“What the fuck, Jameson!? You can't just grab people and make them do -,” she started to yell, but it ended in a shriek as she was tossed onto a couch. She bounced around and gripped onto the back of it.
“Apparently, I fucking can. I have been waiting all day for you. Do you not answer your phone anymore?” he asked, leaning over her. He looked pissed. She felt a shiver run over her skin.
“It's in my purse! I was busy,” she told him.
“Too busy to answer your phone. I see. So what were you and Angier up to for so long?” he asked.
“Humping our way across Boston,” she snapped back.
“Goddamn, took you long enough.”
“Not everyone can be as quick as you.”
His hand was at her throat in an instant.
This is not quite how I imagined this evening ending.
“Watch what you fucking say to me,” Jameson growled. “I have babied you. I have been nice to you. I have bent over fucking backwards for you. I have done things for you that I have never done for anyone else. The least you can do in return is answer your goddamn phone when I call.”
“Someone missed me,” she said softy.
“Fuck you, Tate,” he spat out, his fingers digging in harder. He wasn't pressing down on her, though, so she slowly sat up.
“Is that what you've been sitting at home doing? Worrying all night? About what Ang and I have been up to?” she asked.
“Don't flatter yourself,” he replied.
“You flatter me, by being this upset. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you actually cared,” she laughed lightly, holding onto his wrist with one hand.
“You'd think wrong.”
She stared up at him for a second. Really looked at him. For the past month, she had been working very hard to blind herself to him. Always tried to glance at him, past him, through him. Never directly at him. He was too much. Looking at him, he would invade her. Possess her. It was too easy. It had happened last fall. It had happened in Spain. So she had avoided it.
But if it was true, if Sanders was telling the truth – which he must have been, because Sanders didn't lie – then everything Jameson had done for the past month, had been for her. Everything he had said in Spain, had been the truth. That moment in Paris, it had been real. Those pearls ...
She felt her eyes tear up, and Jameson looked shocked. He let go of her throat and lowered himself, so they were eye to eye. She looked away. Around the room. At all the furniture. Everywhere, but at him.
“You rearranged,” she sniffled, realizing for the first time that she was in the middle of the room. He nodded.
“Yes.”
“I like it,” she said, her voice getting even more watery.
“Tate.”
“Oh my god, is that the Rothko from your office?” she asked, sitting up straighter. The couch had its back to the fireplace and Jameson's desk, and was facing the far wall. The bookshelves had all been rearranged, and the large painting was hanging in the middle of the wall.
“Yes.”
“When did you bring it here?” she asked, wiping at her nose as her eyes wandered over the painting.
“Today.”
“Why!?” she exclaimed. She felt his fingers curve around her jaw, and he slowly pulled her head around until she was facing him.
“Because one time, you said you liked it.”
The tears couldn't be held back, after that. She didn't stop crying until he had laid her out in their bed. He left the room and she sniffled, took off her clothes, curled up under the sheets. It was a couple minutes before he came back in the room and she sat up, hugging the sheets tight around her body.
“Tea?” she asked with a laugh, taking a steaming mug that he was holding out.
“Yes. Here,” he said, producing a handkerchief from his pocket and holding it in front of her face. She simply leaned into it and blew her nose. He made a face like he wanted to vomit, but he didn't say anything, just stepped away and threw it into a hamper.
“Thank you,” she sighed, sipping at the hot tea. He crawled onto the bed and sat across from her.
“Care to explain?” he asked, cocking up an eyebrow at her. She looked into her tea. It was hard to bare her soul when he was always looking at her like she was annoying.
“It was just a lot to take in. It was an intense dinner with Ang, an intense talk with Sanders, and then that. Believe it or not, I have my breaking points,” she joked. He didn't laugh.
“What did you talk about with Sanders?” he asked. She chewed on her bottom lip.
“Stuff. Europe. You,” she answered sort of truthfully.
“Sounds dangerous.”
“God, you have no idea. That man has a wild side none of us know about.”