Chapter 3

I ate lunch alone.

I mean, I ate all my meals alone, but I sometimes ate dinner with the staff in the kitchen if I was having a lonely night, but usually all my meals were eaten in solitary.

Harry ate in his office and I didn't see much of him, other than sporadic glimpses around the house.

Today I was eating my lunch outside on the large patio that bordered the enormous patch of land that came with the estate. It was a beautiful lawn with some bushes and trees and a greenhouse at the very end. A little cobbled path led you through the maze of it all, but today I was seated by the table on the patio, eating my turkey/Swiss cheese sandwich whilst working on my poor math skills.

It was a cloudy day, overcast and slightly windy, but still warm enough to sit outside without blowing away or chilling down. I had wrapped myself in my hoodie and was so focused on my book, I didn't hear the footsteps approaching me until it was too late.

"Calculus?"

I yelped in my seat and spun around to find Harry standing behind me, slightly leaned in over my shoulder to observe my book.

"Jesus Christ, you gave me a shock."

He looked at my book for another moment with a raised brow, and I angrily slammed it shut. I was in no mood to get lectured.

"Did you want something?"

Today he was dressed in a blue shirt with a pinstriped brown tie. He wore a jacket over it all, but thankfully not tweed. He looked like he was headed somewhere again.

"For integral calculus, you really should read Newton's edition for a more in-depth understanding of the topic before you attempt to teach yourself the principles," He noted, leaning slightly more in over the table to glance at my hand-written papers.

"If you ever plan on becoming a med student, you'll need a full understand of both differential and integral calculus to pass your courses."

I leaned back in my seat and crossed my arms. Well, well, well. Look who decided to research the dog shooter.

"Thanks. I know that. Anything else?"

He slowly leaned back and straightened out. "I've come to a conclusion."

"Oh?" I cocked a brow.

This should be interesting. If he was talking to me voluntarily, something had to be up.

He met my eyes and smiled tightly. "You owe me an apology."

"I owe you an apology?" I echoed with a mocking voice.

I knew this was going to be good.

He continued to look at me calmly, which oddly enough only gave him a much stronger appeal.

"You worked behind my back with my brother to trick me into sleeping with you. You've yet to apologize, hence forgiveness can't be applied."

"I thought you weren't a forgiving man," I voiced and raised a slow brow.

I crossed my legs under the table and watched him smile faintly again.

"But I answer to logic," He reminded me.

He pulled out the chair next to mine and took a seat.

"And logically, because of what you did, it's common decency to apologize."

"Okay, but by your own terms," I said, squinting my eyes and looking thoughtfully up at the sky, "Isn't apologizing just an empty word unless it holds some sort of proof, other than verbal? I mean, if convicts got out on just apologies, the whole legal system would fall apart."

"Are you suggesting that you won't be apologizing to me because the word itself holds no merits, or are you saying you intend to make up for your wrongdoings, Ms. Berry?"

"Cassandra," I corrected him.

Talking to him was like talking to a professor. If you didn't answer wisely, you didn't impress.

"And the choice is yours. Although if I do apologize, I want an equal apology from you, for assuming the worst of me."

He raised a brow at my last notion. "Exactly what assumptions have I made of you, Ms. Berry?"

Oh, so he was going to play dumb?

I also didn't miss the purposeful pressure he put on keeping me in the formal first base.

"You called me shallow and empty," I said, crossing my arms with a hard look. "back in your study. You said it nicely, but you still said it."

He chuckled dryly and stood up.

"I did no such thing, Ms. Berry. I simply told the truth - that there were no people, besides yourself, in that room that was interested in your life choices."

"And yet you somehow know I want to be a med student," I pointed out cleverly, just as he turned to leave.

He slowly halted That's right.

He underestimated me, and I knew.

And I suspected he did as well.

"Newton's edition," He said, nodding towards my book.

"I have it in my study. If you change your mind about apologizing, feel free to come and get it."

And with that, he walked off, leaving me slowly smirking in my chair.

I think I just outspoke the math genius himself.

It was about an hour away from dinner time, and I was coming down the stairs after treating myself to a fresh manicure. I wasn't usually a manicure-type girl, but when you had practically endless amounts of time, you suddenly developed new interests.

I even did my toes.

Now, walking down the grand staircase towards the entree, I couldn't help but feel a smile tug onto my lip as I remembered what happened early. He had actually bothered to find out about me, probably had someone run a background check on me or some shit.

Whatever you did when you had loads of money and resources. So he had moved beyond the point of 'frankly not caring' and suddenly taken an interest in me, and while that meant nothing in the way of my large payday now, I somehow felt accomplished that I officially managed to interest a guy who was renowned for his solitude and privacy.

That's right.

I had googled him as well.

There weren't a lot of press photos of Sir Harold Xavier Devon (he had failed to mention that the Queen of England had knighted him for his achievements in mathematics), but there were a few of him when he took the stage to accept his first millennium prize.

