down most of the time, sometimes on the garden outside the window, which she clearly admired.
My eyes stayed on her the entire time, grabbing my sandwich without looking, taking bites as I took in her features for the hundredth time. It was the first time she and I had had a meal together. In her cabin, sometimes I would eat, sometimes she would eat, but never at the same time.
“How’s your day going?” She buttered a piece of bread with the homemade jam my pastry chef made then took a bite.
I wasn’t a fan of small talk, so I shrugged, doing the bare minimum to participate.
“You seem to work a lot.”
“What else is there to do?”
She stilled at the question and stared for a while, like she didn’t know how to answer that.
I picked up the other half of my sandwich and took a bite.
“What are you working on right now?”
I chewed my bite as I stared her down. “I don’t want to talk about work.” She would never understand any of it, and I wasn’t happy about the way things were going at the moment.
“Okay…” She took a drink of her tea. “Does your family live in Paris?”
I paused at the question momentarily, flashbacks playing across my mind. As much as I tried to scrub those memories from my brain, they were permanent. They didn’t live in Paris…but they were buried in Paris. And my father’s body had been thrown into the ocean, to be forgotten, not to be remembered by anyone. “I don’t want to talk about that either.”
Disappointment filled her eyes. “My father abandoned us after I was born. I don’t remember him.” She shared that information unexpectedly, like she just wanted to talk to me, even if I was only listening. “My mom raised us until she got sick…and then Raven took over.”
I finished the bite in my mouth as I listened. My eyes dropped for a moment as the clarity struck me. Raven was like me—taking care of her sister the way I took care of Magnus. Dead mothers and worthless fathers. “I’m sorry.”
Her eyes softened at my comment, because I would never say something I didn’t mean. “Thanks.”
I took a piece of bread and slathered it in butter before I took a bite, eating with polite manners since she did as well. If I were alone, I wouldn’t bother. Too much work when my energy was reserved for more important things. “How did you spend your time in America?” I knew nothing about her as a person. I knew her body like my own, knew her subtle reactions, her presence, but nothing substantial. That information was irrelevant because it wouldn’t change the way I felt, so it had never been important to me.
“I was a bartender…going to cosmetology school,” she said with a slight twinge of embarrassment. “Raven is the smart one. After college, she moved to Paris for her graduate studies—”
“I don’t care about her.” Her only relevance was their relation. Outside that context, I didn’t give a damn about her life and accomplishments. “Being educated and being smart are two different things. The only reason you live in her shadow is because you choose to stand there. Move.”
She rested her fingertips on her teacup as she absorbed my words.
“If she were smart, she wouldn’t have been picked for the Red Snow. She wouldn’t have run into a blizzard. She would have kept her head down instead of pissing off every single guard in that camp. She doesn’t belong on the pedestal where you’ve placed her.”
Her eyes shone a little brighter as she stared at me, words sitting on her tongue that she struggled to say. “You think she’s stupid for trying to be free. Your definition of smart is submission.” Melanie caved to me in every way imaginable, but this was the one thing she wouldn’t bend for. Instead of keeping her mouth shut, she defended her sister.
“I believe in working smart, not hard. Every choice she makes harshens her conditions, makes her existence more unbearable. Her outcome won’t change, so instead of trying to improve her quality of life like the other girls, she chooses to attempt the impossible. Idiotic. Her time could be better spent.” I took a drink of my water and stared at Melanie, wondering if she would make the wrong decision and push this conversation.
She dropped her gaze.
Good.
After lunch, I returned to my office.
I approached my desk where my laptop remained. A cup of hot black coffee