Cassandra forced herself to stand even as she nursed her sprained wrist close to her chest. Keating was angry, and he had every right to be, but he did not have to be. This was not how she had wanted this scenario to play out. Cassandra would have confessed everything to him but everything had turned out wrong. His raised voice was not helping either. Not only was he scaring her but she had no doubt that occupants of the rest of the floor, and most likely those living above and below as well, had heard everything he had screamed out. Cassandra feared she might get driven out of her home after this incident. But that was the least of her worries at the moment. "Keating... Keating... please, calm down," she begged, fighting through her tears to inject peace and reason into her voice in an effort to soothe the the man's agitation. She reached out with her good hand to offer him her touch, to let him know through the contact that she was still human. But his next words were like a physical blow to her, lashing out at her as he attacked her character, her very being. It snapped whatever composure Cassandra had been trying to regain and she burst into tears once again. "How dare you?" she gasped through broken sobs. "Do you think of me as just some harlot? I do not give myself to just anyone! I never have! Only to you!" Her cheeks burned at the slight, her eyes flooded with tears unchecked, and Cassandra covered her face in the shame Keating had inflicted upon her. Twice now he had called her a whore, blatantly and explicitly, and she thought that perhaps he had seen her as that all along as reflected by his treatment of her from the very beginning of their relationship. The dark-haired woman was hurt and highly offended that he would see her as such. While it was true that she flirted and even allowed some tavern patrons to slip a grope or a pinch in order to get a better tip, no one had gotten any further than that. It had all been part of work in her point of view. Keating had been the only one she had willingly given herself to. To find out that he saw her as nothing more than a plaything to relieve his needs, it was too much for poor Cassandra to take. She doubted that he even cared about the difficulties she faced. Even the words he spoke was all about him. "Do you even know how hard a burden this is to bear?" she asked him, displaying the crimson veins on the back of her hands. The sudden movement jerked her injured hand and she had to stifle a cry of pain before slowly pulling her hands back to her chest. "I asked you to come here to-to tell you of this, to ask for your help, or even to just...just find comfort in your arms. I-I was afraid you would judge me. And now you do... "I would never have let this so consume me that I would hurt you, Keating. I wouldn't!" Cassandra said the last in a sharp whisper. She meant every word; she hoped Keating would believe her. The man still lingered when she had expected he would have stormed out the door already. Was it a signed that he did believe her? But he had only paused to ask her a question - no, two questions. The second was easy enough for her to answer, for it did not require her to lie about her feeling for him. But the first... "I...I m-m-murdered a man. In-in his most vulnerable moment," was all she admitted. She hoped Keating would ask nothing further so that she would not have to admit that it was a lover of hers that she had killed. Speaking quickly to answer his second question, Cassandra did not give Keating a chance to mull over her omission. "I...I care for you, Keating. Since the first day we met. Past all your flaws, your-your love for the drink, I thought I saw something different in you. Something most of the people here do not have. And I...I wanted to hold on to that. I thought you had... you have a good heart. "Was I wrong?" It was the perfect womanly ploy. It was true that Cassandra meant every word she said to him, but she had also structured her words and fashioned her tone so that any attention he might have on anything she did not say would be deflected to what she did say. It may seem manipulative, but she did not want him inquiring further about her very first murder. She cared about Keating too much to want to hurt him with the truth. |