Page 65 of Into Pitch

“I try to always be honest,” I supply.

“Then be honest now. You did this thinking it would make me compliant on some level.”

That word pricks at me in a way that I do not like.

“Comfortable, yes.” I amend, or at least try to.

She steps closer, looming over the table, and I watch as her fingers brace themselves against the edge. “You don’t get to comfort me after stripping my agency. That’s like the lion apologizing to the gazelle for eating it, Alexander. You do see this, don’t you?”

I take a deep breath and nod, cataloguing the response and the way her voice shakes only slightly. The way she holds eye contact even as her breathing speeds up.

“I see,” I murmur.

She snorts. “Do you?”

“Yes,” I say. “And I apologize that I did this the way that I did. I cannot change it now, and I do not wish you to leave because I do believe I was right. I just… maybe went about it the wrong way.”

“Maybe,” she drawls sarcastically.

“Maybe,” I admit.

“You’re not wrong. This isn’t working the way I intended.” I breathe out, wanting to reach out and touch her but knowing now is not the time. Nor the mood.

“A breakthrough,” she grumbles and drags her hands up into her hair, looking to the paint.

“I will need to revise my approach.”

She groans, her head dropping back to hang between her shoulders. “You mean you’re going to try harder?”

I smirk. “No. I mean I’m going to try differently.”

Her expression is wary, though rightfully so.

I add, “You won’t be painting today.”

“And you have decided this because?”

“Because right now, it would feel like compliance and I don’t want that.”

She studies me, searching for the manipulation I’m sure she believes I’m deploying. Finding none she can immediately name seems to bother her more than if she had.

“You’re still insane,” she mutters.

“Yes, but maybe I am learning too.”

She shakes her head and walks away, leaving the canvas untouched. I watch her as she goes, fingers tapping on the edge of the table. So this is far more complex than I anticipated. Which yes, was an oversight but something that can be corrected, and something that makes all of this far more interesting.

Chapter twenty-seven

Chapter 27

I’m still pissed when I wake the next morning.

It’s not the kind of anger like the day before though. Where everything is done purely out of spite—the kind that flares and burns itself out, but deeper. It settles into my bones and hums there, like a generator I can’t turn off.

This new anger I think might be useful.

I drag myself out of bed without looking to the other side. I don’t want or care to know if he’s awake, and I certainly don’t want to find him watching me in that quiet, unsettling way he does. Where he seems to be analyzing every movement and shifting them over into data points that he can understand.