Who: Green Arrow, then Orin (DUN DUN) and Valerie What: A lot of screaming and name-calling. Where: A mall, then the outskirts of Seattle. When: Broad daylight. Warnings: Some mild language.
Making a stir while Preston was “filling in” for him at Monarch Industries was easy enough. Orin rarely went out during the day as Arrow, but a man dressed in green that could jump from building to building with an unnatural kind of speed and grace was an anomaly, to say the least, and being noticed was pretty much a damn given.
Monarch Industries was hosting a tour for a few local elementary schools that morning, a fact Orin had neglected to tell Preston, and that fact ensured plenty of folks saw Orin Monarch on his best behavior ever in memory.
Nothing could go wrong.
Arrow made his first appearance around noon, saving a damn kitten from a tree for a little girl which entertained him to no damn end (and which made the girl’s momma swoon), and he handled a few ATM hold ups next. He didn’t make it to Valerie until after lunch, and even that looked random as it could be.
The daytime news adored anything to do with elementary school children, and Valerie had set her teeth during her entire pedicure against the lead-up to the tour. Unfortunately she was still halfway through the manicure before Orin showed up, very prominently, on live. There was something wrong with the camera, though, something making his image blur occasionally on the film, but it was most definitely him, and he was smiling at the children with an indulgence and bizarre zen-like patience that Valerie had never seen on his features.
She stared at the screen and almost forgot to move when the process was complete, and a polite cough was necessary to remind her to tip. She dug around in her purse for her sunglasses, and set out to find a department store rather than deal with the feelings the foolish PR stunt had stirred up.
Seattle could be counted on to have small instances of crime at any given time, on any given day. That day was no different, and between the salon and the mall a carjacking allowed Arrow to be precisely where he needed to be.
He was on his bike, which was a dark green in the light of day, and the kick that took the carjacker out came without any need to slow the bike or bring it to a stop. The gun the carjacker used clattered beneath the wheels of the car, even as the man fell, and he could see Valerie just ahead. He moved the bike forward, fast, and he stopped beside her on the sidewalk.
The mall-goers stopped, and they looked, and they pointed, and he merely waited for her to notice him.
Valerie hadn’t seen the carjacker any more than anyone else, and it was the exclamations of others that drew her attention. It was still cold in Seattle, a cold that reminded her of the Windy City she had come from, and she had on a coat the color of new roses and her hair was curled close to her neck. She looked like an old postcard, perfect and unattainable, at least until her expression changed, surprise creasing brows and eyes. She pulled off her sunglasses. The silent shock widened her eyes as she looked at Arrow coming toward her in the gray sunlight.
His features were hidden by the hood, which he was even more careful to keep low in this light, and he jerked his head toward the back seat of the bike. He was realizing, just then, even as he did it, that having her associated with Arrow publicly was a damn stupid risk. But it was too late to worry about that now, and he’d just have to get her out of the area before anyone could ask her name.
She didn't stand there staring for long. A moment after he tipped his head, she put the sunglasses back into place, turned up her coat collar, and threw a leg over the bike behind him. She didn't say a word, though there was plenty of opportunities. The smell of dried white flowers and talc accompanied her leaning grip on his waist.
He reached back one gauntleted hand and rested it on her thigh, squeezing once before ensuring she was settled and zooming off before any of the gawkers could get too close to the bike. He didn’t say anything at first, opting to let the scenery pass for a few blocks until they were out of the city limits. “How much time you got?” he asked her; a harmless question.
“The rest of the day,” she called over the wind. Her arms around his waist were secure, but it was no desperate cling, and she didn’t press up against his back except when he braked on the curves. The coat was warm enough, and she had leggings and boots this time, so she was comfortable pretending she didn’t have anything to do. “Why are you out?” It was not a harmless question at all.
