Free Web NovelChapter 36: Chapter 36 Not Interested
_Rowena’s POV_
Kasper came back after dark.
I heard the car on the drive and looked up from the account records I had been cross-referencing with Celeste’s lawyers’ notes for the past three hours. Velvet appeared in the doorway a few minutes later with the expression she wore when she had information and was deciding how to deliver it.
“Kasper’s back,” she said.
“I heard.”
“He looks like he has something to say.”
“He always has something to say,” I said. “Send him up.” frёewebηovel.cѳm
He appeared in the office doorway two minutes later, still in his jacket. He looked at the papers spread across my desk, looked at the three empty tea cups, looked at me, and chose not to comment on any of it.
“How was the south?” I asked.
“Productive.” He came in and sat down in the chair across from me without being invited, which was standard Kasper. “I spoke to Pierre.”
“About the Alice situation?”
“Among other things.” He paused in a way that was slightly too deliberate. “He’s coming tomorrow. To the outing.”
Yeah, we had another outing tomorrow.
But I looked at Kasper in confusion. “That’s fine. Pierre’s good company.”
“He is,” Kasper agreed. “He’s also.....” another deliberate pause “.....very capable and stable. Well-respected. His pack is financially sound. He’s thirty, which is a reasonable age. And he’s.....”
“Kasper.”
“ — generally considered, by most objective measures, to be.....”
“Kasper.”
He stopped.
“Don’t,” I said.
He held up both hands in the universal gesture of someone claiming innocence they absolutely do not possess. “I’m just listing qualities.”
“You’re listing qualities in a specific order for a specific reason,” I said. “And the answer is no.”
“I haven’t asked a question.”
“You were building toward one,” I said. “The answer is still no.”
Kasper settled back in the chair with a small smile. “I’m not trying to arrange anything. I’m just saying that Pierre is a good man and he cares about you and there are worse things in the world than.....”
“I don’t want to get married,” I said.
The words came out more directly than I’d planned, but they landed right, and once they were out I found I didn’t want to take them back or soften them.
Kasper went quiet.
“I’m serious,” I said. “I’m not saying it to make a point or because I’m hurt or because I need time to recover from Kaelen. I’m saying it because I have looked at my life clearly for the first time in years and what I want is right here.” I gestured at the desk, at the papers, at the window that looked out over the Ashthorne estate’s garden. “This family. These accounts. Understanding what happened to my father and brothers. Building the Ashthorne Group into what my mother always intended it to be.” I paused. “That’s what I want. Not a husband. Not a match. Or someone to make Kaelen regret anything.”
Kasper looked at me for a long moment. “It doesn’t have to be one or the other.”
“I know that,” I said. “But right now it is, for me. I’ve spent three years organizing my life around a marriage that was never real and I have no interest in immediately organizing it around another one.” I kept my voice even. “I like Pierre. I’m glad he’s coming tomorrow. He’s a good friend and I value that.” I looked at my cousin directly. “That’s where it ends.”
Kasper pressed his lips together. Something moved across his face, not disagreement exactly, more the expression of someone who has an argument and is deciding whether the moment is right for it.
He decided it wasn’t, which showed unusual restraint.
“And Kaelen?” he said.
“What about him?”
“He signed,” Kasper said. “But he’s not..... moved on. He’s been asking about you through channels. Indirect questions to people who might have contact with the estate.”
I looked at the account records on my desk.
“I don’t care,” I said.
“Ro.....”
“I mean that simply,” I said. “Not bitterly, not as a performance. I genuinely don’t care what Kaelen is feeling or doing. He made his choices and I made mine and we’re both living the outcomes.” I looked up at Kasper. “There’s no part of me that wants him to suffer. There’s also no part of me that wants him back or needs him to regret things for my own satisfaction. I don’t need his regret to know I made the right decision.”
Kasper studied me.
“You really are done,” he said.
“Completely,” I nodded.
He was quiet for a moment.
“What about what you want?” he asked finally. “Not the family, not the business. You, Ro. What do you want for yourself?”
The question sat in the room.
I thought about it honestly, “I just want peace,” I said. “Real peace. Not the performance of it.” I paused. “And answers. About my father. About what really happened on that road.”
Something shifted in Kasper’s expression.
“And beyond that?” he asked.
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “And for the first time in a long time, I’m alright with not knowing.” I looked at him. “That’s new for me. Not having a plan for everything.”
“It’s called rest,” Kyra said softly.
“It’s called rest,” I said aloud, half to Kyra, half to Kasper.
Kasper looked at me for a long moment. Then he exhaled, slow and deep.
“Alright,” he said. “But for the record.....”
“Seriously, Kasper.”
“I’m just saying.....”
“Kasper.”
“He is objectively very......”
“Goodnight,” I said.
He laughed. Short and genuine, the laugh I had known since we were children running through the back field of this very estate. He stood up, stretched, and moved toward the door.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Sunrise departure if we’re going to make the north trail before midday.”
“I’ll be ready.”
“Wear something that isn’t work clothes,” he said. “
“I’ll consider it.”
“Miriam already told me to tell you that,” he said. “Those were her exact words. Consider it a joint message.”
He left.
The office settled back into quiet.
I turned back to the account records and sat with them for another hour, but somewhere in the middle of it I put the pen down and just looked out the window at the garden instead.
