Chapter Twelve: Burn Your Life Down

"You did something stupid again, didn't you?"

Kate glared at Shannon when she greeted her before she could escape to her own room. A natural reaction.

She ignored her roommate, making her way quickly to her room. Shannon relentlessly followed her, ignoring the slammed door and Kate's furious expression when she stood in the centre of the messy floor, her arms crossed.

"You really can't take a hint, can you?" demanded the brunette.

"Just don't want you. Jack said something emotional again, didn't he? And you freaked? Does Cooper tell you to do things like that, or does it come naturally to you?" wondered Shannon.

"Naturally," admitted Kate with a glare, refusing to answer the other questions. Shannon rolled her eyes and joined her on the bed. Kate watched her in admiration, wishing she could be as beautiful and uncomplicated as Shannon was.

"Did he tell your he loved you again?" asked Shannon curiously. Kate rolled her eyes. Shannon, while being often full of wisdom, was rarely sensitive.

"Yeah," admitted Kate. Wishing Shannon would stop asking, knowing she would not.

"Did he mention something about wanting to get some? Because you'd hardly be able to blame him," said Shannon fairly. Kate shook her head.

"He didn't even mention it," she said. She'd begun wishing he would, so that she would have good reason to get affronted.

"Amazing. Just tell me," demanded Shannon, her patience decreasing.

Kate frowned slightly, not wanting yet another voice in her head.

"He asked me to marry him," she admitted.

To Kate's relief, Shannon momentarily let the conversation trail off into a shocked silence.

"Apparently he really does want to get some," she said at length.

"Do you think that's why he asked?" demanded Kate instantly.

"I thought you didn't care?" asked Shannon, an eyebrow raised. Kate glared.

"It's not like that."

Shannon managed to quench another eye roll, and then turned seriously back to her roommate.

"Do you want my advice?" she asked.

Kate shook her head.

"I think," she began, continuing as if Kate had not spoken, "That you should tell him you love him. And that you want to marry him. Screw Cooper."

Kate watched her go, wishing desperately that it were that simple.

"What did you say?" asked Shannon curiously, pausing at the door. "You didn't mention."

"What do you think I said?" asked Kate. "I said no."

By the time she received the call, headed down to his office in a cab and heard the news, she wondered if she'd somehow subconsciously set herself up for the fall.

It was not as if Shannon could ever be fully trusted with secrets, even though she kept Shannon's. It was not as if Shannon's loyalties were truly to Kate. Shannon's loyalties were to Cooper, who held her wellbeing in his hands. Just as Kate's were.

So she was not surprised when she realized that he knew. She did not feel surprise, but she did feel dread.

Cooper immediately let her into his office, not feeling it necessary to make her wait nervously. When she entered, she could have sworn that she saw pride, almost affection in his eyes.

She sat in front of his desk, crossed her legs. Looked bravely into his cold eyes and awaited the inevitable.

"So, I hear you've been doing quite well for yourself," said Cooper. She shrugged.

"I guess."

"I always thought he'd fall in love with you easily, but I never imagined he'd become so serious. You played him perfectly, Meg."

Kate suppressed a glare, hating to hear herself spoken about like this. Hated to think of herself playing Jack.

"So he wants to make it official."

"Shannon told you?" demanded Kate.

"No, no. She told one of the other girls, who told me. Still wouldn't recommend trusting her. Now," he said, shuffling papers on his desk. "What's this I hear about your negative reaction?"

"You said I had to make him love me. You never said why, and I never asked. But you never said I had to marry him. I can't destroy him like that."

"That's because I only ever hoped. I never imagined you'd play it all so beautifully. I might have underestimated you."

She slumped her head as he ignored her protests, knowing she'd lost.

"You're going to go back now, aren't you? Tell him you got a little scared. He might want you more for it."

Kate nodded mutely. She left abruptly, not bidding him goodbye as was her custom. She left, never having felt like more of a whore.

It was her lips that greeted him, and not her words.

She was such a passionate woman, their encounters so heated, that he could not fully comprehend her repeated refusals. He'd managed never to press her, but had begun to want her desperately.

They found their way to his sofa, fell heavily down onto it, limbs entangled. Her wandering hands desperately shed his shirt, admired his bare chest with her eyes and with her hands. His own found their way under her shirt, to her bra strap, and he began to intimately touch the skin he'd only ever glimpsed, dreamed about.

Common sense somehow overrode other senses. With difficulty, she shoved his larger body off off hers. He sat up on the couch, awkwardly pulled his shirt back on over his bare chest as she hurriedly re-arranged herself.

"What the hell was that?" he demanded. Running a hand through her hair, she met courageous eyes with him and put voice to the words running through her head:

"Ask me again."