“Got a call,” he said over the rumble and wind, which was easy enough to believe given the recent happenings at the Times during broad daylight. He didn’t go any further, didn’t add any details. Instead, he just sped the bike up, the increased speed enough so that she had no choice but to hang on tighter and press against him. He was ready to reach back and steady her if she needed it, and the city was quickly left behind in favor of new green and trees that were still thin enough to see bark through the foliage.
“No day-job?” she asked, but not loud enough to be fully heard above the machine. As the scenery changed and Valerie sank a little deeper into the seat and a little closer to the man in front of her, she grew more sure that it was definitely him. He had that funny metal-chemical smell and that arrogant shift of hips when he refused to anticipate a turn on the road ahead. She didn’t know what that meant, and decided, in the end, that it didn’t change anything. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Life was confusing these days, but at least she was alive and healthy to be confused.
“No day-job,” he said, a lie, but a necessary one. He waited until she relaxed somewhat, until she leaned into him, and then he ran a hand over one of the arms around his waist.
Once they were far outside of the city limits, he pulled the bike off the road and onto green grass and between trees. He drove until he reached an old reservoir, and he cut the bike’s engine and looked over his shoulder at her, unfathomable shadows and a hint of green around the eyes. “How you been?” he asked, even though he shouldn’t have gone straight there, and even though he felt (suddenly) like it was wrong to ask for her confidence when she wouldn’t be willing to give it to him if she knew who he was.
She took a long deep breath of growing things, a green smell that she should be used to thanks to the constant Seattle rain and the lichen on every tree, but it still smelled different away from the pavement. Valerie took another breath, another very deep, very quiet breath, and then she raised a hand to smooth her hair down. She was spending fairly regularly at a pawn shop rather than wasting good jewelry on her habit, and the blonde threads literally glittered. “Had a scare. It shook me, and I’m not used to being shaken.” She lifted one shoulder.
He climbed off the bike, and he turned and looked at her, the movement fluid and strangely smooth given his size. “A scare?” he asked her, reaching a green-covered hand to those gold strands and dragging his fingers through the silken mass. There was a little tug and tangle, but he was oddly gentle about it, in his own way. “What kind of a scare, honey?” he asked, though he knew. He knew, and he felt like shit getting her to talk to him about this way, when she wouldn’t do it the other way.
Valerie lifted one knee and pulled it over so she sat facing him, and she tried to conceal her surprise at the strange gesture of affection. The smile, however, made it through, small as it was. “I’m not sure that it had anything to do with me...” She tried to shrug again, as if it didn’t matter, but it did and her shoulders were too heavy, so she gave up. “This man pointed a gun at me, and to be honest I thought I was going to die, and that’s never happened to me before.” She felt strange being so frank, and gave him an uncertain look.
His hand slid to her cheek, the leather cool and smooth, and he kept his fingers there as he looked at her. “Being involved with Masks is dangerous, honey, whether they’re really Masks, or whether people just think you are.” His deceptiveness felt like an uneasy thing in the pit of his stomach, and his green eyes were almost visible beneath the hood. “Maybe it’s time to walk away from that man, get somewhere safe. I’d help.” And he would; he, Arrow, would.
The smile gained some strength. His concern felt good; it was not like Orin’s concern, wrapped up in his own life and his reputation. It felt like it was just for her. She lifted one hand and brushed them over the back of his hand. “I didn’t think I’d see you again,” she said, feeling better and sounding it. She didn’t reply to his suggestion; she couldn’t leave, and that was that.
“But you wanted to?” he asked, slow and male and smug as he stepped forward, between her thighs and slid his hands to her waist. He didn’t do anything more than that, no push or demand, and it was a strange thing for him, being happy with just being. It reminded him of water and a world where people didn’t exist, and he wished she didn’t associate that with Orin; he would have taken her there. He had never wanted to let anyone see that, and something like concern made his shoulders go tight and back. He should end this, and he should end it now. Instead, he dropped his head and captured her lips in a kiss.
