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poco a poco

[It.] : Little by little.

THERE WAS A sinking feeling in my heart when I spotted an actual Lamborghini parked right outside the Arts building several afternoons later. It was a deep, royal shade of crimson; the kind that glinted under the sun and shamelessly demanded everyone's attention.

A small crowd had gathered around to stand and gape at the car, and I had no doubt the owner of the car inside was positively aglow with pride. None of us had ever seen these sort of car parked in the university before. Even I had to slow in my steps to admire the sheer magnificence of the car, albeit from a safe distance away.

But my amused smile immediately faded when the window of the car rolled down and a familiar blonde head leaned out to scan the surroundings. Nolan had his sunglasses over his eyes, but his smile was still bright and dazzling, just like his damned car.

"Hello, loves," he said to the nearby group of girls, who all seemed to simultaneously swoon. His voice was clear and loud enough for me to catch every word. "Do you know where Isla Moore is? She was supposed to meet me here at three-thirty."

I didn't wait to hear their reply. Clutching my books tightly to my chest, I ducked my head and immediately walked away.

I was supposed to meet Kaden today and pass the signed contract back to Adelaide, and I knew that Nolan had offered to drive me to the Brettons' beach-house. But I didn't realise he'd come with such fanfare, and now I had to leave before –

"Isla!"

Too late.

I hastened my steps, heading for the side gate as quickly as I could. To my horror, Nolan had put the car in drive and was pulling up by the pavement moments later. "Well, hello, Isla," he greeted cheerfully, "lovely afternoon, isn't it?"

"Go away," I hissed, as surreptitiously as I could. It wasn't very surreptitious, if I was being completely honest, judging by the fair amount of curious glances thrown our way. I blamed the Lamborghini, mostly. "You're embarrassing me!"

He simply threw back his head and let out a hearty laugh. "I'm embarrassing you?" He dropped his voice to a lower register and continued, "my family owns a chain of hotels all around the world and I'm a millionaire at twenty-four and I'm embarrassing you?"

"Don't go bragging about it," I returned peevishly, shooting him a disgusted look. "That's just undignified. Not to mention stupid, because if someone scratches your car and ruins it now – which I'm highly tempted to do – you'd be a millionaire without a Lamborghini."

He laughed even harder at that and I heartily wished the ground would swallow me up. Parker once told me how Nolan loved annoying the hell out of him and Kaden. I now fully understood and sympathised with them.

Although, truth be told, Nolan was bloody entertaining – just not when he was stalking me with a bright red car.

"Get in the car, sweetheart," He told me, before blasting the horn and making me jump in fright. "Or you'll live to regret it."

"I will meet you outside the campus," I returned firmly and began to speed up my pace.

But I didn't get far, because he suddenly began a series of horns that made everyone within earshot turn to glare. And since not everyone could see Nolan inside the car, they turned to glare at me instead.

Muttering a swear word under my breath, I stalked to the car and yanked at the door, but it didn't budge. "It's locked, you nitwit."

He simply grinned. "I know," he chirped, before hitting the horn three more times, just for the hell of it. Then I heard a click and the door swung open, only to reveal my brother sitting in the backseat, laughing so hard that he was almost red in the face.

Letting out a sound of frustration, I slipped inside and slammed the door shut behind me, before glaring at Nolan through the rear-view mirror.

"I hope a bird lands on your car and poos on it," was the best insult I could come up with.

His mouth fell open in horror. "Don't say such a thing about my baby!"

"Then don't pick me up in a car that looks like it was made for Fast and Furious."

Beside me, Parker let out another laugh. "Told you she wouldn't like it," he said to Nolan, "she makes me drive a normal Porsche whenever I pick her up from school. I once came in my Ferrari and she wouldn't even get in. I had to follow her by trailing the bus she took all the way home."

Nolan chuckled and I frowned at the both of them. I was always pleased whenever my brother came to pick me up, but I didn't want attention that was unnecessary. If my friends in school knew that Parker Collins was my brother, or that I was acquainted with Nolan Mortez or Kaden Bretton, I was certain they'd treat me differently. Dad treated Rosemary very differently when she inherited all her dead husband's wealth. And that was from a couple that had spent years living together.

"You," I turned to Parker, who still looked very amused. "You knew very well that I wouldn't like it. So why did you let him?"

His lips tilted up mischievously. "Because the expression on your face was priceless."

"You're the worst brother in the universe."

"I should've taken a video. And made the horn sounds your ringtone."

"You're a pain in my arse."

