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𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘-𝐓𝐖𝐎

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The pool on the yacht had turned almost black from the night that had descended, the inky water beneath tranquil, reflecting only the moon. Around her the ocean seemed impossibly expensive, stretched out far beyond her own imagination. The yacht was as still as the surface of the water it floated atop, a strange juxtaposition against the turmoil that had conspired in the time since Kendall Roy had unleashed pandemonium. It seemed that calm did not just gather before a storm but indeed after it.

Cora raised her arms to balance herself but still managed to wobble slightly as she raised a leg, slowly lowering an arched foot towards the surface of the water. A ripple rang outwards from where her toe connected, more following as she began to manoeuvre her heel in a circle, disrupting the still. She retracted her foot, balancing back on land, lowering her arms. Her face remained frozen in its expression as she played out these actions, one that was barely perceptible and required familiarity to decipher.

From higher up on the yacht, Roman looked down at her figure, bathed in shadow and outlined by the celestial glow of the moon above.

He positioned his hand on the metal railing as he watched her, a slight frown creasing his brow, lips pressed tightly together. His gaze held steady as she suddenly reached down to the edge of her dress, shedding the white material like a cocoon and tossing it aside. She stripped naked as he watched passively, only moving as she stepped forward and dropped below the surface of the water.

Roman paced down the steps towards the pool edge, counting down the seconds as he waited for her to resurface. He knelt down to pick up her discarded clothes from the ground, eyes brushing briefly across them before tossing the garments onto one of the pool seat's. He crossed his arms against his chest, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to reveal his forearms, searching the gloom below him. Vaguely he could see her outline, the peachy tone of her skin distorted in the undulation her bubbles of air created.

He counted out seventy seconds before she broke the surface of the water, tossing her dark hair into an arc. As she cleared water from her eyes, he sat down beside her clothes.

"Skinny dipping at a time like this?" Roman mused. "Interesting decision."

"I figured we had time," she countered.

"Barely."

Cora shrugged as she drifted to the edge of the pool. He kept his eyes trained to meet hers as she drew closer, gazing up at him with an eyebrow cocked.

"So you don't think you'll hop in then? The water's nice."

Roman pursed his lips, chuckling under his breath as he shook his head. "Mm, I don't think so."

"Oh come on. It's lovely." Cora drew the world out, swishing the vowels around in her mouth. With a flick of her wrist, she lightly splashed water in the direction of his ankles. He jerked his pant leg away.

"You're drunk."

She pulled a face, exaggeratedly rolling her eyes. "I'm not drunk. You clearly haven't seen me properly intoxicated before."

He ignored the comment. "Besides, I don't think Cousin Egg would like that much."

At that, Cora scoffed. "Yeah, because that was a serious relationship. Bought a ring and everything."

"Talking in the past tense already? I never took you for Marquise de Merteuil."

"From Dangerous Liaisons? I always preferred the 90s version. I watched it with Shiv once. Selma Blair? Woof."

She pushed away from the side of the pool, suddenly flipping onto her back and letting the surface of the water carry her weight. Roman inhaled sharply as her body met the light, glowing beneath the moon. He shifted against the pool seat, unable to tear his eyes away for the short moment that her gaze was directed upwards. Slowly the motion of the water beneath her tilted her at the right angle and she glanced in his direction, but by then he had found his hands and had begun inspecting the grooves of his knuckles.

He didn't look up again until she had dried off and pulled on her under garments. She had bundled her hair into the towel by then, picking up her dress and turning it the right way in. He couldn't help himself as he took her in. Seeing her naked had almost been dreamlike, she hadn't quite looked real. He'd long held a very specific image of her body in his mind and it was like he couldn't quite process the reality of what she looked like now.

"So we're leaving soon?"

"Mmhmm." Roman hummed under his breath.

"You, me, Shiv and Gerri," Cora said with a giggle. "I guess we're going full A-team on him then."

As she finished with her dress, she caught his eye, and a flicker of electricity coursed through him. He was filled with a deep sense of foreboding as he internally acknowledged in the shift in her demeanour.

The woman who had stepped foot on the yacht with him was not the same one as who now stood before him. Everything, from the playful sparkle in her eyes to the way she held herself as though she were anticipating a challenge she knew she could beat, had appeared ever since he had seen her take that sip of whiskey. Between his father's rush to get to the extradition-free Sarajevo and the scramble to plan a foundation for attack against Kendall, there hadn't been much breathing room to confront Cora on her relapse, much less the events that had conspired with Turkey.

