I was packing. It was a decision I had finally come to, and I hated to say it, but it was Harry's brother that made me realize why I had to leave. 

Because I was that desperate.

Wiping an annoying, frustrated tear from my eye, I angrily stuffed my clothes into my bag that I had placed on my bed. A turbulent mess of clothes, toiletries, shoes and books laid all around it, covering most of my sheets. I couldn't even remember packing this much, but I guess I had really come here to get what I desperately wanted.

Laughing at my pathetic self, I almost didn't hear the knock on my door as I was throwing my blow dryer into my luggage. It wasn't until the door went that I turned around to see who was entering. I was half expecting it to be one of the maids telling me that dinner was served, but instead I was met by Harry eyeing out my furious packing. He didn't look surprised at all.

"Do you have a moment to talk?" He asked, watching me continue my packing by stuffing my papers and books into every crook I could find in my bag.

"No. I'm done talking," I said, hoping my voice sounded more angry than hurt. His brother really was a piece of work, but he made it all so clear. Especially after my talk with Harry earlier... Richard's words were the red cherry on top of it all. I was done being desperate. "I'm calling a cab the second I'm done here. I'll be out of your hair in a few more hours. You won't have to stick your neck out for me, after all."

"Cassandra, take a seat and let me talk to you for a moment, please. I understand why you want to leave."

"Really?" I snorted. Of course he understood. He always understood. "No fucking surprise. Fucking arrogant, know-it-all genius assho—"

"It's because my brother wanted you to leave."

I froze up shortly, but then turned around and shot him a glare. I was too damn tired for all of his games. "What the hell do you mean?"

"You're leaving because of what he said," He said, eyeing me with a stern look. I crossed my arms and let out a breath.

"So what if I am? He made a good point. I'm still here, aren't I?"

"But not because you're desperate," Harry replied, crossing his arms as well. "Because you're driven and you know what's best for you. My brother said what he needed to to get you to leave my home. Do you get it, Cassandra?"

"I... what?" I wasn't sure I could handle more of this. These brothers... this whole summer had been one whole fucking mess. It started out so crazy and somehow had gotten even crazier. I guess that's what you got for being a cruel bitch trying to fool an innocent man. All of this was really just karma, wasn't it?

Harry sighed, but then gestured towards my bed for me to please have a seat. I hesitated, but then after a moment gave in. Only because I was so tired I felt like I could collapse on the spot.

"My brother... is an excellent talker," Harry then reminded me with a grit in his voice. He sure fucking was. "He has an uncanny ability to manipulate people, and he's manipulated you to make this decision, Cassandra. It was his way of taking back control over the situation I had turned on him. He hired you to come, I hired you to stay, so now he's fooling you to go."

"And now you're gonna double cross him again by persuading me to stay?" I humorlessly stated. These boys did nothing but fucking play tricks and I was done being their pawn. "I'm not doing this game any longer, Harry. I'm out, I'm sorry. It's not working between us anyway. Your teaching method doesn't work, and I just can't—"

"There's no double crossing," He interrupted. "I won't hold you back from leaving if you want to leave, I just want you to have all of the facts before you make a decision. If you leave, you do exactly as he wanted you to."

"And that would mean he won over you, right?" I replied, sighing. Despite his words, I couldn't see how me staying benefitted him anymore. Or me, for that matter.

"No. You would lose." Harry answered. He glared down at me with a serious look when I blinked, confused. "If you choose to stay, you should stay for yourself, not for me. That would be stupid." Oh, gee, thanks. "If you stay, you stay because you know you have more opportunities here than back home."

"But that's the thing," I said and stood up. I frustratedly threw my hands up. "There might be more opportunities here, but I'm also this close to fucking strangling you all the time! God, I know you're trying to help me in your own twisted way, but you fucking infuriate me! I can't even have an argument with you without you having to one-up me somehow! Do you know how frustrating it is? I know I'm not as smart as you, but can't you just give in once in a while? Do you and your fucking ego always have to be right?!"