Valerie curled her hand over his arm and smiled into the kiss, which was heady and sweet but (perhaps on her part more than his) light, if not without some hunger. She pulled away a little and sighed against his lips. “I might have, one or two times.” She reached up between them and before he could stop her, tugged at the top of his hood, lowering it briefly over his nose and not revealing anything. The tease made her smile curve like a cat’s.
“Don’t want to know what I look like?” he asked with a grin, lower lip still visible with the hood pulled low. “Why’s that?” he asked, sliding his hands around to the small of her back. “So you can pretend I’m anyone you damn well please?” he asked, clearly entertained and not at all bothered by the prospect.
“No, I just don’t want to see something I shouldn’t because then you’ll have to kill me, or maybe lock me up in a tower somewhere.” She wasn’t going to answer such a ridiculous idea, though she was sure he would enjoy that. “So your wife doesn’t find out?” She laughed, leaned forward and nipped the tempting lower lip, all affection.
“If my wife found out, she’d take the kids and I’d have to hand over my mechanic’s paycheck, and it’d be all your doing,” he said catching her lips in a kiss again when she nipped. “I’d set you up,” he told her, and it was a bad idea to even offer; he knew that. “It’d be safer.” And that was the laughable part. It would be safer.
“Set me up with what?” she asked, between soft brushes of lips with no sign of hard teeth. “A forty or fifty thousand motorcycle like that one?” Valerie might not be a mechanic, but she always wanted to know how much money she was riding on. “Motorcycles aren’t particularly safe, darling.”
“You spend a whole lot of timing pricing motorcycles?” he asked, not surprised that she had already catalogued his monetary worth as Arrow. “Am I worth your time?” he asked, no malice there. He knew she wasn’t here because of the bike, no matter how much it cost. Maybe he was just being damn cocky, but he believed that. She already had Monarch for money. Damn, and now he was thinking of himself in third person. “Set you up in a little apartment. Come visit nights.”
“Not for nearly long enough, darling. You’d get bored soon, and then where would I be?” She smiled to take the sting out of it, but it was still true. She leaned back on the curve of her spine against the bike, comfortable, enjoying the heat of the engine on the back of her calves. She touched a finger to the unfeeling kevlar, remembering the man beneath. She liked him better than the persona, whatever he was. She’d been afraid when she thought he might be Orin, really afraid, because there were too many places this man could hurt, even if he didn’t know it.
He almost admitted he’d never not gotten bored, that she was right, but he held back at the last moment. “I don’t know if I would or not,” he told her, with more candor than he was accustomed to in, or out of the kevlar. “I’ve never stayed with a woman. I don’t chase them, as a rule. Getting involved with me, it’s not good for anyone’s health.” He grinned. “But I think we got to admit this comes pretty damn close to chasing.”
“That makes me feel special,” Valerie said, absolutely honest even though she didn’t let go of the smile. “A woman likes to feel special, but in my experience that doesn’t stick around very much longer than a man does. Why all the rules?” she asked, finding no harm in her curiosity.
“Same reason that man was waving a gun in the Aubade lobby,” he said, knowing full well it was an admission that he knew it had happened.
She raised both eyebrows. She’d be surprised if he hadn’t known, really. “I suppose if you’re going to make a target of yourself,” Valerie agreed, a little reluctantly. “But that man probably would have snapped anyway, over someone or something else. People like that always do.” If it sounded judgmental, she didn’t really care.
“People like what?” he asked. The question wasn’t a sharp one. It was more curiosity than anything else, more him trying to figure out how her mind worked than anything judgemental. “You think I do this because I want to be a target?” he asked immediately after, hardly enough breath to indicate a pause between the questions.
Valerie gave him a sharp look, refusing to be overwhelmed by so many questions at once. “No, I saw something when we had that emotion... switch... thing. I think I know why you do what you do.” She looked away, embarrassed for him and not wanting to see his reaction to the knowledge. “I meant people who are unstable, who look for things outside themselves to blame.”