Originally he had wanted to wait and let himself soak in his thoughts before allowing a conversation to play out between them. Knowing the inevitability of the meeting with Logan combined with the fact that the plane ride back from Turkey wasn't a private one had been compounding factors, but the reality was that Roman wasn't built to have the kind of talks the situation demanded. He'd much rather play anything with emotional weight off with sarcasm or a back-handed remark, but in his heart he knew this demanded a different approach.

When Cora had come back into his life, it had been like someone dunking him into a bucket of ice cold water. Her sudden presence had been such a shock that he'd barely been able to meet her eye for the first few days she'd been on the executive floor. Typically he'd managed to play it off with trademark apathy, but he'd been rattled. She'd disturbed memories he'd long left untouched, and for good reason. He'd moved on, or at least that was what he had told himself, but with Cora around his plausible deniability had become untenable. He still found himself drawn to her, even as it dawned on him that she hadn't really changed at all.

He couldn't help it, things had always been that way. Cora's self-destructive tendencies bled out of her like radiation, it was impossible not to get burned. He'd tried in his own childish ways to get her back, he'd been cold and apathetic but ultimately it had been a fruitless attempt to resist the inevitable pull she'd always had over him. Tabitha had noticed the shift in him before he'd truly come to grasp it, it had been one of the reasons they had parted ways. After all, a boyfriend who didn't have sex with you was one thing, one that was preoccupied with his sister's childhood best friend was another.

But as he watched Cora step back into her dress, tugging at the material of the skirt until it had flattened against the curves of her body, he couldn't help feeling a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach.

"I better get ready then, huh?" Cora said with a lazy smirk. She started towards the stairs, paying him a quick glance over her shoulder. Quickly Roman stood.

"Cora, wait."

She stopped in her tracks, turning to face him. Her features were lit with the gentle whirl of blue from the light bouncing off of the water. He felt the breath leave his body.

"Yes?" He wondered if he was seeing things. Something had sobered in her expression, her eyes clear and bright as she waited for him to speak. Roman cleared his throat.

"I ... " He paused, pressing his lips together. "Uh ... You know what? Never mind. It can wait for a bit more."

"Are you sure?" Her voice sounded hesitant, almost sad. There were so many things he wanted to ask her, the words piling up in his mind. In his heart, he knew he still wasn't ready to hear her answers. Not only that, he could see by the look in her eyes that she might push him away further. Maybe he could distract her with something, just for the moment, something that had the least chance of blowing up in his face.

"What does my dad ... have on you?"

Perhaps it spoke volumes that this was the safest thing he had to ask. Cora blinked rapidly, breathy laughter on her lips. Slowly she shook her head, an uneasy smile coming to rest on her face.

"Nothing. Why would you ask me something like that?"

"Do you want a list? A rationale?" Roman snorted defensively. He folded his arms against his chest. "It might've had something to do with you delivering the killing blow and then sitting yourself next to him like Mr Bigglesworth."

Cora scoffed, rolling her eyes and Roman felt a wave of regret. Maybe he'd played that worse than he could have, but it was too late now. A frown now creased her forehead, her lips pulled into a thin line.

"I don't know what you're talking about Roman." She said tersely. If he hadn't known her better, the act would have been convincing. "Anyway, like you said before, we're leaving soon. I'm gonna go pack my bags."

And serve yourself another glass of whiskey, he thought but left the words unsaid. He watched her climb the stairs, letting his shoulders slump as he perched himself back on the edge of the pool chair. He hugged his knees to his chest, sucking in his cheeks and pressing his teeth firmly into his flesh as his mind ticked over the path ahead.

Let them get to New York, he told himself, let whatever games that his father had devised against Kendall begin. When the dust settled, that was when he would speak to her, this time about everything that had gone left unsaid.

________

"Have you heard much from him?" Cora asked as she sat against the edge of Logan's desk.

Cora, Roman and Shiv were all scattered around Logan's office as they waited for Gerri. By the time they had arrived at the Waystar building it was nearing 11pm, and the building had been completely deserted as they'd crossed the lobby.

