Free Web NovelChapter 375: Chapter 375
He gestured toward the chair across from his desk with an almost hospitable sweep of his hand.
"So why don’t we have a proper conversation now? Why don’t we sit down like two intelligent people and let me tell you clearly and specifically what it is that I want? Because I think once you hear it, you will find that what I am asking for is not entirely unreasonable given everything that is on the table."
The invitation snapped Cora back into herself with something close to an electric shock.
Whatever fragile, stunned quiet had been holding her in place for the past several minutes shattered completely, and the anger that rushed in to replace it was cleaner and sharper and more focused than the anger she had arrived with - because this anger had been forged in the specific furnace of what she had just been made to feel, and it burned accordingly.
She looked at Lovi with eyes that were absolutely blazing.
"You want to use my cousin’s situation and my uncle’s crimes as additional weapons against me," she said, her voice tight and precise and vibrating with barely contained rage.
"You want to pile the shame and the horror of what they did on top of everything else and hold all of it over my head simultaneously." A short, sharp sound escaped her that wasn’t quite a laugh.
"You are really, really good at this, you know that? You are genuinely, disturbingly good at finding exactly where people are most vulnerable and driving something sharp directly into that spot."
She shook her head slowly, and the look on her face was one of deep, genuine revulsion.
"I regret the day I ever crossed paths with you. I regret every decision that led me to a place where someone like you ended up knowing the things about me that you know." Her voice dropped lower. "And for the record - they are not dead. My cousin and my uncle are not dead. They are in jail, which is where they belong, and whatever judgment they face or have already faced is between them and whatever consequences come for the things they actually did."
She drew herself up to her full height, squaring her shoulders with the kind of dignity that refused to be entirely stripped away even in a moment like this one.
"But clearly none of that matters to you. Clearly the fact that justice is already being served in its own way means absolutely nothing when you can use their story as another blade to hold against my throat."
Her eyes locked onto his with cold, direct intensity.
"So go ahead then, Lovi. Since this is clearly what we’ve arrived at, and since it appears that I don’t have the luxury of walking away from this conversation the way I intended to - tell me what you want."
At that moment, Lovi straightened himself in his chair and cleared his throat with the kind of deliberate formality that people use when they are preparing to say something they believe to be significant - as though the act of clearing his throat lent additional weight to whatever words were about to follow.
"Well, like I said before, Cora," he began, his voice carrying a strange mixture of condescension and what might have been intended as patience, "don’t be faster than your shadow. Don’t get ahead of yourself or rush toward conclusions before you’ve heard everything I have to say."
He leaned back slightly, regarding her with an expression that was maddeningly calm.
"Since you’re so eager to know what I want - since you’re in such a hurry to get to the heart of this conversation so you can decide how to respond - I think we should just address it directly." fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓
He paused, tilting his head slightly. "But honestly, Cora, I find it a little difficult to believe that you genuinely don’t already know what I want. Why are you pretending? Why are you standing there acting as though this is some grand mystery when I think the answer is actually quite obvious if you allow yourself to see it?"
Cora stared at him, and the confusion on her face was clearly genuine - not manufactured for effect, not part of some strategic performance, but real and growing more pronounced with every second that passed.
"With complete sincerity," she said slowly, her voice carrying the careful precision of someone trying very hard not to misunderstand something important, "I have absolutely no idea what you want. You called me here. You demanded this meeting. You created this entire situation. So it is entirely on you to tell me clearly and directly what it is that you expect from me, because I genuinely cannot read your mind and I am not interested in playing guessing games."
She glanced toward the door briefly. "And I am actually in a hurry, so the sooner you get to the point, the better for both of us."
For a moment, Lovi just looked at her, and something shifted in his expression - a flicker of irritation, perhaps, or impatience with the dance they had been doing around the central issue. And then, without any additional preamble or buildup, he simply said it.
"I want you."
The words landed in the space between them with blunt, unadorned simplicity.
"That is what I want, Cora. You."
The effect on Cora was immediate and visible. Her entire body went still in a way that was different from any of the stillness that had come before - this was the stillness of someone whose brain had just received information so unexpected and so fundamentally incomprehensible that it temporarily could not process anything else.
She blinked once. Twice.
"You want me?" she repeated slowly, as though testing the words to see if they made any more sense when spoken aloud. "As in... how? You want me in what sense? What are you trying to insinuate right now?"
Lovi smiled slightly, and there was something almost pleased in his expression, as though he had been waiting for exactly this moment of confusion so he could clarify it in his own words and on his own terms.
"I want you in the most straightforward sense of that phrase," he said, leaning forward slightly with renewed energy. "I know that you are not currently in a relationship - not officially, not publicly, not in any way that actually matters. And yes, I am aware that there is some kind of... connection between you and that utterly unremarkable friend of yours."
He paused as though trying to retrieve a name from memory. "What was his name again? Oliver? Something like that."
