Chapter 42 Episode 42

“Really?” I ask. “I would have thought being unemployed would give you a little downtime.” She grimaces, too to even glare at me the way she usually does. “Do you know how hard I worked to get to sous chef?” “If you worked half as hard to become sous chef as you have at fighting me, then I’m sure you earned it and then some.” She closes her eyes, lets her head loll back, and exhales deeply. “It’s necessary to fight back against a bully. Strength is the only language they understand.” “Now, you’re starting to sound like my father.” “He must’ve been a wise man.” “There were times when he was,” I admit. “But more often than not, he let his greed blind him.” “What was he greedy for?” she asks, sitting up and looking at me. “What most men are greedy for,” I say. “Power.” “You know all about that.” “Unlike my father, I don’t need to control the world in order to prove how powerful I am,” I tell her. “Power, like everything else, is an illusion.” “What an intelligent and well-rehearsed answer,” she drawls. “So why don’t I believe you?” “Because deep down, you know I’m not the stereotype you seem to think I am.” “You? Never. You’re special. Nuanced. So freaking deep,” she seethes sarcastically. “A less nuanced man would’ve cut your throat before you ever set foot off my boat.” The blunt truth does what I wanted it to do. Jessa pales visibly, shifting back and forth on the couch. “Just to be clear,” I add, “stealing the phone is not what saved you.” “No?” she asks, trying to maintain her calm, neutral tone. “What did?” I pause. “Would you like the truth?” “Your smile saved you,” I tell her. “The dimple in your right cheek saved you. The birthmark on the nape of your neck saved you. You were flawed in ways that are unspeakably beautiful to me.” She stares at me for a long time. The silence is thick, but it morphs as the seconds tick past, becoming something less fraught, less confrontational. “You really expect me to believe that?” she breathes finally. “To manipulate me,” she says. “To… to f**k with my head.” “Have I managed to get under your skin, Jessa?” Her scowl turns determined. “You caught me in a vulnerable moment on my worst day. Don’t think for one moment that that means you have control over me.” I smile. “You’re strong. I like that about you. That’s another thing that saved your life.” “Maybe I’m alive because you couldn’t bring yourself to kill me.” “I already told you: I do my own killing.” I crack my knuckles and my neck. “Is comfort what you’re looking for?” She hesitates. “Maybe. Maybe not.” This woman… She impresses me with her bold strength one moment and then disarms me with her naked honesty the next. I used to think it wasn’t possible for a woman to be both confident and vulnerable at the same time. That was before I met Jessa. “You’re not the comforting type, though, are you?” she asks. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never tried.” She gawks at me as though I’ve just been beamed down from another planet. I suppose in some respects, that’s how vast the differences between us are. “What was your childhood like?” she asks suddenly. I raise my eyebrows, but she doesn’t back down. “You know a lot about me,” she points out. “It’s only fair that I know something about you in return.” “For the purpose of reciprocity.” I smirk. “My childhood was… different.” “That much I figured. I was looking for something more specific.” “In order to understand me?” “It will be harder to hate me if you understand me,” I warn. “You taught me that lesson, remember?” Jessa shrugs, but it looks too practiced to be authentic. “I’ve considered that, but I’m curious, anyway. And I already don’t hate you. Not like I should.” “No? Even though I stole from you a job that you loved?” “Don’t you dare apologize to me or I’ll dislike you even less.” I shake my head. “I gave you enough warning and enough chances. Those are luxuries I don’t afford anyone else. You should have been smarter.” She sighs. “That’s better. Now, I’m back to disliking you the right amount. Asshole.” I smile, holding her gaze. “And all was right with the world.” She laughs, then the silence swallows it back up. “Hate is a useless emotion, you know,” she says after a while. “It serves no purpose other than to turn you bitter and angry all the time. It hurts you way more than the person you hate. Pure poison.” “Who have you hated in your life?” she asks softly. I wonder if she knows. I wonder if she can smell it on me. “My father, at times when I was a child. And also the woman I ended up marrying.” I expect her to ask about Marina, but she chooses to focus on my father first. “Why did you hate your dad?” “He was a hard man to love.” “He was hard on you?” I nod. “He had to be. He had to raise a don.” I can tell she’s frustrated by my vague, noncommittal answers. But what she doesn’t seem to realize is that I’m giving her so much more than I’ve given any other woman in my life. “And your wife,” she presses, sitting up a little straighter and angling her body towards me. “Why did you hate her?” “She was a cold-blooded bitch.” She narrows her eyes at me. “You’re gonna have to do better than that.” I laugh and cross my ankle over my knee. “We were not right together. We brought out the worst in each other.” “Are you trying to get me to confess to something, Jessa?” I chuckle. “Much scarier people than you have tried and failed.” “Failed because there’s nothing to confess? Or because you outwitted them?” She sighs and falls back into her relaxed position on the sofa. “Why did you even marry her if you hated her?” “It was a political alliance. ‘No’ was not an option.” She snorts. “Please. You don’t strike me as the kind of man who does anything that he doesn’t want to.” “True enough now,” I say. “But I wasn’t always the don of a powerful Bratva. I used to be the son of the don. And the son of the don does whatever his don wants.” “Hm. Did she want to get married?” She frowns. “You sound confident.” “I’d known Marina for years. Our fathers were allies and friends. She was half in love with me before it was even arranged. So yeah, she agreed to the match right away.” She rolls her eyes. “Then what? Did your ego get to her?” “Her ego was as much of a problem as mine. She was not used to not getting what she wanted.” “And what did she want?” “Far more than I could give her.” Jessa’s eyes sparkle under the lights of her cheap Ikea lamp shades. “I don’t hate Dane, you know,” she confesses. “Or Salma.” “You’d be justified in hating them.” “I know,” she murmurs. “But why give them that kind of power over me? My dad used to say, ‘Don’t let anyone live rent-free inside your head. It only hurts you.’” “Your father and I don’t sound like we’d get along.” She bursts out laughing. I watch her with fascination. The way her eyes close, wrinkling at the corners. The way her cheeks crease and her mouth falls open. “No,” she says when she finally stops laughing. “You’re right, you two wouldn’t get along. My mom would hate you, too.” “Too handsome,” she says without missing a beat. Jessa nods. “She doesn’t trust men who are too handsome. She says they’re the ones who’ll cheat on you and not feel guilty about it. She actually warned me about Dane when I first brought him home.” “Dane?” I scoff. “That motherfucker looks like he fell out of the Ugly Tree and hit every branch on the way down.” She stops short and looks at me curiously. I just shrug. “I was curious about the man you agreed to marry. I did my research. He didn’t impress me.” “Yeah, well, you’re smarter than I am then. He impressed me when we first met,” she says with a sigh. “And he was the best-looking guy I’d ever seen.” “Present company not included, I’m sure.” She shoots me an annoyed glance. “That first night I brought him to family dinner, Mom and I were doing the dishes after we finished eating and she asked me if I was sure about him. When I told her that I was, she told me to be careful because some men were ‘too pretty to be faithful.’” “Is your father a good-looking man?” I ask. She nods. “He was when he was young.” “That explains her theory. He cheated on her, didn’t he?” Jessa nods. “Yeah… You know, she might have a point.” I roll my eyes. “Of course she doesn’t.” “There are men who cheat and men who don’t,” I say. “It depends on the man, not his bone structure.” “What about you?” she asks. “Which category do you fall into?” “A class all my own.” “Jesus. Do you ever dial it down, your whole shtick?”