He knew she’d seen something, knew he didn’t want to know too damn much about whatever it was. “It’s still outside myself, ain’t it?” he asked, because it was. He blamed himself and not the world, and maybe that was the difference, but he didn’t think it was any better, not at the end of the day. “How about you show me how not to blame myself or other folks for things? What’s the damn alternative?” he asked, no anger in the asking.
She reached up and brushed his chin with the tips of her fingers. Levez la tête, her mother used to tell her, when she was small. “Realize that it’s arrogant to think that there are not far more many causes for any one thing than just you, sweet.”
He chuckled. “That what that means?” he asked, not moving away from the small and unexpected caress. “I got no problem being arrogant. I’m pretty damn good at it, truth be told.”
“There you are then. Remember that, next time you want to take responsibility for something.” Something in his words caught her. Her eyes flickered with something sharp as well as gold. “Mention it to Monarch, while you’re at it.”
In his defense, he barely reacted. His shoulders tensed for less than a second, and his gaze went from something barely visible, but lazy, to something fast moving and focused on her face. “You think I spend a whole lot of time talking to rich men?” he asked carefully.
Valerie was impenetrable. She was watching him, or what she could see of him, but she didn’t tense, nor did she lean forward to see him better, or pull away to put distance between them. “I don’t know what you do. Obviously.”
He didn’t like it, any of it, and he put the distance between them that she had not. He stepped back, and he looked at her, mouth grim beneath the hood. “You got something to say?” he asked her, his whole body speaking of tension and stress, the ease of a few moments earlier melted away.
“Do you?” she asked, trying to remain serene and not really managing it. As he moved back, she let her knees drift closed and her shoulders settle closer to her spine, reacting to his defensiveness without thinking. It was too strange that both men would have the same problems, wear the same set of their shoulders, sound so alike when they forgot to think. It made her feel colder, not warmer, as if somehow she’d just realized she was in a world where there were two of everyone.
He had absolutely nothing to say, nothing that he wanted to say, anyway. “It’s getting cold,” he said, but it wasn’t. “We best get on back,” he said, though there was really no reason to. Still, he didn’t take a step toward the bike, the realization that the entire set-up with Preston was for naught weighing heavy on his mind, even without the damn confirmation he was waiting for her to blurt out at him. “Go on and say what you have to say, woman.”
She didn’t think he deserved it. This was no small lie, and though Valerie was willing to pay for a salary with lies, this felt different; it felt like betrayal, though this man owed her nothing. Perhaps that was why it felt like betrayal, if he owed her nothing and needed nothing, why would he do this? She tried to think about Orin and Arrow, and which she knew first and what they had said, but she couldn’t. “...I don’t have anything to say.”
He cursed, low and under his breath, and he climbed onto the bike without warning, striding forward and turning the engine over without saying a damn thing. He waited for her to re-settle, and he thought about telling her how lost he was feeling just then, but it was something Arrow would say to the woman on the bike. It was not something Orin Monarch would say to his paid fiancee. He kept silent, held his tongue, and took the bike’s weight on his feet as he waited.
She didn’t resettle, and she didn’t put her foot back on the rest near the warm wheels and the chrome. He was closer but the intimacy was gone, and she didn’t know what to do--but she knew she didn’t want to go back and get dropped off and pretend. She was at the limits of her patience there, and she knew it. He knew it.
Abruptly, Valerie pulled her leg off the bike and jumped off so violently that she almost fell sideways. She made a quick, graceless recovery, and backed away from the exhaust, giving him a furious stare. “You’re going to have to explain it now!” she shouted at him, angry, hurt, more hurt than angry, impossibly. “You didn’t before, but you’re going to have to now, damn you.” She didn’t diminish in volume and she was clearly audible over the engine.
