Behind the Green Curtain (13 page)

“Dinner, movie.” Laura shrugged,
hands sliding to Caton’s back as she stepped closer. “Or we could stay here.”

When Laura leaned in, lips teasing
Caton’s cheek, it was tempting. Because it was easy. Laura wanted her. She was
good to her. She may have even had feelings for her that she hadn’t yet
declared. Sometimes it felt that way. No matter how Caton tried to force it,
though, in the moment, easy wasn’t enough.

“Dinner sounds good,” she responded,
hoping it sounded more like hunger than a brush-off.

It wasn’t rejection, though, it was
only postponement. After dinner, Caton felt more like herself, Laura felt less
like a substitute, and, when she woke up the next morning with someone lying next
to her, it was easy for Caton to pretend it was who she wanted it to be.

Chapter 22

Apparently saying she didn’t need
Caton wasn’t enough. Amelia felt the need to drive the point home with every
action. When Caton returned to work Monday morning, Amelia avoided the places
Caton would be, barely acknowledged her greetings, and when Caton finally went
into Amelia’s office, against all hope of self-preservation, to ask if she
could talk to Amelia, she saw the frost reform right before her eyes when Amelia
looked up and said, “What do we have to talk about?”

Caton wanted to rail, to scream, to
demand an explanation for Amelia showing up at her apartment and kissing her
the way she had, deeply, as if she meant it. She doubted Amelia would hear
anything said to her inside the armor of ice, though, which, as far as Caton
could tell, had zero points of vulnerability.

Not that she tried particularly
hard to find one. Remembering her reactions to Amelia, the rush of  elation,
the immediacy with which she had yielded her very will, Caton wasn’t sure it
was in her best interest to restore the balance between them. Before Amelia,
she’d always had a very rational understanding of romantic relationships. She
really didn’t need some clandestine fling messing with her head.

In the wake of Amelia’s most recent
lapse in judgment, work was left on Caton’s desk without commentary, and Caton
did it. That was all there needed to be between them. Anything else had
repercussions, and repercussions Caton couldn’t afford.

“Are you coming to the Halston
& Company holiday party?” Amelia’s voice came out of nowhere, surprising
enough after two weeks of silence that Caton jerked forward and smashed her hip
into the edge of the desk. Grunting, her hand went to the point of pain as she remembered
with dismay what happened when she showed Amelia weakness.

“Sorry,” Amelia had the surprising
good grace to say, and Caton glanced back at her.

One hand holding on at the
doorframe, Amelia’s other hung loosely beside her, and Caton was annoyed to see
that she didn’t look the least bit uncomfortable. She looked like an employer
coming to talk to an employee. Nothing more.

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Caton
responded. “I don’t really work there.”

“Well, Jack said you could come,”
Amelia replied, tacking on more carefully, “I want you to come.”

For a moment, it almost sounded
like concession, like it had leaked through a crack in that armor, and Caton
damn near fell for it. “I’m busy that night,” she finally responded, turning
back toward her desk.

“Then cancel.” Amelia’s response
was less conciliatory, and Caton knew it wasn’t a request. She just didn’t know
which Amelia she was being ordered by, the one who controlled her with
managerial authority or the one who controlled her by carnal influence.

Either way, it didn’t matter. She
would do as she was told.

~ ~ ~

Caton knew Laura had plans the
night of the Halston & Company holiday party. The only reason she told
Laura about it at all was to explain why she couldn’t come to the get-together
Laura was having before she left town for a few weeks.

Caton never expected Laura to
volunteer to change her plans, or to look so anxious for an invitation when she
asked if the party was employee-only. That was how she ended up walking through
the door with Laura’s hand in hers, as if they were a couple outside their
circles of friends and acquaintances and the casual mentions of Laura that
Caton had made to her parents to appease their persistent parental curiosity.

Not seeing Amelia would have been
the ideal, so, of course, Amelia was the first thing Caton saw when she walked
through the door. Standing next to Jack as if they were the queen and king of a
wealthy kingdom, Amelia smiled at the employees of Halston & Company,
clasping their hands with false joy, like she remembered and was glad to see
each one. Or maybe Amelia did remember them. Maybe she truly was glad. It was
such a rare phenomenon, Caton still had difficulty telling when Amelia was
being sincere.

