Free Web NovelChapter 132: Chapter 132 Pierre confronted him
_Pierre’s POV_
I had told myself I wasn’t going to do this again, that I wasn’t going to let it happen again.
Multiple times. Specifically and with detailed reasoning supporting each instance of telling myself. On the drive to the penthouse I had told myself. In the lobby while I waited I had told myself. When he walked through the elevator and across the lobby I had told myself again.
But here I was, shamelessly returning his kisses anyway.
His hands were on my shoulders and my hands had found the lapels of his jacket and I was not thinking clearly, which was the problem, because thinking clearly was something I did consistently and reliably in all situations including situations designed specifically to prevent it.
Apparently not this situation.
When I finally pulled back I looked at him and he looked at me and neither of us said anything for a moment.
“You kissed me genuinely first this time,” he smiled. freёweɓnovel.com
“You pulled me back,” I replied.
“But you came here,” he grinned again and I wanted to wipe that grin off his face.
That was accurate and I didn’t have a clean response to it.
I sat down on the couch because sitting down felt like the right response to having kissed someone I had been telling myself I wasn’t going to kiss.
He sat across from me and looked at me with that clear unguarded expression that appeared on him sometimes, the one without the performance layer, just him paying attention.
I had been losing my mind since I heard about the proposal.
That was the honest version of the past forty-eight hours. I had seen the news, Nana Seraphine’s acceptance of a formal marriage proposal from the Sunridge royal family on Rowena’s behalf, and something in me had reacted before my thinking could catch up with it. A hot immediate reaction that I had immediately told myself was about Rowena’s welfare and definitely not about anything else.
I had tracked Ezekiel to the penthouse because of Rowena. I had come here for Rowena. I was concerned about Rowena.
I was sitting on a couch in a penthouse with Ezekiel’s jacket slightly wrinkled from where I’d had my hands on it and I was honest enough to admit that was not entirely about Rowena.
“The proposal,” I said, because I needed to finish the conversation I had come here for. “Is it real. Are you actually going to marry her.”
“Of course not,” he said. Simply and without hesitation. “I was never actually going to marry her. My father sent the proposal before I could redirect him and I let it stand too long because I was managing too many things at once. I made the wrong call.” He looked at me. “I don’t want to marry Rowena. And I won’t.”
“Then what do you want,” I said.
He looked at me steadily and didn’t answer with words and the not-answering-with-words was itself a very complete answer.
I looked at the floor.
I had thought I was straight. I had never questioned it, never had a reason to, it had simply been a fact about myself that I had carried without examining it because unexamined facts were comfortable in a way that examined ones sometimes weren’t.
And then Ezekiel had kissed me in a bar and I had kissed him back and spent the following days constructing elaborate explanations for why that didn’t mean anything, and then I had tracked him across the city to his private penthouse and kissed him again.
The examined version of the fact was different from the unexamined one.
“I thought I was straight,” I said out loud.
“I know,” he replied calmly.
“This doesn’t make sense to me yet,” I said again.
“And that’s alright,” he smiled. “It doesn’t have to make sense yet.”
He said something then, quietly, about how long he had been managing things that didn’t fit the version of himself that other people needed him to be, and how exhausting the management was, and how the only moments recently when he hadn’t been managing it were moments that happened to involve me. He said it simply and without asking for anything in response to it and something about the simplicity of it reached somewhere past the part of me that had objections.
I felt myself settle in a way that I hadn’t in days.
My phone rang at that moment.
The ringtone was Kasper’s.
I picked up before the second ring.
“Pierre.” Kasper’s voice was strained in the specific way that meant something had broken in the search. “We have a possible location. Industrial district, south side. I need people I trust on the ground before the regional guard gets there and makes noise. Are you in the city?”
“Yes,” I said, on my feet already. “Where?”
He gave me the address.
I hung up and looked at Ezekiel who was already standing and already reaching for his jacket because he had read everything he needed from my face and my voice and the speed at which I had moved.
“Rowena,” I said.
“I know,” he nodded. “Let’s go together.”
I finally smiled and we both moved.
We were at the door when I stopped.
He turned and looked at me.
“You asked me before if I loved her,” I said. “Rowena.”
“Yes?”
“I care about her,” I said. “I would do anything for her. I’m going to do anything for her right now.” I paused. “But love, the way you meant it. No. I don’t think I do. I was deceiving myself into thinking I loved her that way. I don’t think it was ever like that.”
He nodded slowly.
“Who do you love now?” he asked.
I looked at him.
I didn’t say anything.
His expression shifted into something that was warm and certain and not asking for anything more than what I had already given him.
He leaned in to kiss me again boldly before pulling back and opening the door to step out.
I swallowed my saliva then followed him out.