Nolan let out a bark of laughter from the front seat. "Frankly, I could think of better things to – "

Both Parker and I whipped round to shoot him deathly glares. "Don't you dare finish that sentence, Mortez," Parker growled, with the kind of severity only an overprotective older brother could pull off.

But Nolan being Nolan didn't bat an eyelid. With a serene smile, he simply put the car in drive and hit the accelerator. The car lurched forward and I almost flew from my seat, had not Parker reached out to grab me in time.

"Seatbelt on," Parker told me, grabbing the leather strap and pulling it across me, before buckling it into the cache tightly. "Nolan drives like he's in a drag race and the horsepower of this car kicks like a beast."

"Speaking of beasts," Nolan quipped from the front seat, "did you know that I'm – "

" – an absolute beast in bed, yes, I know," I deadpanned. "With a marvellous physique and a face sculpted like Adonis, your sole purpose on this earth is to ravish young women in their beds so long as they're willing, and bring them to quick, mind-blowing deaths several times in a single night. How wonderfully beastly of you, would you like a bloody medal?"

I'd meant it to be sarcastic, but Nolan simply flashed me an indulgent smile. "You think I have a face sculpted like Adonis?"

Parker snorted a laugh. "Now do you see why I've never introduced you to my friends?"

I did see. Nolan had horrible sexual puns, a perennially sunny smile on his face and an annoy-you-to-death attitude. And Kaden was the prince every girl grew up wishing they'd meet and the man so shrouded in mystery every woman couldn't help but want to know. Both were equally lethal in their own ways – even if the feelings I had for Nolan were entirely platonic compared to the deeper ones I had for Kaden.

But they were like meteors, nonetheless, each crashing unexpectedly into my life and making themselves such a constant that I didn't know if I could say goodbye to them when the time came for me to do so.

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The rest of the drive was more or less bearable. Once I got over Nolan's reckless driving and contented myself with the warning that I'd return as a ghost to haunt him if he got me killed, I spent the next hour or so napping in the backseat. Occasionally, I woke up to the sounds of muffled laughter or conversations between Parker and Nolan about their respective businesses.

It was a pleasant sight. I hardly ever saw my brother talking business with other people or teasing his friends. He was always the protective, overindulgent, sometimes aggravating brother when he was with me; and it was nice to see different sides to him.

When we finally arrived at the beach-house, Parker shook me awake and held me by the arm when I drowsily stumbled in. The place was silent save for the laps of the waves against the beach and the sounds of the crying seagulls outside.

"Mrs Bretton's expecting you in her study," Edwin said to me, when he greeted us in the hall.

Parker and Nolan quickly abandoned me for their friend upstairs, and I was left all alone to face the lioness herself. A lioness seemed an apt description. Adelaide was unyielding and unrelenting in every way possible, but protective when it came to Kaden and would do anything for him.

Should this lioness ever find out that Kaden and I were lying to her – I honestly didn't like to think what my fate would be.

Adelaide was at her desk when I entered, a pair of reading glasses perched on her nose. She barely looked up at me, distractedly motioning me over when I greeted her. "I presume you've brought and signed the contract?"

"Yes." Pulling the paper out of the brown envelope, I laid it on her desk. My signature was imprinted at the end of the contract in a messy scrawl, since I'd never really mastered the art of fancy signing in the first place.

"And the terms are agreeable? We are more than willing to offer you something in return; all you need to do is ask."

"Yes. And that's really not necessary, but thank you all the same."

"Alright," she acceded, before pointing to one of the lines in the contract. "I'd like to bring your attention to this clause in particular. Your first meeting with my son was last week; the second was a few days ago. That leaves you with exactly five more meetings to be spread out any time during the remaining three weeks. You do understand what it means, don't you?"

I nodded. "I have to break up with him by the last meeting."

"I'd say wrap it up as quickly as you can, but yes, you have until the seventh and last meeting to do so. Do keep that in mind and remember that there is a risk at every turn – the most crucial one being that he might regain his sight before then and if that happens, all our efforts will be for nothing."

All our efforts are already for nothing, I wanted to say, but I held my tongue and nodded instead. "I understand. I'll be careful."

"Good." She seemed sufficiently satisfied and took the contract, slipping it into her desk drawer. "You may leave. Kaden's waiting in his room."

I turned to leave and had almost opened the door when she called my name. I spun round apprehensively and was surprised to see an expression of pure gratitude on her face.

"Thank you for doing this."

I almost choked in surprise at her words and thankfully managed to conceal my shock in time. "You're welcome," I barely managed before turning to leave.

It wasn't until I had shut the door firmly behind me that I allowed myself a tiny smile. Adelaide wasn't going to say it often and perhaps would never say it again, but I was going to remember this for a long time to come.