Hired right after New Year’s, she
had just missed the party the year before, had just missed meeting this Amelia
first, the one who made everyone feel acknowledged and at-ease. It was for the
best, she knew. She would have fallen for the boss’ wife in a single night.
Even knowing Amelia’s many flaws hadn’t kept her from giving in to Amelia’s
more appealing traits.

As expected, Amelia was dressed at
a level of designer luxury that was almost absurd in the room. The dress alone
probably cost more than Jack paid five of the mid-level employees who mingled
around them in a week. Where Caton would have anticipated some perfectly-pinned
updo, though, one that made her look more expensive and less approachable,
there was the familiar dark fall of Amelia’s hair, dipping just past her
shoulders to brush the bare skin exposed by the off-shoulder dress. Remembering
the feel of that hair against the side of her face, brushing the inside of her
thighs, Caton swallowed an upswell of longing she hoped didn’t show.

When Amelia’s gaze at last found
her, the smile that came to her lips might have been real too. Then, Amelia’s
eyes tracked to Laura and the smile slipped, replaced near-instantly by a look
that Caton tried not to let worry her. Often, Amelia did nothing but her worst,
and she hadn’t broken Caton yet. Sometimes, it seemed the only part of Amelia
that wasn’t completely noxious was her facade, but there were times when Caton
hated it the most. Because it was unfairly misleading. Perhaps if Amelia’s
outside matched her inside, she would be easier to resist.

“Do you want to say hi to your
boss?” Laura asked, and Caton realized she’d been caught staring at Amelia. She
only wished she knew for how long.

“Let’s get a drink,” she responded,
pulling Laura by the hand to escape Amelia’s penetrating gaze.

Beelining for the bar, she picked
up two glasses of champagne, handing one to Laura and sipping the other even as
she tried to decide what she wanted from the open bar. A liberal application of
alcohol was the only way she would get through the night, she could tell
already, and she trusted Laura to keep her from making a fool of herself. Which
was more than she could say for Amelia.

“This place is incredible,” Laura
said, looking past Caton at the food spread and candlelit tables, before
glancing up at the lights falling like icicles from the ceiling. “Maybe working
for this company isn’t so bad.”

“I don’t work for this company,”
Caton reminded her sullenly.

“Wow,” Laura returned, eyes
affixing to Caton’s face with surprise and concern. Both clearly readable,
because Laura didn’t try to hide anything. “You’re really not appreciating any
of this, are you?”

“I didn’t want to come,” Caton
admitted, sighing. “You shouldn’t have let me bring you. I am going to be a
miserable date.”

“Why?” Laura asked, taking a step
closer, lips turned softly upward, coaxing Caton into relaxing without forcing
her. “Look at this place. They dropped a lot of money on this. It doesn’t
matter why you’re here. Just eat and drink and enjoy it.”

Smile slowly breaking through,
Caton was reminded of every reason she was attracted to Laura in an instant.
Eyes trailing down the black dress, her fingers reached out to skim the smooth
surface of Laura’s arm. “You look really beautiful,” she whispered.

“You already said that,” Laura
responded, smile expanding as she took a drink.

“It deserves to be repeated,” Caton
declared, sliding her arm around Laura’s waist to lead her to a nearby table.

It wasn’t her plan to come to the
party. It wasn’t her plan to bring Laura. All of Caton’s plans had fallen
through, so she needed a new plan. She had come with Laura, and Laura was more
than beautiful. She was funny, she was optimistic, she was willing to sit close
enough to Caton that it was obvious they were together and to make small talk
with Caton’s past coworkers who joined them at their table.

Laura was a good person. Laura was
a good date. Laura was the kind of woman anyone would want to spend time with
and introduce to her family. She had no secrets. She had no desire to control
or manipulate. She was exactly the kind of woman Caton should have been giving
her all to keep. Laura deserved that, and Caton knew if she didn’t start doing
it, someone else would.

“Do you want another drink?” she
asked with a laugh a few hours later, as Laura finally succeeded in getting it
through to a guy from advertising that she was not about to try the
hotter-than-hell salsa that had turned the faces of everyone else at the table
red and had them reaching for their glasses, wishing they had chosen water over
alcohol.

“I probably shouldn’t,” Laura
responded, glancing at the sip left in the bottom of her glass. “But yeah,
sure.”