He had been no older than 24, the second youngest person to ever receive the esteemed prize, and that was the least of his achievements. Seven years later, he received it again, but according to google, never showed up to receive it, but had a person sent to accept it on his behalf.

Everything about Harold Xavier Devon spoke to the tale of a man who preferred the intellectual crowd of his own thoughts, rather than the public admiration of his peers. He was rarely spotted around town and was known for solving all of his problems in complete privacy. In the math society, he was mentioned as the next Newton in broad strokes, while some described him as just another guy who never learned how to share and socialize.

On that last bit, I could agree.

It said that he and his brother were born in England, but moved to Canada in their early childhood years when their father got offered a job at a factory. His father soon climbed the corporate ladder, but as the years passed, it became clear that the business-minded prodigy in the family was his oldest son, Richard.

He started a business when he was just 17 and became a multi-millionaire before he had even hit his twenties. Now, in his mid-forties, Richard Devon the Third was on Forbes list of the richest men alive and the owner of the largest amount of companies and enterprises.

So it was no surprise that in all of his brother's glory and fame, Harry had stuck to his room and studied in silence, before coming out as a genius himself. Both brothers now had a name that was renowned in the broadest circles and always remained on the guest list of every important event around the globe.

After reading everything I could have ever wanted to know about the man I had been paid to fuck, there was one thing I had failed to actually find out, though.

And that's why, as I stopped at the foot of the stairs and turned right, I knew exactly what I was going to do.

Knocking thrice on his office door, it only took a moment before his voice called out. I twisted the doorknob and stepped in, finding him sitting behind his desk, bent over some papers.

"Newton's edition, huh?" I asked.

He lifted his head as I came in and gave me a glance. Then, pointing with his pen, he referred me to one of his bookshelves.

"Third shelf, big book. You can't miss it."

I glanced briefly at it, but instead of going for the book, I slowly stepped forward towards his desk. "I have a question."

"This is not a classroom, Ms. Berry."

"Are you a virgin?"

The question clearly took him by surprise. He stopped reading whatever he was reading and lifted his eyes to me. "Excuse me?"

"It's just something that doesn't make sense to me," I said and looked thoughtfully at the floor as I slowly approached.

"Are you really paying me so much money to lie to your brother just because you want to tease him, or are you doing it to hide a fact that really shouldn't be a problem? Because there's no shame in being a virgin, you know."

"Ms. Berry, even if my love life was any of your concern, I don't see how the question of my virginity is really anyone's business." He replied, bristly.

"So that's a yes?" I raised a brow.

He sighed and then leaned back in his chair, taking off his glasses with a tired gesture. "No," He then replied harshly, meeting my eyes.

"I am not a virgin.”

I tried to spot if he was lying, but if he was, he was good. His gaze didn't waver, and I therefore had to assume he was telling the truth.

But that only led to more questions.

"So you're really blowing all this money away on me, just to annoy your brother?" I asked.

Was it strange that I almost wanted him to be a virgin? Just because the alternative was so ludicrous?

"I don't expect you to understand my motives, just as I won't pretend to understand yours."

"I took the offer because I needed the money to pay for my future," I replied, plain and simple.

"I wasn't born with a silver spoon sticking out of my ass, and unlike you, I don't possess any tremendous smart genes."

"At least we can agree on that," He remarked.

You know what? I was just about to go and grab that large book off the shelf and see if I couldn't knock that pretentious, self-righteousness chip off of his shoulder. If it sat as loosely as his remarks...

"You have a really remarkable trait for being an asshole, you know that?"

His lips twitched. "That's why I don't go out."

"Yeah, thank Christ for that," I muttered, before going up to the appointed shelf to get my book.

"You might not like me, Ms. Berry, but forgive me if I don't sympathize. I still haven't gotten an apology."

Seriously?

That again?

"Fine," I spun around on my heel and abandoned the book. I walked straight towards his desk.

"How do you want it then? On my knees? I can be real apologetic from there."

When I walked around his desk, Harry pushed his chair away from it and spun it towards me.

"And you say I'm the asshole here."

"I think the female version is bitch." I said and cocked a brow.

"And since that's what I am---"

"I would never use such a derogatory word to describe you, Cassandra. And neither should you."

I halted, and for two reasons; One, he called me by my first name, and two, did he just treat me with respect?

"So what am I then?" I asked and crossed my arms.

"A money whore? A gold digger? A sugar baby? If you want me to apologize, I need to know what I'm apologizing for."

He sighed and turned his gaze towards his papers. "It seems I can't break through to you. I'm asking for you to show some repentance, but clearly years of being treated as less than what you are has taught you to greet my lesson as an insult."

"Your... lesson?" I echoed.

He turned his eyes back up to me. The amber in them seemed darker.

"Apologizing when having wronged a person, even for reasons that seemed just, is still common courtesy. The apology wasn't for me, it was for you."