rahul realized in astonishment. She wanted to know about him. Maybe she wanted to know about RC, though. He and Rahul had the same history, after all, in spite of what most people thought.
“N-no, it’s not that,” he amended in a hurry. “I mean… my mom’s a politician, like I said before. And politicians need perfect families to appeal to their constituents. I get that.”
“Still.” Caterina adjusted her body so she was facing him more. A thin, delicate necklace with a crown pendant hung at her throat and caught the light from the lighter that Rahul was still playing with. “It can’t be easy.”
Rahul’s cheeks burned. He focused intently on flicking the lighter on and off. “I understand, though.”
Caterina placed a cool, dry hand on the back of his hand, just for a moment. His heart juddered and jumped in his chest, as if she had electricity flowing through her veins. “You understand because you’re a kind, sweet person, Rahul.”
He looked into her eyes over the flame and slowly let his finger off the button. Setting the lighter to the side, he turned back to Caterina. “Thank you,” he said, not looking away even though his pulse was hopping wildly.
She hesitated for just a moment before leaning into him. Putting his hands against her cheeks, Rahul let his head dip until his lips found hers.
CHAPTER 14
CATERINA
And once again, they were kissing. Caterina knew she should give it more thought. Was it wise to kiss Rahul, when RC was the one who was boyfriend material and the media darling—and oh, who happened to not be real? That had been a big draw for her, the idea of not having to please yet another shallow, uncaring guy while still having the satisfaction of showing the media a suitable boyfriend.
But the thing was, she wanted to kiss Rahul. His warm lips, just the right amount of soft and firm, the slight stubble at his jaw, the way he cradled her face with the utmost care as if she might break—all of those things were what she wanted, needed, in this moment. She’d been more vulnerable with him in the last ten minutes than she’d been with anyone her entire life, and yet she didn’t feel that familiar sense of panic at the thought that she’d let her mask slip, that she’d said too much. Instead, it felt… good. It felt right that Rahul should be the one to hold everything she’d said.
And the fact that he thought she was most beautiful at the winter formal—that he’d seen her red-faced and crying and kept that memory locked inside a box—what did that mean? Caterina thought it meant something important, something big, something she was a little afraid to look at right then. But she could kiss him. That she could manage.
She moved even closer to him, close enough that his hand slipped from her cheek to her waist, and he pulled her into him, bathing her in his soft warmth. He was wiry, not as tall as the boys she usually dated, but he was safer, too. In Rahul’s arms, she felt protected from the world, shielded in a way she’d never been with Alaric or any of the boys before him. In Rahul’s arms, she felt cherished for who she was, not what she brought to the table or the newest business deal her father had made. There were no expectations with him except that she be exactly who she was. And in this moment, knowing she was accepted for everything she was, Caterina felt forgiveness. For Alaric, for all he’d done to her, for everyone who’d ever wronged her. She felt forgiveness and she felt forgiven, and that, too, was the magic of Rahul Chopra.
After a moment, her heart beating wildly, Caterina pulled back and rested her forehead against his. She’d told herself she wasn’t ready to date so soon after Alaric, but that was untrue, she realized. She just wasn’t ready to date someone like the boys she’d always dated. But if Rahul asked her out, she’d say yes in a heartbeat. She smiled at the realization, her heart singing. She’d say yes.
RAHUL
There was no way she’d say yes.
Rahul pulled back and gazed into her shining brown eyes. She was smiling, her lips red and swollen in an incredibly sexy way. He wanted to ask her if she would be his girlfriend, for real. The question he’d wanted to ask her since they’d first danced together.
But how could he just blurt it out now? He was sitting here with Caterina LaValle in an abandoned cabin in the middle of a snowstorm with a fire going; it didn’t get more romantic than this, at least not in his limited experience watching rom-coms when he couldn’t get out of it. But there was the problem—it was him here with Caterina. Rahul, not RC. And she deserved someone like RC to ask her out. Not Rahul in his awkward—what were the words Leo had used?—oh yes, “desperate and cloying” way. He couldn’t ask her; she’d say no. But RC would come up with something spectacular, something she couldn’t say no to.
Rahul smoothed her hair back from her face and began to rise to his feet. “Uh, I should add another log to that before it goes out.”
CATERINA
Caterina grabbed his
elbow, stopping him. Oh no, he didn’t. “Rahul,” she said carefully. “There’s something you should know about me.”
“Okay…”
“I never ask boys out. Ever.” She raised a meaningful eyebrow. “Boys ask me out. Not the other way around.”
Her heart raced in her chest. This was the closest she’d ever come to putting herself out there with a boy she liked. Normally, she liked to sit back and wait for it to happen. You couldn’t get rejected if you didn’t ask a yes-or-no question.
But she couldn’t let Rahul take his time. Graduation would roll around and he still wouldn’t have asked her; she knew this in her heart. So, yes, she was probably being domineering and commanding, and someone less patient than Rahul wouldn’t have put up with it. But the truth was, she had no idea how people openly talked about their feelings for each other. Weren’t they afraid? Didn’t it feel horrible to be that vulnerable, to leave your throat exposed in that way? Caterina had no desire for that.
Rahul swallowed, his Adam’s apple moving in his throat. “Um… Are you…? That is, are you saying…?” He trailed off. His forehead was damp, his expression anxious and complicated.
“If you asked me, I’d say yes,” she said gently, wanting him to get it so badly it hurt. Just do it, Rahul, she tried to beam directly into his head. Ask me out right now.
He turned more fully to her and sat on his folded knees. “Caterina,” he said, looking deep into her eyes. “Will you do me the great honor of going out with me?”
The smile burst onto her face without her permission. “Rahul, I’d love to.” And then she found herself in his arms again.
* * *
Mia walked in the door, and Caterina raised a hand to get her attention.
“Caterina!” Mia bustled over in her yellow puffer jacket and dark jeans, her hair pulled back in a high ponytail. “I’m so glad you texted.”
They air-kissed, and Caterina went back to pouring her white pear tea. “I’m glad you were free to meet up. I hope you don’t mind the surroundings. They’re not much to look at, but Hospitalitea is my favorite teahouse in Rosetta.” She gestured around them to the tiny, dim tea shop. Shelves of repurposed lumber, brimming with tins of custom-mixed loose-leaf tea, were stacked against its colorful walls. Flavors like “Tranquilitea” and “TEArs of the Patriarchy” had become staples in Caterina’s private suite in the dorms.
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