“We can call a cab,” Caton assured
her. Slight intoxication spurring her to affection, she leaned in to kiss
Laura’s warm cheek before getting up from the table. Amazingly enough, in spite
of herself, she had been in a good mood for most of the night. The open bar
didn’t hurt, but neither did the people at her table. The workers of Halston
& Company weren’t total bores, and Laura had been far more perfect than
Caton deserved.

Perhaps the real secret wasn’t in
who was present, though, but in who was missing. Since they had made their
entrance, Caton hadn’t seen Amelia, and not having Amelia around, not thinking
about her, not longing for her, was welcome relief.

In the past, it was always when
Caton trained her thoughts away from Amelia, when she was certain the other
woman wouldn’t come, that Amelia seemed to appear, so she should have been
expecting it. She should have seen it coming. Regardless, the body that checked
her through the slit in one set of red velvet curtains that hung over the
windows around the room took her totally by surprise, as did the cold blast of
air that came with being on the wrong side of the fabric.

The only thing that stopped Caton
from screaming was the knowledge that only one person in the room felt she had
the right to manhandle her in such as fashion, and she turned toward Amelia
with a glare, finding the space behind the curtain surprisingly accommodating.
Standing fully sideways in the floor to ceiling window frame, she had room to
spare. When she glanced toward the glass at the street some thirty floors
below, though, she had to put her hand on the cool surface to steady herself.

“What in the hell are you doing?”
she hissed to Amelia.

The sliver of light that leaked
between the towering curtains at her back casting her face into shadow,
Amelia’s features darkened as she stepped closer. “Are you having fun?” she
asked.

“I was,” Caton returned.

“With the little people?”

“Yes,” Caton countered with a smile
only half-forced. “One guy even works in the mailroom.”

“You’re really not proud, are you?”
Amelia tossed back.

Smile dropping from her lips, Caton
tried to push past Amelia, but Amelia’s hand, light on her arm, was all it took
to hold her in place. The only escape would be a scene and explaining that to
Laura was the last thing she wanted to do. Not when she’d just realized she
needed to be better for Laura, to focus on what she should want, instead of
what seized her and made her lose her senses.

Even standing with Amelia now,
Caton felt outside of herself. Amelia had too much power over her. She was
dangerous.

“You’ve been ignoring me,” Amelia
said, as if she had made any effort to talk to Caton or be near her. Of course,
that wasn’t what Amelia meant. She meant Caton was supposed to come to the
party and stare longingly at her from across the room, to make Amelia feel
beautiful and powerful and desired, while she got nothing in return.

With a contemptuous laugh, Caton
glanced out the window, no longer bothered by the precipitous drop. If the
glass weren’t there, she would have stepped off the ledge rather than continue
the conversation. “I’ve been ignoring you?” she snapped. “You have been
ignoring me for days.”

Smiling a little, Amelia eased toward
Caton, fingers trailing up and down her arm. “Did that bother you?” she asked.

Climbing quickly to a point where
she didn’t care what kind of scene she had to explain, Caton wanted nothing
more than to shove Amelia out of her way and escape. And nothing more than to
stay where she was and let Amelia’s touch move where it would.

“Let me go,” she said weakly.

Hand moving up the slope of Caton’s
shoulder, Amelia stepped closer instead, her long fingers smoothing down the
side of Caton’s throat, dipping into the hollow at its base, before flicking at
the neckline of her dress.

As much as she needed to be
Amelia’s opponent, Caton was always her accomplice, always more willing than
she wanted to be. Fingers trailing back up her throat to spread across her jawline,
she let Amelia conduct her, not even noticing Amelia’s free hand gathering the
fabric of her dress, hitching it upward little by little, until the cold air
blew across her ankles.

Realizing her intent, Caton grabbed
Amelia’s hand in a grip that she could tell hurt. Amelia could hide almost
anything, but she couldn’t hide pain, and Caton gentled her touch just enough
to ease the look. “You came to my apartment,” she uttered. “You kissed me.
Then, you ignored me. Again. And now, you really think I’m going to let you
fuck me behind a curtain in a room full of people?”

Amelia’s reply was concise and
brutal. Hand returning to Caton’s shoulder, she pushed hard enough that Caton
grunted as she hit the flat surface of the window frame behind her. Pressing
closer, pinning her in place, she gave Caton no chance to respond, to flee, to
fight, if that had been Caton’s instinct. Caton wished it could have been her
instinct. She knew it should have been her instinct.