Chapter 420
Chapter 413
Gemma’s POV
I manage to get him upright, his weight a heavy, uncoordinated burden against my side.
Since the divorce, we’ve both stayed stubbornly planted in this city, our orbits intersecting with a frequency that feels like we have annoyed some deity to the point of
revenge.
I wanted a clean break, but instead, our shared world- friends, businesses, scandals–has kept us in a frustrating, constant loop of collision.
Maybe leaving is the only way to sever it. Maybe with an ocean between us, he’ll finally see that what he feels isn’t love, but a stubborn refusal to lose.
Not to mention, it would give me space to breathe.
It could, theoretically, be a solution for us both.
I turn away from his pleading gaze, my voice crisp in the q9 air. “Tom, a little help getting him home, pl se?10:13
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Tom sighs and emerges from the driver’s seat. “Mr. Blackwell, let’s get you settled for the ride. ”
He barely has Cassian slumped in the backseat when a violent shudder runs through him.
Cassian lurches from the car, staggers to a public trash can at the curb, and empties the contents of his stomach with a series of raw, wrenching heaves. Even in this state, he aims for the bin, but it’s a futile effort.
The bin is not a convenient target and he ends up splattering his own tailored trousers and Italian leather
shoes.
Tom and I watch, frozen with helpless dismay. Then, Cassian starts fumbling with the buttons of his soiled
shirt.
“Cassian, have you lost your mind?”
Thiss, darting forward. It’s late, but Urban Lane is never completely dead. A picture of the disgraced CEO Blackwell stripping on a residential street would be trending by dawn.
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I grab his wrist, but drunk strength is wild and unpredictable. He shakes me off with a grunt. “My
clothes,” he slurs, his nose wrinkled in genuine disgust. “They’re filthy. Disgusting.”
I roll my eyes so hard I see stars. Now he cares about cleanliness?
Before I can stop him, he wrestles his ruined jacket off and shoves it into the mouth of the trash can. Tom looks from his employer to me, his expression one of profound helplessness. “Ms. Marino, perhaps… Mr. Blackwell could recuperate at your apartment tonight?”
The suggestion is ludicrous. But Cassian, now working on his belt buckle, makes it a horrifyingly practical consideration. “Gemma… Gemma,” he keeps mumbling.
As headlights swing around the corner, illuminating our bizarre scene, panic overrides principle. “Inside. Now.”
– L–grab his arm, and with Tom’s help, we half–drag,
half–carry the muttering, half–unbuttoned man into my building’s lobby and up the elevator.
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By the time I unlock my apartment door, he stumbles inside and collapses face–first onto my living room sofa with a finality that suggests he plans to fossilize there. Tom mops his brow with a handkerchief, looking more stressed than I’ve ever seen him. “Ms. Marino, my deepest apologies. I will return first thing to collect him.”
Resignation is my only option.
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Once Tom beats a hasty retreat, I notice Cassian has, in his restless misery, managed to shuck off his ruined trousers entirely. I gather the soiled, reeking bundle of fabric and toss it into the bathroom hamper, my nose
wrinkled.
“Cold…”
He mumbles from the sofa, curling in on himself.
He always ran hot, but alcohol does strange things to his internal thermostat. It’s a crisp autumn night. With – another sigh, I fetch a spare blanket from the hall closet
and drape it over him, tucking it roughly around his shoulders.
Hegarely drank to excess during our marriage, but it used
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to happen once or twice. I’d make tart lemon water, but he would turn his head away, preferring to suffer in stoic, grumpy silence rather than accept the simple cure.
Well, tonight, he can suffer.
I take a long, hot shower and go to bed, locking my bedroom door behind me.
Sometime deep in the night, persistent knocks pull me from a shallow sleep.
My heart leaps into my throat before I switch on my bedside lamp, my pulse racing. After a moment’s hesitation, I get up and open the door.
He’s there. Sitting on the floor, slumped against the wall opposite my door, knocking his head gently back against it. When the door opens, he looks up. His eyes, bloodshot and hazy, somehow still manage to light up at the sight of
“What are you doing?”
I ask, my voice husky with sleep. I realize logic is useless. Adrunk Cassian is worse than a toddler.
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“Gemma, I…” His voice is a papery whisper, the words lost.
Irritated and concerned, I crouch down to his level, bringing my ear closer. “What did you say?”
وو
“How can I make you stay…”
The sentence is barely audible, but I catch it. I freeze with the heartache his question brings.
Then, he begins to speak again. Not a plea this time, but a recitation. The words are low, slightly slurred, but unmistakable.
It’s a poem… but not just any poem.
It’s my favourite poem, by my favourite poet. A complex, beautiful, melancholy piece by Jorge Luis Borges that I’ve loved for years.
He’s reciting it in his confused state, line by stumbling line. At the gallery, I thought it was a manipulative trick, where he was pretending to share passion he’d never shown interest in.
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My heart clenches, a bitter sorrow flooding my mouth. Why now? Why couldn’t he have done this a week before the papers were signed? A month? Why not during any of those three years of silent coexistence?
If he had, I might not have given up completely. There might have been a thread to grasp.
But now… now he decides to change?
His hand finds mine where it rests on my knee. His skin is warm. “Gemma,” he whispers, the poem finished. “Is it really too late for me?”
“Cassian,” I say, my voice surprisingly gentle, “the next time you find someone you care for… don’t be so slow to understand it. ”
For us, the moment has passed. The ship has sailed, and I
am on it.
His hand falls away from mine, the weight of the rejection seeming to sap the last of his energy. I stand up, “Go back to the sofa. You’ll get sick on the floor.”
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I can’t tell anymore how much of this is the alcohol and how much is a desperate vulnerability. And in the end, it doesn’t matter.
I close my bedroom door and go back to bed.
For the rest of the night, I try my best not to think about him.
The next morning, my phone buzzes with a call from Tom, saying he’s downstairs. I pull on a robe and pad out to the living room.
Cassian is already standing, looking lost. He’s wearing only his rumpled, unbuttoned dress shirt from the night before and his boxer briefs.
He looks at me, confusion clouding his features. “My
clothes…”
A flush of heat creeps up my neck. “I, uh… I threw them
out.”
bhad completely forgotten about the soiled heap in the
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hamper.
We stand there in a ridiculous, awkward standoff. Then, my gaze drops instinctively, and I see a very normal, very male, very obvious physical evidence of a morning he probably doesn’t even remember.
My face heats up. I grab the throw blanket from the back of the sofa and toss it at him. “Here. Use this. ”
He catches it, puzzled, then follows my mortified glance downward. A faint smirk touches his lips, the first
glimpse of his old, arrogant self. He looks back at me, one eyebrow raised.
“You’ve seen it before…”
He says, his voice a dry rasp, but laced with a pointed, almost teasing observation.
“So why are you blushing now, after everything? ”
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