He kept the motor running, a quiet rumble between them, and he slowly reached up and pushed the hood back, tugging the green eye mask off when he did it. “What the hell do you want me to say?” he asked, letting his voice slip into its normal cadence, less south, more rumble. She looked gorgeous, angry like that, and he was man enough not to be able to ignore it, even with things the way they were. “You can walk out, and I’ll still pay you, but you got to keep your mouth shut.” It wasn’t the most gentlemanly thing to say, and it wasn’t the most gallant, but it was what it was.
She flared, like a match. “I want you to admit to me what this is! What you are doing! Was this a game?” Looking into his eyes, now devastatingly familiar, she felt like a prize fool, and she knew he could probably tell. No one, no man, especially, had ever played on her desire for affection without ties while practically mocking her need for stability. (She called it ‘stability’ in her mind, not ‘money.’) Valerie took in a breath that hurt and held it, fists curling.
Her anger was something he’d been imagining since day one of his deceit, which was a good thing, because it would have knocked him off the damn bike otherwise, the force of it. “It wasn’t intentional,” he said, because that was true, even if she didn’t believe. “I don’t even know how it happened, if you want the damn honest truth.”
She didn’t. Not a bit. “LIAR.” She flew at him, without any particular intention, not really fists and not really kicks but just anger and weight. She tried to knock him and that damn bike over in a heap. “I am not a TOY!”
The bike didn’t budge, of course, and neither did he. He grabbed her wrists and pulled them up, where she could do no harm with her fists or nails, and he used the grip to hold her in place. “It wasn’t intentional,” he insisted. “I saw you out one night, and I liked how you talked to me when you didn’t know who I was.” And wasn’t that one hell of a confession. “Get on the damn bike.”
“No!” She refused to acknowledge the fact that she was crying, and she pulled back on her hands. “It was intentional, you lied to me, you intentionally lied to me because you knew I didn’t want to know, that I didn’t want it to be like... like...” She gave an embarrassing wet sniff, and then interrupted herself with a hoarse little scream of frustration. “Let go!”
He let her go. “Like what?” he demanded. “Like you actually talking to me without wanting my money? Yeah, I did like that part, now that you mention it.”
Incoherent, by this time, because Valerie was just as emotional as the next woman. “Bastard, I hate you, you did this, not me, YOU.”
Oh, he wasn’t letting her get away with that, and he was getting too angry to realize it was the first damn thing he’d felt in a real long time. He climbed off the bike, and he advanced on her. “What in sam hell did I do to you, woman?” he demanded as he moved toward her.
Valerie held her ground and swept tears out from under her eyes so it wouldn’t smear her mascara, completely unconscious. “I didn’t want this to be complicated! It was supposed to be private, it wasn’t supposed to be for you and your stupid mask obsession, or your idiotic reasons for wanting a wife for a shield from the media, it was supposed to be MINE and you TOOK IT.” She shouted in his face if he got close enough.
He stopped walking, and he had the decency to look confused, because damn if he knew what the woman was referring to just then. “What? The marriage, or this?” he asked, because he needed to know what he was defending, dammit.”
“This, you idiot,” she screeched, shaking a fist at his face. She considered kicking him and tried to pace instead.
He almost chuckled - almost. And he crossed to her and dragged her against him without any indication that he intended to move.
The arrogance took her breath away, and not at all in a good way. She did try to kick him then.
All the kevlar and covering meant that kick hurt her more than it hurt him, and he remained an immovable thing, solid and without give. “Honey, you climbed into bed with a Mask. What the hell did you think this was? Me playing dress up?”
Her boots held up alright under the assault, and Valerie hadn’t any aim, so she just ended up stuck and angry and blind from the stupid tears and the makeup. “You doing what you always do, to every woman you’ve ever met. I am not STUPID.”
He grabbed her to him, held her there so that she couldn’t possibly doubt that she was pressed against kevlar and cold hardness. “No,” he said, firm, sober and dark in a way that generally didn’t reach the surface with him. “I have never risked this in the damn suit.” He meant it.