Behind them, breaching the glass doors, a flurry of white camera lights captured their journey to the elevators. Cora had felt the familiar rush of being perceived as soon as the paparazzi had descended upon them, a sensation that had been dampened by the mini bottles of vodka she'd managed to steal away with on the plane. She hadn't realised then that she missed being in the public eye, as much as it had been the bane of her existence for a time. She'd dared to glance in the direction of the camera's hungry eyes before slipping into the lift after Shiv and Roman, barely holding back a grin.

"Just that he's still deciding on an interim." Shiv replied. She was pacing the room with her hands clasped behind her back, her movements reminiscent of her father. Roman was sitting in one of the armchairs nearby, his legs strung over one of the arms and his back against the other as he scrolled through his phone. He let out a snort under his breath.

"You know they're calling Kendall a feminist hero on Twitter? God, they're eating this shit up. The enemy of my enemy, I guess."

"Remember when he told us about accidentally walking into a women's studies lecture?" Cora recalled the memory with an impish smirk. "I think he'd genuinely never heard of Virginia Woolf before."

"Don't act like that wasn't your first introduction to her." Roman countered. Cora rolled her eyes dramatically in response, waving a hand at him.

"Wait until he catches wind of this." Shiv muttered, still pacing. "I give him a day until he starts tweeting about the Vagina Monologues."

"Try an hour ago. 'Slowly, it dawned on me that nothing was more important than stopping violence toward women; that the desecration of women indicated the failure of human beings to honour and protect life.'" Roman rolled off the quote as Shiv stopped to listen. Quickly she and Cora exchanged a glance. "I really thought he would've gone with the one about the clitoris."

"Please don't say clitoris in front of me again," Shiv muttered. Roman mouthed the word at her as the door to the office swung open and Gerri entered. Immediately a deathly silence descended in the room and Cora felt the sudden urge to fix her posture.

"Logan's on the line." She said, crossing over to the desk. There was a brusque air about her movements, reminiscent of an overworked teacher. It was enough to sober what little alcohol Cora had coursing through her veins. Cautiously they all crowded around the desk as Gerri worked the conference phone. Logan's voice boomed into the room. Despite the fact he was thousands of kilometres away, he still held a commanding presence.

"Are they all here?" He demanded through a slight haze of static.

"Yes Logan, they're all here."

"Right." He barked. In the background, the sound of a hushed conversation could be heard. There was a pause as Logan's hand tried and failed to cover the mouthpiece to muffle the sound of him apprehending whoever had dared to speak. "Do you fucking mind? I'm busy! Have your talk in the fucking urinals or wait your fucking turn!"

"Oh that was definitely directed at your husband," Roman said through the corner of his mouth. Shiv nudged him in the side with her elbow.

"Bunch of clowns, the lot of them." Logan grumbled under his breath. Cora did not find herself envious of those who had been chosen for his entourage, though she was beginning to feel like the party who'd been sent to New York were about to get a rude awakening. Beside her Roman and Shiv were visibly on edge, Gerri too had her ears peeled. Cora had never been in the room where it happens before, and she had to admit, it was the closest thing she'd ever been to a sober high. She could get used to it, she thought to herself.

" ... launch a campaign. A full on assault. We need all fucking hands on deck. The White House has already turned on us, the lily livered fucks, so we're weathering this storm alone. We win this in the media, it won't matter two shits what happens in a courtroom." He was interrupted by a brief spat of coughing. Shiv cleared her breath, running a hand through her hair.

"Uh, ok that sounds great dad." Her voice was several octaves higher than usual, her eyebrows raised high as she spoke. "So ... Like, who's gonna be steering this ship? So to speak."

"Well, I mean, I've obviously put my hand up." Gerri quickly cut in, shooting them all a wary look. From beside her, she heard Roman scoff beneath his breath. "I have the experience, I know my way around the executive floor. I'm a practical solution."

"Snoozefest. Unless your media strategy is inferring that Kendall has a mommy kink. Then maybe I'd consider getting behind it." Roman was tapping his fingers against the surface of the desk frantically. Their eyes met briefly, Cora looking away as Shiv began to speak.

"No offence Gerri but the press is just going to say you're part of the same guard that landed us in this situation," Shiv said. She puffed out her chest as she continued. "Dad, I think it makes sense that a sibling gets to be the face of this. It makes his complaint look a lot more petty when it's still a family member as the face of the company. And preferably someone who could feasibly push back on the feminist angle they're spinning for him?"

"I resent the fact you don't think I could be a feminist, Siobhan, I've clearly read the monologues."