Maybe I was being ridiculous here, but this was how I felt. I might not have been his level of smart, but that didn't make me stupid. Except he constantly made me feel that way. His words held more power than mine did, and as absurd as it sounded, I hated that. Because it meant I could never, ever show what I was made of, when it wasn't even half of what he was made of.

Harry was silent for a moment, but looked at me. Then, sighing, he hiked up in his pants and took a seat in the chair at my vanity table. He leaned over on his elbows and looked down at the floor.

"I don't blame you," He then silently said. His voice had completely changed, shifted to something softer and much more... gravelly? "I know what I am and what it... does to people. The reason you want to leave is the same reason my brother's resented me my whole life."

My mouth briefly fell open. A sort of light came on inside my head, and I realized what the whole jealousy argument had been about earlier between them.

Harry had been right: Richard envied his intellect, but as I saw it, Harry also sometimes envied his brother's ability to talk to people.

"Intellect alienates you," He silently continued. "I made my peace with it at an early age when my own family couldn't accept me for how I was. I didn't want to do things their way because I didn't see any logical outcome of it. Just as I push you with your assignments, you push back when you don't see my point of view. I realize, respectfully, I'm always ahead of people, but more specifically, I was always ahead of my brother. He couldn't stand not being able to calculate my motives. It's what made him unable to manipulate me, even in reverse psychology. I was always smarter of him, but it's alienated me from the rest of the world as well."

I watched him for a moment. Then, walking up to him I stopped in front of him and saw him lift his head to look at me. His eyes were tired, but deep.

"You don't always have to be ahead of people, you know," I said, running a hand over his hair when he sighed and closed his eyes. "You also don't have to be right all the time. Maybe you and your ridiculous arrogance can't help but be it most of the time, but you don't have to rub it in people's faces. You could just... ignore it."

"I won't dumb myself down for other people," He declared, releasing a heavy exhale when I ran my fingers through the bottom wisps of his hair along his neck. "That's why I stay at home."

I rolled my eyes, but then grabbed his neck hairs and yanked his head back. He gave a low grunt, but nonetheless looked up at me as I leaned down and looked firmly into his eyes.

"You're gonna have to resist being a better-knowing jackass if you want me to stay here and do what's best for me," I stated, pursing my lips when his twitched. "Otherwise you might just find that the best for me is going to be the worst for you. I swear I've resisted slapping you on at least three or four occasions."

"Why resist?"

"Because," I snapped, but then let go of his hair to grip his chin instead when that mouth was too damn sassy. "As satisfying as it would feel, it won't fix my problem. The same applies for you," I mimicked him from earlier. Maybe I needed to control my temperament, but he needed to control his arrogance. There was a difference between being smart and being superior, just as there was a difference between being angry and being passionate. It seemed we both had a lesson to learn.

Watching Harry, I let go of his chin and looked as he straightened out. He gazed across the room for a moment, a thoughtful look in his eyes, before looking back up at me again. "Less of an asshole, you say?"

I stepped between his legs and crossed my arms. "Much less of an asshole. Starting with real lessons with actual mathematical benefits, and not life lessons in persistence or some other shit. I'm going to try my very best to learn from you if you promise to try and not be a better-knowing jackass who can't accept less than perfection from the human mind."

He chuckled quietly, but didn't object. Instead, he gave a nod to confirm he was on for the deal. "Very well."

"Good," I said, finally taking a step back and turning towards my bags. Now I needed to unpack all of this shit again. Man, if I ever saw Richard goddamn Devon again, I was going to thrust my foot up his ass. But something told me he just might like that.

And that's when I remembered a piece of their conversation down in Harry's study. In the haste to get out of here, I had almost forgotten about it, but now it bloomed larger in my head than ever.

"The woman you were talking about earlier..." I slowly started, turning around to see Harry watching me. A muscle in his jaw twitched. "You said something about all of this not being about her... who is her?"