She’d always hated the damn armor, preferring the man underneath, and now she didn’t know what she preferred. “Liar,” she said, with more sob and less anger now, “you said there were others with you in this damn ridiculous get-up.”
“No,” he clarified. “I said women wanted to get into the damn get-up. I’ve never gone into someone’s apartment, and I’ve never gone back.” He tipped her chin up, familiar leather on her skin. “I don’t go back for seconds, honey.”
That seemed to get through, if only for a second. “I’m just supposed to take your word on that?” She tried to conceal that she almost had, but not very well. Damn, she was coming apart too quickly for this conversation to do her any good.
He didn’t answer. He just kept his fingers beneath her chin, and he dropped his head and claimed her mouth with his own.
Valerie was not feeling particularly amorous. She was feeling vulnerable, angry, embarrassed, and betrayed. She gave a little muffled sound of mingled surprise and outrage, and then she shoved at him. She was not just going to... to melt! “Arrogant son of a bitch!” She shouted at him, loud enough to start a bird from a nearby tree.
He wondered when she realized shoving wasn’t really going to do a damn thing for her. “You’re just ornery because I got you,” he said, gripping her wrist and hauling her forward again. “I got something you didn’t want to give, and you only gave it up because you thought I was too damn dumb in my green suit to realize it.”
Valerie took in an angry breath, because of course he was right, and she couldn’t slap him if he had her wrist. “I didn’t give you anything,” she spat angrily, the denial making her feel much better about the situation. “And you are a fool in your stupid green suit.” She just said it because she hated that he wasn’t hurt by this like she was.
Oh, she’d given him something alright, and she could deny it as much as she wanted, it didn’t change a thing. He’d known it the first time she got on the bike, and he’d known it every damn time he’d gone back. “I know I am,” he said, because he knew he was a fool, but it didn’t change the fact that he wasn’t going to stop. “I’d have kept on you as Arrow, even if there wasn’t a damn marriage contract,” he said, which was the truth, and as much of a confession as he was willing to give her.
She stopped moving, back or forward, and just stood there while her eyes filled up and the hurt threatened to overcome the anger. “So your solution was to go buy me?!”
“I bought you first, and woman, you didn’t give me a damn thing when I bought you. Don’t you go pretending you did,” he said, a bit of his own anger flaring back at her. “You did nothing but give me grief about every damn thing.”
Outraged sputter. She’d been fishing for a handkerchief out of her coat pocket and stopped now to glare at him. “I did no such thing, you are just used to ruling everyone’s life all the time!”
“You practically made the damn deal for me the first time we met. You wanted my money. Fine. I gave you the damn money!” It was the first time he’d really raised his voice. The money thing, it was a touchy subject. “You didn’t want Arrow’s money.” As if that required clarification.
Money was definitely a touchy subject. Red-eyed, stained, splotchy, and furious, Valerie shook a fist with a square of wrinkled white cloth in it in his face. “That has nothing to do with it!”
“Of course it does, Valerie!” He grabbed the handkerchief and balled it in his hand, then threw it away onto the green grass. “You were playing two damn parts as much as I was. Don’t get huffy because I figured it out before you did, not when you were doing the same damn thing.”
“I was doing no such thing,” she raged back. “I am who I am all the time. Just because I chose not to tell you some things, and you snuck around in a mask pretending to be someone else so I would anyway--”
“Don’t give me that shit, honey. We both know it’s a lie. You can get all high and mighty when you own up to your own actions,” he said, angry enough not to watch what he said. “Choosing not to tell me something isn’t the same as what you did, and we both know it, so get your ass on the bike and let me drop you home.” He grabbed her arm again, hauled her close again. “Contract over.”
“What I did! I didn’t do anything! I agreed--you agreed!” Panic as her opportunity at safety slipped away shot down her spine, and she arched back as her eyes went wide with alarm. “You can’t do that, you said--”
“You can keep the damn money, Valerie. I said that from the beginning. Take it. Go. Scream at the damn tabloids about what a cheating bastard I am. Just don’t you dare tell them about this,” he said, motioning to what he wore.
