Chapter 44 — The First Real Argument
853 Words
Aurora had spent most of the week pretending the situation didn’t bother her.
The effort became increasingly difficult every time Cassian inserted himself into circumstances that had nothing to do with him.
By Friday evening, patience was becoming a limited resource.
The final foundation meeting before the charity gala had stretched well beyond schedule, leaving everyone eager to leave. Board members gathered their documents, assistants coordinated follow-up tasks, and conversations gradually dissolved as people headed toward the exits.
Aurora remained behind to finish reviewing a sponsorship agreement that required approval before Monday.
She expected to work alone.
The sound of a chair moving across the room suggested otherwise.
Without looking up, she already knew who had stayed.
“You know,” she said while continuing to read, “most people leave after a meeting ends.”
“Most people don’t have another meeting in thirty minutes.”
The response arrived from somewhere behind her.
Aurora signed the document and placed it aside.
“Is that why you’re still here?”
“Partly.”
That answer irritated her immediately.
Mostly because it sounded honest.
A few minutes passed before she finally closed the folder and stood.
The room had emptied completely.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, city lights stretched across the skyline.
Inside, the silence felt unusually private.
Aurora turned toward him.
“I want to ask you something.”
“You usually do.”
“I’d appreciate a serious answer.”
His expression shifted slightly.
Not enough to soften just enough to listen.
“Why have you been doing that?”
Cassian studied her.
“Doing what?”
“You know exactly what.”
A brief pause followed.
“Humor me.”
The calmness in his voice made everything worse.
Aurora folded her arms.
“Every time someone talks to me for more than five minutes, you appear.”
“That’s not true.”
“It happened at the reception.”
“That conversation had already ended.”
“It happened after the planning meeting.”
His silence lasted long enough to qualify as an answer.
Aurora noticed.
Unfortunately, so did he.
“You’re imagining patterns.”
The statement sounded reasonable.
Almost convincing.
Aurora had known him too long for it to work.
“Then tell me I’m wrong.”
“About what?”
“About the fact that you clearly dislike any man who becomes too interested in me.”
The words settled between them.
Neither particularly comfortable nor easy to ignore.
Cassian looked away first.
The movement surprised her.
He rarely retreated from conversations.
Even temporarily.
Especially when challenged.
“You’re exaggerating.”
Aurora laughed.
The sound carried very little amusement.
“That’s your defense?”
“It’s the truth.”
“No, it’s convenient.”
Something sharp entered the conversation after that but not anger just something closer to frustration.
Months of tension had a way of finding cracks eventually.
Aurora had simply discovered one.
“You know what the worst part is?”
Cassian remained silent.
She continued anyway.
“You act as though none of this affects you.”
His attention returned immediately.
“None of what?”
“That.”
Aurora gestured vaguely between them, the unfinished conversations, interference, attention, awareness, everything.
For the first time, uncertainty crossed his expression, only briefly.
“You think this doesn’t affect me?”
The question arrived quietly.
Aurora immediately wished he had sounded defensive instead.
The calmness carried more weight.
“I think you pretend it doesn’t.”
His jaw tightened.
A subtle reaction.
One she would have missed months earlier.
Not anymore.
“You keep asking questions you already know the answers to.”
The comment landed harder than expected.
Aurora stared at him.
“So there is an answer.”
Cassian laughed once.
A humorless sound.
“You know there is.”
The room suddenly felt much smaller than it had a few minutes earlier.
Neither of them seemed interested in stepping away from the conversation or ending it.
“Then why won’t you say it?”
The question escaped before she could stop it.
Real silence followed.
The kind that arrived when someone stood too close to a truth they weren’t prepared to handle.
Cassian looked at her for several seconds.
His expression remained controlled but his eyes didn’t.
“You’re asking for something neither of us is ready for.”
Aurora swallowed.
“Maybe I’m tired of waiting.”
The admission surprised both of them.
For a moment, neither seemed certain what to do with the honesty that had just entered the room.
Cassian recovered first, of course he did.
“Maybe.”
The answer frustrated her immediately.
“That’s all you have?”
“Right now?”
A faint smile appeared.
“It’s all you’re getting.”
Aurora should have been furious.
Instead, she found herself standing there fighting the urge to laugh.
The realization felt ridiculous.
They had just sort of argued.
Neither of them had won or backed down.
Yet somehow the distance between them felt smaller than it had at the beginning of the conversation.
Which was probably the most irritating outcome possible.
- Writer
