Chapter 7
“Kitty, darling, look I really can’t stay long. I really only popped by to ask you about something your son mentioned—have you really let him talk with that Supergirl figure? Alone?” Her mother’s eyebrows—plucked and waxed and possibly re-drawn—raise almost to the edge of her hair.
She’s trying out a new look. Probably something she has picked up from someone far more intellectual, far more sophisticated. Cat supposes if she were even to ask, her mother would let her know quite quickly that there’s no point in trying to explain, Cat wouldn’t know the person, wouldn’t understand what the haircut, the whole look means. As if she hadn’t run a fashion magazine for four years.
Cat puts her drink down on the coffee table lightly. She smoothes her hands down her skirt and stands. “Drink, mother?”
“Oh no. I have a very particular palate, I can’t drink what you’re having.”
She probably drinks something with lemon, Cat thinks. It would explain the constant sourness. That, or it’s a fundamental element of her personality, a deep rooted dislike of herself and the person she has become, that has no choice but to turn up in her appearance and her treatment of others.
“I’ve stocked your favourite scotch.”
“I doubt that, it’s rather exclusive.”
Cat turns away so her mother can’t see the indelicate way she rolls her eyes. If she doesn’t want a drink, Cat still does.
“Now Kitty, please pay attention. I know all this television isn’t good for focus but do try. This is important. Having your son spend time with this, this foreigner,” she puts it delicately, “simply isn’t a good idea.”
“There is nothing simple about it.”
“Kitty.” Her eyes glitter darkly under the disapproving cut of her brows. “No good mother would allow her son to be so close with someone so dangerous.” Cat sucks in a breath but what can she say to that, that blatant slap? Katherine continues. “Although I suppose you’re doing it because it’s good for your image, hmm? The princess of, oh what was it? All the silly names people throw around, I can’t keep up. But there,” she claps her hands closed on her lap. “I do hope he brought back some juicy gossip for you, Kitty, otherwise what’s the point of having hi—”
“Don’t,” Cat hisses. “Finish. That. Sentence.” She lowers her glass to the counter with a clink and fights hard the desire to just call up security and have her mother escorted out. Now that. That would do nothing good for her reputation or peace and quiet. “Don’t you ever question how much I love my son. Don’t you ever do that.”
Katherine bows her head a fraction. “Of course not, Kitty,” she soothes. “That was harsh, I’m sorry.” Cat blinks. An apology wasn’t what she had expected. But in another breath, her mother continues to live down to her expectations and her view of the world is re-affirmed. “I’m only looking out for the boy.”
Cat recovers. Tosses back the last of her drink. She returns to her desk and smiles over at her mother. “I’m sure. What is his name, by the way?”
Katherine doesn’t answer, which is answer enough.
“Supergirl,” Cat says, seating herself primly in front of her computer and sliding her glasses back on, “is a remarkable person and, at the moment, CatCo’s highest profile asset.” If she were to look just an inch to the right of her mother, she might notice Kara at her desk beyond the glass walls. She might notice that Kara sits a little straighter, and that her head is tilted just so as though, for instance, she were listening to something. “Supergirl,” Cat continues, and her eyes linger a little longer on her assistant, “is no freak. Supergirl is extraordinary and she is mine. That’s not bad for my image at all.”
Katherine’s eyes narrow to wicked, curious slits. “What an interesting way to phrase that, Kitty.”
Cat’s eyes drift from her mother, over to Kara, who is looking into her office with a carefully blank expression. “Isn’t it?” She re-focuses on her mother. “Being such a highly successful editor, I’m sure you understand the power of subtext.”
“I thought you had rethought that after college.”
“As it turns out, I’m an incredibly powerful, popular, and attractive woman. It also doesn’t hurt that I’m very rich. So,” she shrugs, “I do what I want.” She taps her finger thoughtfully against the spacebar of her keyboard before she reaches over to the phone and presses down on the intercom. “Kara,” she says, not looking away from her mother. “Have someone help my mother to her car please.”
“Yes, Miss Grant.”
“And I suppose she is one of the things you want too?” Katherine says, and Cat tries to lift her finger from the intercom before Kara hears that, but she can see Kara gasp and the way her eyes widen. “I didn’t forget the way you defended her last time. You’re quite right, I have an excellent grasp on subtext.” Katherine stands and slinks over to the chair where she placed her bad. It’s only a few steps but they have the distinct aura of a predator circling prey and Cat doesn’t like it.
She’s not a child anymore and her mother can’t make her feel like this.
“Whatever was between the two of you is over, isn’t it?” Katherine shrewdly surmises.
Cat lifts her chin stubbornly. Instantly regrets it. With anyone else, that might not mean anything but her mother knows she’s right and Cat just doesn’t want to admit it.
“Be careful, Kitty. Unless she’s getting something from you, she’ll be the next one out the door.”
Cat doesn’t hide the roll of her eyes. Her mother lacks finesse and outside of her tiny, tiny pretentious literature niche, she knows very little. She’s tactless and flailing, and Cat shouldn’t pay her the slightest attention. Katherine’s ‘worries’ are just sly digs from a woman is is uncertain about her place in life and who makes herself feel better by undermining others. That’s all. They certainly aren’t a reason to feel all over again that she’s twelve and young and crying in her room because her mother had once again informed her of all the ways she was failing.