Valerie took in a slow breath in through her nose, and a little silent aftershock of a sob interrupted. The clearing was bizarrely quiet without her screaming at him, still and tense, bowed back in his grip. “I didn’t do anything to you,” she said, with a semblance of calm.
Rationally, he knew that. Rationally, he did. But that didn’t change the fact that she’d taken away something that mattered to him, too, and the realization that it mattered was something he was having a whole lot of trouble processing. He let go of her. “Get on the bike,” he repeated.
For no apparent reason, this brought on a flood of new tears that overflowed on the carefully dabbed wet makeup. “Fine.” She tapped her cheek with the heel of her hand, took another breath to get the sobbing under control, and pushed past him to the bike.
He didn’t understand why the woman was crying. She’d won. He’d set her up with more damn money than she could ever hope for, and she wouldn’t have to deal with his ass. He thought he understood women, but this one made no damn sense. He followed a second later, and he closed his hands around her hips, without any pretense that he wasn’t as strong as he was, and he lifted her onto it.
She didn’t like it. Once she was seated she pushed his hands away and gave him a wet, furious look that was somewhat subdued compared to the previous explosion. “I am not a child.” Sniff.
“I think I know that,” he said, a hint of a smile breaking through, and then he climbed on the bike himself. He tugged up the hood, eschewing the eyemask entirely, and he started the bike fast, with a jerk that would leave her no choice but to grab on.
She did, even though she was unwilling to get too close to him and she made that as clear as possible by sitting back whenever he slowed down, or there was no turn. She took the opportunity to get more tears out of the way, since he could hardly look back and see them, and it wasn’t like he’d be able to feel it in all that kevlar.
He didn’t say a word throughout the entire ride, and he deposited her in front of the Aubade gates, rather than where he’d found her. He didn’t, however, let her get off the bike. He reached one hand back to her thigh, closing his fingers around fabric and skin. “Tomorrow morning. I’ll come get you at 5. If you want to call everything off after I’ve showed you what I got to show you, then fine.”
“You are the one calling it off, not me.” She’d gotten a good handle on her emotions over the course of the ride; the wind always cleared her head. She reached back to comb her hair back over her ears, and she’d managed to de-smear at least some of the eyeliner. A little powder and she’d be good as new. “I didn’t do this, this... this deceit. You know who I am. I’ll be here, because, in case you don’t recall, I don’t have anywhere else to go at the moment.” That was not technically true, but he didn’t need to know that, or about Cass. She dropped her knee to pull away from him and get off.
“You just don’t get it, do you?” he asked, and he knew she didn’t, knew maybe she couldn’t. He revved the engine once she got off, and he walked the bike back a few steps, until he was alongside her on the sidewalk. “This deceit is necessary. Know what I spent the day doing yesterday? Waiting to see if some idiot got his head blown off at the Times. Think about that, and then talk to me about deceit.”
Valerie stood back on the curb, but she made an abortive movement that looked a lot like she intended to throttle him with her bare hands. “I meant sleeping with me, you self-centered bastard, not that.”
“I did that ‘cause I wanted to,” he said, smirk visible beneath the hood, a rev of the engine serving as emphasis for his words.
“Because you are a lying, cheating, sneaking rake,” she said, and it wasn’t a compliment since it sounded too antique when she said it. “I do not want to see you, so just... just go away, and find someone else to play with.” She whirled around toward the gates.
“Outside, 5 am,” he said, in the tone he used for employees he expected to do what he said.
“No,” she said, not even bothering to turn around when she said it, and storming off toward the building. It was taking most of her concentration not to cry, anyway, damn him.
“Have it your way,” he said, voice going hard at the rejection of something she didn’t realize was important. The bike rumbled and was gone a second later. He had a lawyer to see.