Valdieri House, the Small Sitting Room
At Celestina's words, Rain's arms tightened around the cat without her meaning to.
Her plan, coming here, had been to get it over with quickly. And now she sat on a soft carpet, in the middle of an exquisite little sitting room in a luxury home, surrounded by cat supplies every one of them labeled with care, while the kitten she had rescued—tended so carefully for so long—curled warm and boneless against her chest.
Rain looked at Celestina. Their eyes met, and Celestina blinked. Sunlight filtered through the leaves outside and spilled into those blue irises, and for a dazed second Rain saw the sea at midday, rippling gold. In Celestina's eyes she could see her own reflection spread across the whole glittering surface, as though she could sink into it at any moment.
And then, instinctively, Emily's warning surfaced: A powerful Alpha who has deceived you once is worth guarding against, even if she looks like an angel.
So Rain pressed her lips together and deliberately looked away.
Celestina kept watching her, and as Rain turned her head she quietly, imperceptibly, put a little more distance between them.
Rain glanced around the simply furnished sitting room, recalling everything she had seen on her way in. Everything here only sharpened her sense of the gap between them. It wasn't a gully—it was a chasm.
And yet, when she turned over how Celestina treated her, Rain felt inexplicably reassured.
She suddenly thought of Celestina's "ex," Andis—that rich second-generation heir was now modeling for some designer label. Rain couldn't measure up to him, let alone to Celestina. Family, looks... she shouldn't even be on Celestina's list of possibilities.
Besides, she was a beta. She couldn't be marked by an Alpha. No Alpha, however strong.
With that thought she gradually relaxed—though she still didn't want to loosen her hold on Rongrong.
She looked back at Celestina and lifted her chin slightly. "Fine. What do you want to say?"
Celestina's gaze rested on the corner of Rain's relaxed mouth, traced the line of her neck to her shoulder, then settled on the arms that wouldn't let go of the cat. A pause, then a very soft laugh.
"I'll say three things. After that, everything is your decision."
The fountain in the courtyard murmured faintly outside; Rongrong curled in Rain's arms, licking a paw. Rain could hear the water clearly, and the rasp of the cat's barbed tongue over long fur. She watched Celestina intently, and from the moment she began to speak, all the noise in the world seemed to fade.
Celestina looked at her and said, seriously:
"First: I apologize for deceiving you. But I didn't do it for fun."
She paused.
"At first, you were just... interesting to me. That day by the lake, you were soaked through. I took off my jacket for you, and your first instinct was to take care of the kitten. And when you finally came back to yourself, you kept apologizing—to me."
She glanced at Rongrong, purring with half-closed eyes, and smiled.
"I remember thinking, how could anyone be so... out of season."
She raised her eyes, and the blue gaze came back to Rain.
"Later I found that I wanted to see you. Not just to watch what you'd do, not just to find out whether you'd say something that surprised me again..."
"I genuinely wanted to see you."
Her voice dropped a little; her gaze deepened.
"So I invented a false identity. I wanted to make myself fit better into your life. More ordinary. Safer. Preferably not frightening."
When the words landed, Rain's eyes widened slightly. Fragments came back to her: Celestina playing an ordinary beta executive. Listening to her troubles, inviting her to bike in the park, taking her to the movies on holidays.
She really hadn't been showing off. She had simply been her friend, as a normal person.
Celestina was watching Rain's face too, and seeing no resistance there—only, it seemed, recollection—she went on more softly:
"Second. About Andis."
Her tone flattened, drained of feeling, pure statement.
"He wasn't entirely lying. I have had many relationships that would bear no boasting, and I have hurt people."
"I never loved them. Most of the time I didn't even treat them as friends."
Rain frowned slightly and met her eyes—blue, unflinching.
"I'm not naturally kind like you, Rain."
She said it simply.
"You'd do well to remember that."
"But I don't put you in the same drawer as Andis and his kind."
At that, Celestina stopped. She reached out and tapped a fingertip against Rongrong's whiskers; the cat twisted its head aside, mouth open to bite. Rain was faster and gently held the little muzzle shut.
"Go on..."
Celestina blinked, then smiled.
"Because you have never asked me for the things they wanted."
Celestina thought back on their days together. She had tested her, wondered whether she was pretending ignorance—and no matter what she offered, Rain seemed not to want it.
Her happiness was so cheap it could be bought with a single IMAX ticket; precious jewels meant less to her than the cup of instant coffee they split at a convenience store on a morning ride. In the end she had even pulled out that stack of saved-up bills at dinner, trying to buy herself back out of Celestina's kindness.
It made Celestina angry.
It fascinated her.
Celestina pressed a finger lightly against her own cuff, as if to hold down something deeper.
"Third."
Her voice slowed.
"Don't let this house make me a stranger to you."