Shiv ignored her brother, rolling her eyes. "Yeah something tells me that isn't going to hack it."

Roman sighed theatrically, shooting Cora a look. "Well my argument for myself is that Shiv sucks and Cora has even less experience than I do. And I think Cora's argument is going to be ... "

" ... That I don't want to be CEO," Cora finished for him. "Because I might get thrown off by my cycle or Mercury being in retrograde, right Rome?"

"That's quite literally what I was going to say, aren't you astute?" Before she could counter him, Roman reached up to pat her on the top of the head. Instantly she felt her cheeks heat up, and she hurriedly coughed to clear her throat. From her peripheral vision, she noticed Shiv frown.

"Enough!" Logan's voice ripped through the conference phone, causing everyone to jump. Roman's hand fell to his side, burying itself in his pocket, as Cora hugged her arms tightly to her chest. "I've already made a decision, no more unsolicited opinions."

"Well we're waiting with bated breath," Gerri sighed.

"My decision is ... '' Logan paused, before being interrupted by a bout of coughing. For several long seconds, the only sound in the room was the staticky mess of hacking from the old man's throat. When he spoke again, his voice crackled with rasp. " ... Cora."

Cora could feel her heart plummeting into the pit of her stomach. Had she misheard? Was she hallucinating? It seemed utterly inconceivable that he had just stated her name. She'd joked about how horrible of a pick she would make, but her true feelings about the position hadn't been buried. She didn't have a horse in the race because she was utterly incapable and everyone in the room knew as much.

She was not the only person in the room who had been caught off-guard. As she recovered from the initial shock, she glanced around at the other three, taking in their fearful expressions. It was clear that no one quite knew how to respond to the revelation. Cora's gaze fell on Shiv, trying to read her expression. The youngest Roy's lips were parted in confusion, but Cora could see the betrayal blooming on her face, slowly but surely. She felt a chill run down her spine.

"Uh ... " Roman said, breaking the silence that had descended. "Sorry, dad, have you had one of those, uh, strokes of yours again?"

"Yeah ... " Shiv's voice drew out the syllables as she took in a deep, shaky breath. "If this is your idea of a practical joke dad, you really got us."

"It's not a joke," Logan replied curtly. "Cora has media training. She knows the circles that Kendall's going to need to court if he wants to win this. This is as much a social battle as it is a media one."

"I mean, she knows them because they're people she used to do blow with, which you then speculated about in the Globe." Shiv said, half-chuckling as she spoke. "And doing PR for bars is hardly media trai-"

"She's recognizable!" Logan thundered. Shiv stopped short, pursing her lips. "We need a good face on the front of this thing."

"This ... Seems quite unorthodox Logan." Gerri murmured, glancing nervously towards Cora. "Even putting aside the obvious reasons this is a bad idea, Cora is ... Well she's a recovering addict. The stress of a high profile and very public battle in the media is ... Well, it's unhealthy for someone like her."

Cora wished she could crawl out of her own skin or melt into the floor. Everything about the office suddenly felt very stuffy and the collar of her dress itched incessantly against her skin. She reached up to her neck and began to scratch at it, her other hand forming a tight fist by her side. She had been at a loss for words, for what to say, but the closer she watched Shiv, the clearer it had become that there was only way to make it out of the situation unscathed.

"If I can just speak for a moment." Cora said, hating herself for the slight tremor in her tone. All of her newfound confidence had evaporated the moment Gerri had entered the room, and the blow of Logan's announcement hadn't done her many favours. "I think maybe ... Maybe there's a different workaround for this situation. I ... Just from some of the things Kendall said to me before he left, I think maybe I could get him to consider just backing off of this whole thing. It would save everyone the headache. So let me try. Please."

There was a long pause from the other end of the phone. Cora tilted her head to face the ground, closing her eyes and hoping beyond hope that Logan would reconsider. It was best for everyone involved that she not be named CEO. She couldn't have Shiv at her throat again, couldn't shoulder the level of responsibility required. Besides, what would it mean for Kendall? For her? For her and Kendall?

"Fine." Logan said finally, his tone clearly dissatisfied. "But if he doesn't back down, you're stepping up. You too Romulus, you'll be named COO."

"Roger that," Roman replied.

"What about me?!" Shiv squeaked.

"I'll have something for you if it comes to that." Logan replied gruffly. "But for now, you three track down Kendall."