The news of the attack came like a thunderclap. Caspian's usual stoic serenity was torn apart by tension so fierce it was choking. His penthouse reserve was dense and heavy with the heaviness of his silence as he glared at the face of his laptop screen, his jaw clenched, his knuckles white clasping the edge of the desk.
I had screamed, to make him understand that whatever he was facing, he didn't have to face it by himself. But I'd learned better than that. Caspian Grey did not allow people in, not even me.
"You're shutting me out again," I said, resting my arms up over my chest. My voice was soft, but the rage seething beneath was there.
"I'm keeping you away from this to protect, Lily," he replied me, not even getting a look my way, his voice icy as I'd not heard in weeks. "You don't need to know anything more than that."
It was like a slap to my face . To protect me. That was his go to excuse every time —to not tell me what was actually happening, to keep me at arm's length. Even though I understood his world was a toxic one, there was a part of me who was tired of being kept in the dark. Tired of believing that I was something that he tolerated.
"I don't need your protection, Caspian. I require your trust," I snarled, advancing. "How can I stand beside you when you won't even open up to me?"
He finally looked at me, his face black with rage—and something else, something ancient that arrowed through my chest. "This is not your battle, Lily," he gritted out between locked jaws. "You have no place here. The more you interfere, the more you'll get hurt."
"Stop telling me what's in my best interests!" My own voice trembled, revealing the storm of emotion building within me. "I know your world is unsafe, Caspian. I am not foolish. But I am here, aren't I? I have been here, for all of it. And yet, you treat me like a stranger who has not earned the right to know."
His silence was suffocating. He turned away from me, his broad shoulders tensing with strain, and that other wave of not knowing crashed through me. What was I doing here, then? Why was I fighting so frantically to jam myself into a life that would never fit me?
I dug my fingers into my thighs to balance. "Do you care about me, Caspian at all?" I pressed, my labored breathing reduced to a bare whisper. "Or am I just. convenient?"
That attracted his attention. He spun about so quickly I was taken aback. His eyes seared into mine, and for an instant the rage of his stare left me breathless. "Don't," he grated menacingly in a low growl. "Don't you ever say that.".
Then prove me wrong, I growled, advancing on her. "Because right now, it looks like you're more scared of letting me in than losing me.".
His lips were clenched in a firm line, and I could see battle brewing behind his eyes. He did not answer, but turned to the window. He stood there staring down into the city streets beneath him, his reflective self a mirror image of a man on the edge.
I hugged myself, struggling to hold back the tears welling up within me. Why was I subjecting myself to all of this? Why was I struggling so much for a man who couldn't even see that he needed me?
You're in love with him, a voice within my mind warned. And it's going to kill you.
Reality hit me like a runaway freight train. I had worked so hard to compartmentalize my own feelings for Caspian in the recesses of my mind, to see what I had with him as an arrangement—of a fairytale for all to see. And by doing so, however, I'd opened myself. By doing so, I'd started feeling.
And now, I was in too deep.
"Lily," Caspian whispered. I spun to see him, his eyes clashing with mine, his face contorted in anger and guilt, an expression so close to being monstrous. "I don't know what to do," he admitted, running his hand through his hair. "I don't know how to let you in without losing everything."
My breath stuck in my throat. More than he'd ever told me that I was important to him. But not yet.
"You don't have to have all the answers, Caspian," I went on. "You just need to try. Because if you keep shutting me out, you're not protecting me—you're pushing me away."
He stared at me for long time, the storm in his eyes mirroring the storm building in mine. And then, without so much as allowing me to draw breath, he closed the gap between us, his fingers framing my face as his mouth descended over mine.
His lips were wild on me, everything we could not say to each other. His fingers trembled so barely that he latched them into my hair, and I wrapped myself around him as if he himself was the figure keeping me going.
When at last he eased back, forehead to my face, both of us sucked in gasps of air. "You make me furious, Lily," he growled. "I don't understand how to do this, but I don't want to let you go."
A single tear stung at the corners of my eyes, but I pressed them back in. "Then don't," I breathed. "But you have to be open to me, Caspian. Entirely."
I looked, for the first time, at the crack in his mask—a glance behind the mask to the man. And it shone like hope.
And later, as I lay wide awake half of the night after, listening to him sleep beside me, I could not help but hear that maddening voice in the back of my head.
I was falling in love with him, yes. But pieces of me were drifting away with it, too. And I had no clue how to prevent it from happening.
For the moment, at least, I pushed the thought out of my mind and let myself enjoy the fleeting calm. Whatever lay in the future, we'd face it together. At least, I hoped that we would.