Rain froze—realizing, once again, that Celestina read every flicker of her emotion. She was always good at that.
Rain's brow knitted. Celestina's eyes finally showed a ripple of feeling too—but what came out of her mouth next was not what Rain expected.
"And don't let this be the reason you drop me... as a friend."
She said it very quietly, and Rain was visibly shaken.
"From now on you don't have to answer my messages. You can see me only when you feel like it. You pick the place—somewhere public, if you like. We split the bill. No gifts. If I ever do anything that makes you uncomfortable, you can say so to my face."
Her voice was, rarely, a little hurried, laying out each clause like the terms of a contract.
"I won't come to your school. I won't ask to come to your home again."
And here, where Rain couldn't see, Celestina lowered her lashes and tucked something in her eyes a little deeper.
"Just don't suddenly disappear."
For a moment the room was silent.
Rain looked at the woman across from her. She had thought they were close. They had done so many things together, as friends—and she could honestly say she had had fun, every time.
And if she was honest with herself, she had relied on this extraordinarily graceful, considerate friend. Then one day everything she thought she knew had been overturned. She had seen the untouchable other side of her, and decided their friendship was over.
Now, faced with this sudden show of vulnerability, Rain hesitated again.
Celestina's voice was steady, her gaze on Rain as gentle as ever—and yet Rain sensed that the composure that always fit her so perfectly had torn at one seam. She wasn't muddying the water with explanations anymore. She was just looking at her, quietly waiting for her answer.
In that instant Rain understood: Celestina might truly be afraid of her leaving.
Rain didn't answer right away.
Celestina waited a moment, and then, as if finally accepting that no answer was coming, gathered herself. Her voice smoothed out again.
"All right."
"You can go."
Hearing her voice, Rongrong tipped her face up in Rain's arms and gave a soft meow.
Rain looked at Celestina, and something like panic rose in her eyes.
Celestina stroked the cat's forehead; the blue eyes fixed on Rain stayed gentle.
"The carrier is new. There's a blanket inside that she usually sleeps on," she said. "If she cries on the way, put your hand in. She'll settle when she smells you."
Then she rose and picked up the carrier.
"Here, I'll help you put her in."
In the corner of the room, the android stood silent, its pupils fixed unblinking on the scene.
Rain looked up. Celestina stood before her, blonde hair falling over one shoulder, a vast exquisite tapestry on the wall behind her. She looked at Rain as if she were truly handing the choice back to her.
And where no one was looking, the hand gripping the carrier tightened, slowly.
Rain looked at Celestina and felt a sudden ache of sadness. She couldn't say exactly why—only that she didn't want to leave like this.
So she hesitated, and finally loosened her clenched arms and set Rongrong down.
"Actually... I haven't settled things with my landlord yet. Rongrong... she might have to trouble you a little longer..."
She had barely finished when her phone buzzed in her pocket. Probably Emily. She pressed her lips together, ignored it, and let her eyes drift to a cat food can on the carpet.
"Thank you for telling me all that. I was... maybe a little too harsh before."
Celestina watched Rongrong being set down on the carpet, and didn't speak at once.
The cat landed, blinked, and quickly recognized the familiar territory.
Tail high in an insolent arch, she rubbed a circle around Rain's legs, then trotted to the pile of toys and fished out a little fish plush, blissfully unaware of how nearly she had changed households.
Celestina kept looking at Rain as if the words hadn't quite landed.
Then, after a long breath: "It's no trouble. I'll keep taking care of her."
The words were barely out before—afraid she had agreed too fast—she added:
"She's used to it here. Until the landlord situation is settled, it's safer for her to stay."
Her grip on the carrier loosened slightly. The thread of restlessness she had been pressing under her fingertips turned, the instant Rain set the cat down, into something cool and lucid and pleased.
She isn't taking Rongrong away. Which means she will come back. As long as she comes back, there is still time.
When she heard Rain say "trouble you," Celestina had nearly corrected her on the spot: it was no trouble—this was you handing the leash back into my palm.
She buried all of it. In the sitting room she only set down the carrier and lowered her eyes.
"It's no trouble,"
she said softly.
"I'll take good care of her. As always."
Rain exhaled with relief, and the corner of her mouth lifted into a smile. She opened her mouth to speak—and her phone buzzed again.
Then several more times, in quick succession.
Rain went rigid for a beat.
Celestina's lips curved; her face arranged itself into precisely the right degree of helplessness.
"You should answer her."
"Otherwise she'll think I locked you in my basement."
There was a thread of laughter in it, and Rain laughed too, visibly looser. She took out her phone, and Celestina moved naturally behind her and picked up a cat teaser to occupy Rongrong.
Rain typed, absorbed; Celestina watched her back, hunched over the carpet.
She would not take the rope from her hand.
she thought.
She would only let her believe the rope had always been in her own hand.