I watched Harry for a long moment, seeing him slowly stand up and stuff his hands into his pockets. Then, pursing his lips, he met my gaze. "Richard's wife."

Wife. I think I had read somewhere that he was married, but I hadn't put more thought into it. Now, though... "How does she fit into all of this?"

Harry continued to look at me, before averting his gaze to the floor. "Richard claims his desperate motive stemmed from the fact that he wanted to give her a child, but we both know it was never truly for her. He merely wanted an heir for his business."

Right... that was the truth, wasn't it. Then how come it felt like something was still missing?

"There's something you're still not telling me," I said, watching his jaw work. There was definitely something more.

"Catarina and I used to date," He then stated.

And that's how the penny dropped. I didn't even need the rest of the story. Harry had the look in his eyes that explained the all too classical tale.

– They had been a couple. She had met his brother. Richard won her over in the end with his smooth tongue. He took probably the most important person in Harry's life and married her right in front of him.

Oh, that was another kind of cruel.

"I'm so sorry," I said, lowering my eyes to the floor. It all just became so clear now. Why Harry despised his brother so much...

"Why?" He asked. I looked up to see him lifting a brow, as if the reason why wasn't obvious.

"I bet that broke your heart?" I said, watching him slowly come closer.

"No," He replied, "On the contrary. It made me realize that the heart should never act on behalf of your emotions. Catarina wasn't looking for love, she was looking for money. When she learned I didn't want it, she surprisingly didn't want me either. My brother had loads to spare and a grudge to nurture towards me. In his mind, he thought he finally won over me, when in truth, I let him take her from me."

"You let him?" Okay, so maybe I was going to need the whole story to understand this anyway. This was going to be interesting, and not in the way I wanted it to be.

Harry smiled calmly and turned towards the window. Looking out at it with a faraway gaze, he then begun; "Me and Catarina met through work. I was working at a problem at the time that required a physicist's opinion, and Catarina was and still is to this date a brilliant physicist. She assisted me in my calculations for weeks, and we eventually became... close. She was a fascinating woman, very driven. Not unlike yourself," He noted.

I bit the inside of my cheek. I didn't like that he was comparing me to a money-grabbing bitch, but then I remembered I did come here for money as well. Touché, then. "So what happened?"

"We eventually got very close," He stated. "She was a passionate woman. She challenged me in ways I've never been challenged before, and that was the only reason I kept her around for as long as I did. Her personality shone through the moment she asked me to publicly accept my first millennium award. Her drive was what help me eventually win it."

"She helped you win your first millennium prize?" I asked, hoping I didn't gape as noticeably as I did in my head. She really had to have been a smart bitch, then. But a bitch nonetheless. "And you actually let her convince you to go?"

"Let is the operative word," Harry chuckled. "I knew the prize called for an after party, so I agreed to attend the event with the one condition that our relationship was to remain out of the public eye. We arrived separately and pretended to be old colleagues running into each other at the after party. She congratulated me on my prize, and I played along. She was a very good actress."

"But you double-played her, didn't you?" I asked, smiling silently when he nodded slowly. If he had let her convince him to go... he had to have had something else up in his sleeve.

"I knew our time together was coming to an end," Harry said, pressing his lips together. "And although for all that she was, she was still a brilliant woman. She deserved to have what she wanted. When I chose to accept the prize publicly... I knew my brother would be at the after party."

Oh.

He really had thought it all the way through, hadn't he. He hadn't even needed to set anything up. The circumstances handled all of that for him. His brother, who had been jumping at the bait to be the man to sell his own brother's tricks to the public, right there at the party... and a woman who wanted money more than she wanted to be with a man who probably could've helped her make her own money... it was easy in the end, wasn't it. All Harry had to do was watch.

"You introduced them to each other," I said. I wasn't questioning it, it was a solid fact. Harry smiled tightly and nodded in confirmation, before turning towards me.