Dad was right when he told me that even the hardest of hearts could melt if you held them up in the sun long enough. All you had to do was to find that source of light. Adelaide's was obviously Kaden.

I couldn't help but wonder what Kaden's was.

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I knew that Parker and Nolan had gone to see Kaden a good five minutes before Edwin announced my arrival. But five minutes was hardly decent visiting duration by any means, and so I was more than surprised when the door opened for the two lads to leave, with Kaden bidding them a casual goodbye.

Kaden had a fresh piece of gauze wrapped round his head to cover his eyes and he still looked the same. But his posture seemed more relaxed, which I supposed was due to him being in the presence of Nolan, who could make practically anybody and everybody comfortable.

Parker and Nolan paused at the doorway when they saw Edwin and me waiting outside. There was a beat of silence. My brother cast a wary glance at me, unsure of how to act in front of Kaden, since I was technically supposed to be Evangeline.

But Nolan had no qualms flashing me a brilliant smile. "Well, hello, Evangeline," he said in such a bright manner, that if Kaden hadn't found out about the ruse, I would've been terrified to death because of his horrid acting skills. "Fancy seeing you here, Evangeline."

I wanted to smack him, but the situation was far too complicated. If I did, I'd be acting out of character in front of Kaden. And even though that was no longer a problem since he knew about the ruse, Parker and Nolan would realise that he knew the truth.

And to be honest, I wasn't sure if Kaden wanted them to. After all, he hadn't said a thing about it to anyone, and I presumed things were as status quo. It was so difficult to know what he was thinking sometimes.

"Hello, Mr Mortez," I greeted Nolan smoothly, noticing Kaden's lips twitch in my peripheral vision. "How have you been?"

"Splendid. And can I just say that you look absolutely stunning today, Evangeline?" Both Parker and I narrowed our eyes at his compliment – honestly, did he know no limits? But Nolan simply smiled calmly. "Take good care of her, Kade, or I might just steal her from under your nose."

"I'd like to see you try," said Kaden, an underlying tone of amusement in his voice, as if he were thoroughly entertained by the fact that Parker and Nolan still thought I was playing Evangeline.

I knew that Nolan was simply playing up to his role as a notorious flirt, and he probably would have treated Evangeline this way had she still been alive, but this was bordering on ridiculous. Deciding that this had gone on for long enough, I signalled Parker to grab Nolan and leave.

My brother immediately got the hint and hooked an arm around Nolan's neck before dragging him away. "See you soon, Kade," Parker said, waving a lazy hand over his shoulder. "Good seeing you, Evangeline."

"You too," I echoed, before following Kaden inside.

Edwin shut the door after us and there there was just Kaden and I. He'd already begun to make his way back to the usual window-seat, and judging by the general direction he was headed and how much he'd familiarised himself with the furniture in the room, I didn't think he needed my help at all.

I watched him until he'd found the seat and settled into it before clearing my throat. "So," I started politely, "how're you feeling today?"

"You don't have to make small talk on my account," he sounded almost amused but I couldn't be sure. "I got Edwin to bring you a bunch of magazines so you wouldn't be bored. You can watch whatever you want on the television too."

I frowned when I noticed the thick stack of magazines and the remote control left on the coffee table in front of the settee. It was sweet of Kaden to do this but I couldn't quite understand the rationale behind it. Nevertheless, I didn't question it.

Settling onto the settee, I picked up the TV remote hesitantly, before looking around. The television was nowhere to be seen.

"I have a question," I blurted. Kaden was facing the windows once more, but turned to look at me, his eyebrows knitting at my words. "This is going to sound ridiculous, but where on earth is the television?"

His lips twitched. "You're asking a blind person to locate something for you?"

"Well, it's your room!"

He leaned slightly out of the seat, tapping the wall that separated his window from the next. There was a good stretch of wall in between with no furniture stood against it, and when I squinted, I realised that there were exactly three panels embedded within the frame of the wall, painted the same colour so they were hardly visible.

"It's in here. Just press the green button on the remote."

I did as he directed. The panels slid open smoothly to reveal a huge plasma screen that immediately flickered to life, where a rerun of Doctor Who was currently airing in high definition. I let out a laugh of disbelief. "That is way too much technology for just one television," I muttered crossly.

Perhaps it was Kaden's enhanced hearing thanks to his blindness, but he overheard and shook his head with mirth. "Is that Doctor Who?" He asked, slowly unfolding himself from his perch and getting up. I immediately went over to help him, taking his arm after he'd swung the curtain back into place so that the room was far dimmer than before.

