Just One Night, Part 3_ Binding Agreement(50)

My angel is learning. She is beginning to understand this version of me.

And so the game goes on and as it does, the stakes are raised again; another answer is offered. His face is blank as a poker player’s should be. But his hands shake, only a little, but I see it. And I know it has nothing to do with cards.

I win this hand, beating his flush with four of a kind. The woman with the metal heels is doing shots while her date swears into his phone.

Robert leans back in his seat. “I believe I have a debt to pay.”

“Yes, I’d like your answers first.” Slowly, I gather his cards and mine, form them into a neat pile. “How did you find me here, Robert? Have you been following me?”

“Yes.”

I suck in a long breath, start to shuffle the cards. “Just today?”

“No. I’ve followed you twice before.”

I keep my head down, my heart skipping along with the shuffling cards. What he’s describing is the behavior of a stalker.

But the thing about stalkers is that they care. As Simone once explained to me, stalkers know how to commit.

Then again, commitment has never been our problem.

“I still owe you my secret.”

My hands still. I raise my eyes, waiting.

“I need you,” he says, his voice so quiet I have to lean forward to hear. “That’s my secret. I need you more than you have ever needed me.”

“That’s not true.”

He rests his fingers on top of the still deck; the woman at the bar orders another round. “I’ve been thinking about your metaphor. The ocean and the moon. The thing is, it’s not the tides that make the ocean so important. There’s so much more to it than that. But the moon? Without the ocean what’s its purpose? It’s just a barren rock. A mere reflection of the sun’s light.”

“Are you trying to tell me your life has no purpose without me?” I ask, dryly.

“No, I’m telling you that you’re the only thing on this earth that has made me feel connected to what’s here. When I’m with you, I know what’s real. I can feel it, touch it. When I’m with you, I’m something more than . . . other. When I’m not with you, my head’s in the stars.”

“But that’s how you like it,” I remind him. “It’s why we broke up. You wanted to live your dreams without leaving a footprint, without the cumbersome terrestrial rules the rest of us live by. The rules that I live by.”

“We broke up because I was afraid.”

Those last words come out quickly, impulsively.

For the first time since I’ve known him I see Robert blush.

Slowly he pulls his hands away.

“That’s two secrets,” he says. “I overpaid.”

I pause to consider before picking up the cards again. “No,” I say. “In my opinion you haven’t paid nearly enough.”

I catch his fleeting smile as I deal out another hand. This game moves faster. I find I have to bluff, a specialty of mine. But he still wins with a full house against my two pair.

I reach for my scotch. “I need your questions before I can give you my answers.”

“If I try to play by the rules,” he says slowly, “if I try to live with consequences, will you forgive me? Can we try again?”

“That’s two questions.”

“You owe me the answers to three.”

I put down my drink, reach for the cards. “Those don’t sound like real questions.”

“What—”

“Are you honestly suggesting that you can change?” I interrupt. The emotion in my voice is taut and rich, my volume loud enough to garner a glance from the garish couple at the bar.

“You have spent your life cultivating power plays and dominance. Your name might not be as well known as Koch and Gates but behind closed doors everyone knows that it’s you who can’t be crossed. You who can and will ruin a man for an insult. That’s who you are, Robert!”

“That’s the man that they know,” he corrects, softly. “I’m asking, what if I can be the man that you’ve seen? You have seen me, haven’t you, Kasie? You’ve peeked behind the curtain. You know the truth about Oz.”

I clench my teeth but my jaw still trembles. The cards fall from my hands and splay across the table in a wave of hearts and clubs.

The bartender turns on the stereo. Simon & Garfunkel sing of silence. Robert shows me his hands, palms up as if to prove that he hides nothing.

“The other day Daemon led a presentation at Maned Wolf. It didn’t go well. He didn’t understand the nuance of our needs the way you did. We won’t be using that firm again.”

“So?”