"It took them less than a month to announce their relationship to the public, and even less for Catarina to confess her love for him to me. I let her go without the fight my brother wanted. He believes I held a stoic mask not to lose face, when the truth is..."

"You sent her right into his arms," I said, cupping my mouth. God, the irony. His brother who had spent his whole life trying to control Harry's life... and he had no idea Harry was actually controlling his.

He had orchestrated the whole thing.

"You... are really one of a kind," I stated, shaking my head in disbelief. Harry chuckled quietly from the corner and I couldn't help but laugh silent as well. I was going to keep saying this, because it was the truth, but... these brothers were sincerely fucked up.

"My brother did me the favor of removing a smart woman from my grasp, and he thought he did it on his own merits."

"Sure fucking did," I snorted-half-laughed. I should've been used to his different look on things by now, but he still took me by surprise every time. He always had a completely different take on things.

"I won't let him do it twice, though."

I stopped laughing the second the words left his mouth. Looking up, I saw Harry looking at me firmly. I suddenly couldn't remember how to swallow and had to clear my throat. What... did he just say? "I... what?"

"You're smart, Cassandra," He stated. He slowly took a step towards me, and then another. "Don't let my brother's words hit you anywhere. He's stupid enough to think he can fool me, but he can't. You're too smart to fall for his tricks, too."

I let out a little laugh. Hadn't I, though? I had believed his words now. I had let him convince me to go and get pregnant by his brother. Something I would never normally do, but he had known my fucking price tag and—oh.

My eyes met Harry's, and suddenly I couldn't breathe at all. It all just became clear right then.

He hadn't blamed me. Harry hadn't blamed me. Back then... back when... he said he wanted me to forgive myself for the choice I had made... the choice... his brother... his clever, fucking cunning brother had set up in front of an innocent girl.

Harry never blamed me, because I never stood a chance against his brother.

"Shit," I whispered and felt a goddamn tear press in the corner of my eye. I quickly turned around and tried to fucking bitch talk myself into not crying right now. We do not cry like this, girl. Pull it the fuck together.

Taking a couple of deep breaths, I almost jumped when I hadn't sensed Harry move until I felt his hand on my shoulder. I turned my head and saw him looking down at me, deeply. His eyes were understanding. He knew. Of course he always knew.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, licking my lips when a stupid fucking tear made it's way down to them.

"Don't apologize," He replied and brushed the tear track away with his thumb. My skin suddenly felt hot and my heart felt... God, that thing needed to leave me alone.

But it wouldn't. Harry had saved me from a fucking trap, even despite the fact that the trap had been set on him. Here I was, calling him arrogant and egotistical, when he had done the most selfless thing I could think of. Instead of letting me get snared by his brother's trap, he proved to me and to him that I was better than that. I was smarter, I could be taught, and I would go to college on my own merits without his brother needing to pave the way there for me; He gave me back my pride.

And it made me feel all kinds of shitty right now for not realizing all of this sooner.

I kept staring into Harry's eyes, but after a moment he pulled away. I realized I wasn't breathing and quickly sucked in a breath of air before averting my eyes as well. I cleared my throat and quickly tried to think of something to say. Like thank you.

"We'll talk more tomorrow," Harry then disrupted the silence and spoke up. "Unless of course... you still plan to leave."

I straightened my back a bit, but then smiled faintly. "No. I think I'll stay for now."

At that, Harry slowly smiled back. Then, lowering his gaze again, he gave a nod before straightening out as well. "I'll see you in the morning, then."

In the morning. I wanted him to spend the night in my room, but a part of me knew that it was best for the both of us if we both took some time to ourselves after today. There had been a lot to process, especially for me, but I finally felt like... everything was as it should be. All the cards were on the table, and maybe now... maybe now we could finally turn a new leaf.

"Sleep tight," I therefore replied and watched as he went for the door, opening it silently. He lingered for a moment, then smiled and walked out.

A new leaf.

• • •

It's gonna get interesting from here.