"I wouldn't have pegged you as a Doctor Who fan," I mused, waiting for him to settle down on the settee before sitting down myself, making sure to keep a safe distance between us.

"I'm not," he admitted, "I just watch if it's on and I've got nothing important to do. Which isn't often, to be honest."

He sounded a little bitter when he'd said that, although I couldn't be entirely sure. But what did I know, really? Most of my weekends were spent curled up at home, to satisfy my weekly Netflix dose and repaint my nails where the flecks of nail polish had fallen off from working at Dad's garden.

Turning back to the television screen, I enthusiastically explained the episode to Kaden in thorough detail. "The Doctor just went to play blind man's bluff. Now Clara's talking to the Doctor about River. He's telling her about Tranzalore. Oh, that's the Doctor's grave, that's why he's not supposed to – "

Kaden nudged me. "You do realise that I'm blind and not deaf, right?" He said sardonically, "I can hear everything that's going on. You don't have to narrate it for me."

There was a moment of silence as realisation dawned on me. I flushed with embarrassment, thankful that he couldn't see it, and bit my lip. "Sorry."

"Don't be. I was just teasing; you can continue narrating if you want."

There was an unusual level of affection in his tone and I sighed because, for a brief moment, it almost seemed as though he was twenty and I was sixteen, and he was asking me to dance for the first time with nothing but softness in his voice and warmth in his touch.

"Keep talking, please," Kaden directed, gently nudging me with his knee, when I had kept silent for far too long. "I haven't had someone blabbering in my ear while I was watching – or, in this case, listening – to a show before. It's a refreshing change."

"I don't blabber!" my tone was indignant but I smiled all the same, tucking my feet under my legs. "Here's the deal about Clara Oswald," I began and he seemed to relax, shifting slightly closer to me. "She's actually three distinct, but similarly named, people living at different times. The third incarnation of her becomes the Doctor's companion, and this episode explains the mystery of her multiple lives..."

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I expected Kaden to ask me to leave when the Doctor Who episode was over, but he never so much as suggested it. Instead, Kaden continued to stay where he was – on the settee next to me.

The television was still turned on, some subpar series airing on the channel but the volume was turned low. We were silent, but it wasn't the uncomfortable sort of silence, more like silence that had settled easily, unsuspectingly, between us in the lazy afternoon.

A sudden thought came to me after awhile, and I glanced over at Kaden, who was sprawled across the bench with his feet barely brushing mine, since I was leaning against the other end. His head was tipped back against the arm of the bench, his chest rising and falling with slow, calm breaths.

"Kaden?" I whispered carefully, "are you asleep?"

"Yes," came his flat reply. Nolan's anecdote about having been thrown into the ocean despite Kaden being blind came to mind and I suppressed a smile. He definitely seemed to have heightened senses.

I nudged his feet gently with mine. "Since you know about Evangeline's death, have you been to see her one final time?" There was a pause. And then he pushed himself up on his elbows, head inclined in my direction and I hastily tried to explain. "Her ashes are scattered at Clavern Coast some distance from here. I don't think anyone's told you about it yet, because of the ruse, but I think you might want to go there sometime."

He laid his head back on the armrest. "I will when I get my sight back."

I searched his face for any signs of heartbreak or devastation or any emotion that came after the tragic loss of a loved one. But I saw none, except for a faint tinge of repressed guilt. His lips were pressed in a careful line, the rest of his features indifferent.

"You seem terribly calm for someone who was in love with her," I couldn't help but point out.

"In love?" He glanced up sharply and I knew that his green eyes would've been boring into mine if he weren't blind. "We were never in love. We weren't even properly dating."

His words settled in the silence, so shocking and unexpected that I didn't know how to react. "What?" I blurted at last.

Kaden pushed himself up, bringing his arms over the back of the chair, an impassive look on his face. He seemed every bit the confident, self-assured person that I knew he was; and I would have truly bought this façade, had it not been for the way he unconsciously clenched his jaw, a habit Nolan told me he had whenever something was troubling him.

"It was going to be a publicity stunt," Kaden began briskly, his voice so detached he sounded like he was discussing business with me. "We were only in the beginning stages and still ironing out the details of our fake relationship. Evangeline had just launched her modelling career but needed a boost to instant fame and I wanted a business venture with her parents. That's all there was to it. We hadn't even begun anything."

My eyes widened. "That's it?" I asked, a little horrified as it suddenly dawned on me that the whole ruse would never have worked to begin with, if their relationship had solely been for practical purposes. "When you say 'publicity stunt', do you mean acting all madly in love whenever there was an audience? Or – "

"Actually, by 'publicity stunt', I meant that she was just going to attend all social events with me. So there was definitely no unnecessary physical contact or declarations of love," he added, pointedly.

