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."

For me? I wasn't even sure I was following any longer. "You said you wanted an apology so you could give me your forgiveness—"

"I said forgiveness couldn't be applied before an apology had occurred. You need to apologize to me so you can forgive yourself, Ms Berry. That's how it works."

What the hell. I was drowning in this conversation and I officially couldn't keep up any longer. "I... what?"

"Integral calculus," He said. "It works in the fashion that we must first divide the issue to calculate the problem. Once we've measured the variables, we can come to a conclusion."

"What the hell are you saying?"

"You knew when you took the offer from my brother that you were doing something wrong," He said. "But you chose to not divide any hairs and think too much about it, because the conclusion it would lead to would be very wrong in the end. I am a mathematician, and I divide and exam all my problems. You were never a problem to me, Cassandra, but you were a problem to yourself. Forgiveness comes from within."

I stared, speechless. I think I had finally somehow caught up, and if I was understanding him correctly... he was dissecting my whole life.

"Here's the thing," He said and stood up. He crossed his arms and regarded me with a stern, almost patriarchal look. "I don't judge a person by their motives, I judge a person by their judgement. It's true, sometimes the motive dominates the judgement, but any person with basic principles should know that the motive should never demolish your judgement. You made a poor judgement call when you took my brother's offer. It's an insult, not only to your own surprising intelligence, but to the system of common decency."

I felt like I was being lectured by my dad, except I had no idea what that felt like. But I had to assume it felt something like this. "Did you just call me... smart?"

Harry looked at me for a long moment, but then turned and sat down in his chair. "People these days don't choose hard work if there's a short cut. It's obvious you've been working hard your whole life, Ms Berry, yet at the chance of a shortcut, you took it."

"I don't..."

"The scholarship," He said. "My brother offered it to you without any merits. It's an insult to the system and the other people who work hard for years to earn it fair and square."

"But I have worked hard, you said so yourse—"

"But you could've worked harder," He said. He looked up and met my eyes with a hard glare. "You can't buy degrees. You work for them, and you know that. That's why you owe me an apology. You insulted my intelligence, my livelihood, and your own good sense that I know you possess. When you're ready, I'll be here to accept it."

My mind was struggling to keep up in his line of thought and his reasoning, but after a few quiet minutes of letting it all process, I think I had made it to what he was talking about. 

He wasn't as mad that I tried to trick him—that part never would've worked since he was too smart to fall for that. It was rather the fact that I had accepted the money and the scholarship that offended him—but only because it offended me. 

He saw potential in me, intelligence, and after his research of me, he saw a hard worker, someone who had had to fight for what she had. But the second I accepted that money and the scholarship... I had abandoned my ethics and what made me me. And that's what he was mad about. 

He wanted an apology, but it was in truth me forgiving myself that he essentially wanted to see. And to forgive myself, I first needed to redeem myself. 

– Starting with apologizing for my poor choices. 

I was better than all this, was what he with much greater words had said. 

"I'm sorry," I mumbled, looking at the ground. "I'm sorry for... accepting the offer."

Harry lifted his eyes and watched me for a long moment, before giving a slow nod. "Good. Maybe you do possess some tremendous smart genes after all, then."

I lifted my gaze and saw to my surprise his lips had twitched into a little smile. He then turned his eyes away again and slipped on his glasses, resuming whatever he had been reading before I came in. 

I stayed footed for another few seconds. A part of me had seen sense in everything he said... and even though I hated to admit it, he was right. The second I had accepted the money and the scholarship, I hadn't worked as hard as I should. I had it all, after all; More money than I would ever need and a freebie trip to a college of my own choice – everything I had been working for my whole life. So I had stopped trying. 

"You know they call you the next Newton, right?" I said, crossing my arms, but smiling faintly. 

I saw the corner of his mouth twitch again. "I never did like apples that much."

I chuckled and shook my head. Then, with a sigh, I finally turned and walked towards the door. This wasn't exactly how I had imagined this talk would go... but I was pleasantly surprised. 

"So, hey," I stopped in the door and looked back at Harry who lifted his head. I smirked slowly. "Not a virgin, huh?"

He chuckled quietly for a moment, but then turned his head down again and continued reading. I grinned back and then walked out of his office. 

Eat your heart out, Google. I know something you don't.

• • •

And so do I.