The first time I tried to be nice, she looked at me like I'd betrayed her.
"Don't," she said. "I don't know how to handle you when you're like this."
And that was when I understood.
She didn't want the man I was trying to become.
She wanted the monster.
---
After the third month, something changed in me.
Not in her. In me.
I started trying.
Not just to keep her. To be someone worth keeping.
I came home early. I canceled meetings. I turned off my phone.
I made her breakfast.
The eggs were burnt. The toast was charcoal. The coffee was too strong.
She ate it anyway.
"You're trying," she said.
"I don't try. I do."
"This is trying." She took a bite of the burnt toast. Chewed. Swallowed. Smiled. "And it's not bad. For a first attempt."
---
I thought that smile meant something.
I thought she was softening.
I was wrong.
She wasn't softening. She was testing me. Watching to see how far I would go. How much of myself I would give up before I realized she didn't want any of it.
She didn't want the man who made breakfast.
She wanted the man who had taken her from that gallery.
She wanted the monster.
---
"I want to take you somewhere," I said.
"Where?"
"It's a surprise."
"I don't like surprises."
"You'll like this one."
She studied me for a long moment.
"Okay," she said.
Just like that night in the penthouse. One word. Small and quiet and full of something she wasn't saying.
---
I took her to the roof.
Not the roof of my building – the roof of a different building. One I'd bought three weeks ago without telling her. One I'd been having redesigned in secret.
The elevator opened onto a garden.
Not a rooftop terrace with potted plants and expensive furniture. A real garden. Grass underfoot. Flowers in bloom. A small tree in the corner with lights strung through its branches. The city sprawled below us, distant and irrelevant, while above us the sky stretched dark and infinite.
She stepped out of the elevator and stopped.
Her hand went to her chest. Her lips parted. Her eyes moved slowly across the space, taking in every detail, every flower, every light.
"You did this?" she whispered.
"I had people do it. But I told them what to do."
"Why?"
I shoved my hands in my pockets. Looked away. Felt something hot and uncomfortable crawling up my throat.
"Because you spend all your time inside. Because you used to read by the window and now you just stare at nothing. Because I wanted to give you something that wasn't mine."
She turned to look at me.
Her eyes were shining.
"Not yours?"
"The garden is yours. The roof is yours. I bought the building so no one else could ever come up here. But the space itself..." I shrugged. "It's not for me. It's for you."
---
She cried.
Not the way other women cried – loud and dramatic, hoping for comfort. She cried quietly. Silently. A single tear sliding down her cheek that she wiped away quickly, like she was embarrassed to be caught.
"Christabel—"
"Why are you doing this?"
Her voice cracked. Just a little. Just enough to make my chest hurt.
"Why am I doing what?"
"Being nice." She said the word like it tasted strange. "You don't... you're not supposed to be nice. You're supposed to be dangerous. You're supposed to take. That's what you do. That's who you are."
I stepped closer.
"I'm trying to be someone else."
"Don't."
The word was sharp. Almost angry.
I stopped.
"What?"
"Don't try to be someone else." She looked up at me, her eyes wet, her jaw tight. "I don't know how to handle you when you're like this. I don't know what you want from me. I don't know—"
"I want you to be happy."
"That's not what this is."
"Then what is it?"
She shook her head. Stepped back. Put distance between us that felt like miles.
"This is a cage," she said quietly. "A beautiful cage. With flowers and lights and a tree. But it's still a cage. And you're still the one holding the key."
---
I didn't know what to say.
For the first time in my life, I didn't have words. Didn't have a threat or a promise or a lie dressed up as truth.
She was right.
The garden was a cage. A beautiful one. But a cage nonetheless.
I'd bought a building so she could have a rooftop. I'd filled it with flowers because she used to have a plant by her window. I'd strung lights through the branches because I'd noticed she left the lamps on at night, like she was afraid of the dark.
Every detail was about her.
But the building was mine. The key was mine. The choice – whether she could leave, whether she could stay – was mine.
I hadn't given her anything.
I'd just decorated her prison.
---
"I'm sorry," I said.
The words felt foreign. Heavy. Like stones in my mouth.
She looked at me. Really looked at me. Not with fear or distance or careful neutrality. With something closer to confusion. Like she was seeing me for the first time.
"You've never said that to anyone," she said.
It wasn't a question.
"No."
"Why are you saying it to me?"
"Because I don't want you to look at me the way you looked at me just now. Like I'm your jailer. Like I'm the reason you stopped smiling."
She was quiet for a long moment.
The city hummed below us. The lights swayed in the breeze. A plane passed somewhere overhead, its blinking lights disappearing into the clouds.
"You're not my jailer," she said finally.
"Then what am I?"
"I don't know yet." She stepped closer. One step. Two. Close enough that I could smell her – tea and flowers and something that was just her. "But I know you're trying. And I know that scares me more than anything else."
"Why?"
"Because if you're trying to be good, that means you want something from me. And I don't know if I have it to give."
---
I didn't touch her that night.
I wanted to. God, I wanted to. Every instinct screamed at me to pull her close, to kiss her, to remind her – and myself – that she was mine.
But I didn't.
I stood there in the garden I'd built for her, surrounded by flowers I'd chosen because they reminded me of her skin, and I let her have the space she needed.
She walked to the edge of the roof. Pressed her hands against the railing. Looked out at the city like she was looking for something.
"What did you want to be?" she asked. "Before all this. Before the danger and the money and the people who disappear. What did you want to be?"
No one had ever asked me that.
No one had ever cared.
"I don't remember," I said.
"That's sad."
"That's life."
She turned. Her face was soft in the glow of the lights. Her eyes were dark and deep and full of something that looked like pity but felt like understanding.
"It doesn't have to be," she said.
---
We stayed on the roof until the sun came up.
We didn't talk much. Didn't touch. Just existed in the same space, watching the city wake up, watching the sky turn from black to purple to pink to gold.
When the first light hit her face, she closed her eyes and tilted her head back like she was drinking it in.
"You look like the sun," I said.
She opened her eyes. Looked at me.
"That's the second time you've said that."
"It's true every time."
She smiled.
Not the small, careful smile she gave me in the penthouse. Not the guarded smile she gave strangers at events.
A real smile.
The one I'd been chasing since the first night.
"Thank you," she said. "For the garden. For trying. For..." she gestured at the sunrise, the city, the space between us. "For this."
"Don't thank me."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm not doing it for you."
She tilted her head.
"Who are you doing it for?"
I looked at her. At the sunlight on her face. At the smile that was already starting to fade, like she was afraid of letting me see it for too long.
"Myself," I said. "I'm trying to see if I can be someone else. Someone who deserves you."
She didn't say anything.
But her smile didn't fade.
It stayed.
Small and real and devastating.
And I thought – foolishly, stupidly, like the naive fool I'd become – that maybe I could do this. Maybe I could be good. Maybe I could keep her.
---
I didn't know that being good would be the thing that lost her.
I didn't know that she didn't want someone who deserved her.
She wanted the monster.
And the monster was already dying.
---
END OF CHAPTER 4
---
First Line of Chapter 5 (Rewritten Teaser):
"The first time she pushed back, I didn't know whether to punish her or worship her. So I did both. And that was when I realized that the line between love and war was thinner than ever