I blushed several shades of red, my mind running over all the things that had gone wrong from the moment I stepped into his room the other day. Everything that I had said or done clearly overstepped the boundaries Kaden and Evangeline had already established so long ago.

"You were trying to trip me up," I murmured, realisation finally dawning on me as I recalled how he had acted around me. Each time I reacted to his touch or embrace, I was sinking deeper into a pit that had already been dug the moment Adelaide came up with the plan. "You knew from the very beginning, didn't you?"

"I had a hunch. You just played right into my hands," he said calmly. "Starting from the moment you called me Kade instead of Kaden. "

"How was that – "

"Only people who know me well enough call me that," he explained.

After a moment of deliberation, I realised he was right. Both Parker and Nolan called him Kade, never Kaden, because they were his best friends.

So did that mean Evangeline was never close enough to him to begin with? And what about his mother, who seemed to adopt all sorts of formality and never called him Kade either?

My mind was still in a whirl of thoughts when Kaden continued, "secondly – and I've kept count of all the mistakes you've made, by the way – you also said you were fine when I asked about your minor injuries. Evangeline was trapped under the car after the accident, there was no way her injuries would be minor. You asked how I was feeling – she had never asked that before. She had never hugged me before or told me she loved me, because love wasn't in the equation to begin with and it was a thoroughly professional deal."

Realisation finally dawned on me. It all made perfect sense. Now I knew where it all went downhill. It started the moment I stepped into Kaden's room and acted utterly and irrevocably in love with him.

Only it wasn't much of an act on my part. Perhaps I had played the role of a loving girlfriend far too well, which completely backfired since there was no loving girlfriend to begin with.

But if there was no loving girlfriend or a proper girlfriend to begin with, what was he trying to prove with the kiss we shared the other day?

I couldn't help but voice the question aloud. "What about the kiss?"

He stiffened and was silent for perhaps a moment too long. "What about it?" he repeated at last, sounding more than careful this time.

"Well – were you trying to determine if I tasted the same as Evangeline?" I asked in confusion, because it was the only plausible explanation I could come up with. "Maybe – "

"No. Just forget it," there was an acidity to his tone that warned me not to push.

So I didn't. Settling back against the arm of the bench, I stifled a yawn and studied him, mostly because I had the liberty of doing that without him ever realising.

Four years had passed, and Kaden Bretton still looked every bit the gorgeous, refined man I'd met so long ago. He'd grown into his features, his jawline seemed more defined and his black hair was shorter than before.

It had been four years in between, but even if we'd changed physically, our circumstances had not changed. Our meetings were still fleeting – the slow dance then, playing Evangeline now – this all couldn't last.

Dad once told me that the most beautiful flowers had the shortest life spans and I wondered if this applied to memories too. Did the most beautiful situations always have to be so fleeting? Could nothing last forever?

If all was fleeting and this was a fragment of beauty that would not last, then I needed to memorise it. Two vastly different people who had met again thanks to fate having played its cards, lounging in a settee on a lazy afternoon, feeling comfortable in each others' presence.

Too comfortable, in fact, I suddenly realised, a small frown slipping onto my face. I was comfortable with Kaden because he was Parker's best friend and I'd thought about him a lot in the past. But I was merely a stranger to Kaden.

And for a stranger, he had certainly told me a lot about the relationship, or lack thereof, between him and Evangeline. It was perhaps far too much information for someone like me, who was supposed to be a complete outsider; someone his mother had simply hired to play Evangeline.

"I have another question," I started softly, with much apprehension, wondering if he'd reject it. But he didn't; instead, he simply turned to face me and waited expectantly.

"Why did you tell me so much?" I asked softly, watching as his lips purse at my question. "I'm a stranger who could easily sell out to the press and they'd have a field day with all your dirty little secrets. You're an astute man; you knew very well that you didn't have to tell me anything. But you did all the same. Why?"

His lips twitched. "I don't think I have any dirty little secrets."

"It was just a figure of speech."

"With many implications," he returned shrewdly and I smiled. There was a thoughtful pause right after, as though he was picking his next words carefully. "I don't know why I do," he began, in a low voice, "trust you, that is. It's just a gut feeling. Not a clever decision for a businessman to make, of course, but then again, it's not a business transaction with you, is it?"

"Of course not," I assured him and turned away with a wistful smile.

It's just a hearttransaction; one in which I have everything to lose and only memories with youto gain.