She considers for a self-indulgent, spiteful moment whether she should fire her therapist—with the amount of money she was paying her, Cat should be past this unfortunate reaction. But it’s not her fault. Mothers, daughter. Those relationships are more difficult than they reasonably should be.
Cat realises that she’s been silent for too long and she scrambles for something cuttingly distant to say, to show she doesn’t care.
Kara beats her to it.
She steps a short way into the office and Cat relaxes a little. Kara has that look on her face. The, I’m going to fix this, one. It’s reassuring and lovely in equal measure and Cat hopes that she can read the thanks in her eyes.
“It’s time for you to leave,” Kara tells Katherine firmly. “I’ve asked for your car to be brought around, Ms Grant.”
“Look at you,” Katherine murmurs. Her fingers close around her bag and she steps toward Kara and Cat freezes. She doesn’t look directly at her mother but she plants her hands on each arm of her chair and readies herself to stand at the first sign that she’s going to attack Kara. “You’re still enamoured, you poor thing. To work here you mustn’t be particularly bright so let me spell it out for you, dear. My daughter doesn’t really care about you.”
Kara has heard worse from Cat’s own mouth so she just smiles and checks her watch.
“Would you like me to fetch your coat, Ms Grant? Your car is waiting.”
“There are ways to make something of yourself without giving into immoral requests. It might be easy to give in—you want to keep your job, I know, I understand," she soothes. "But she can’t make you do anything, and you don’t have to throw your future away for a few pretty pay checks before she sends you on your way. Work hard rather than spreading your—”
“That is enough,” Cat snaps, and she stands to stop this from happening, but her eyes slip to Kara and she falters. Her mask has slipped just enough to let them see. Her lips are white with fury, her eyes wide, and Cat’s words taste abruptly bitter when she swallows them.
“How dare you,” Kara hisses. Her hands drop to her sides. They are clenched into fists and Cat wouldn’t care at all if Kara struck her mother—if she did care, it would be because Kara isn’t not someone who hurts others and for her to get to that point means Sunny Danvers has shot right to boiling. “Do you even know your daughter?”
Katherine blinks. That wasn’t what she had expected to hear.
Neither had Cat, if she was honest. But it doesn’t surprise her—of course Kara would defend her, the woman who makes her life hell, before she defends her own integrity.
“Do you know who she is? How she made herself what she is today? She is the most hard-working, ethical, incredible woman. Your daughter is so smart and driven and so empathetic. She would never force someone to do that.” Kara’s hand comes up to her glasses in a jerk, she’s so agitated. “She would send anyone who tried that with her far away. Miss Grant has worked every day to get ahead and she isn’t about to let anyone undermine that, to allow anyone to undermine themselves or what she's made, by compromising herself. And what she has made for everyone and for herself is nothing short of extraordinary. Don’t you know your daughter at all?”
Kara's voice doesn’t lift above a quiet murmur, but each word has such intensity and drive behind it that Katherine flinches backwards. It is smooth and treacherous, Kara's voice, and Cat, strangely enough, thinks of a royal wedding, silk sheets, and a knife in the dark.
“And you don’t know Carter’s name?”
Cat lifts a hand to her lips, hides her smug smile. Slipping, Kara, she thinks to herself.
“What is wrong with you? He’s the best kid. He’s the best kid, and he’s smart and funny and has the kindest heart and he always tries to do the right thing and you are a nasty human being. Miss Grant want right. You cut down everyone around you because you think it makes you better but it doesn’t. It makes you a small, weak, unhappy person and I feel sorry for you.” Kara stares Katherine down for a moment longer before she steps back, lifts a hand up to her glasses. “Mostly,” she says, “I just feel sorry for Carter. He deserves so much better than you. I’m glad you’re never around. You would just hurt him.”
Katherine doesn’t stay long after that.
She doesn’t stay at all, actually, because Kara escorts her out herself, marching her out at a quick one two step. Cat watches the elevator doors close in front of her mother and, behind her mother, a glaring Kara.
When she returns a few minutes later, Kara sits down at her desk and returns to work as though it had never happened. She doesn’t return the look Cat knows Kara can feel boring into her and, after a few minutes, Cat accepts that they aren’t going to talk about it, at least not yet, and she returns to work.
//
“I’m sorry for overstepping,” she says later, when the office is clear and she’s laying page after page in front of Cat for her to sign.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Miss Grant, please.” Kara drags one of the guest chairs over, closer to Cat’s throne, and sits. “I shouldn’t have said those things. About Carter. I’m not his parent, I know that. I should’ve just had security show your mother out, I am so sorry, I—”
“That’s enough,” Cat interrupts sternly. “You did nothing wrong. You said nothing wrong.”
Kara gapes.
“Our…My decision for us to remain professional,” Cat says and Kara nods slowly. “It does not extend to Carter.” She looks away from Kara and in a movement quite unlike her normal self, she fiddles with the pages in front of her. “You are kind to him, and that is infrequent enough that I would find it distasteful to take that away. And,” she says more quietly, “I am glad that he has you.” Kara nods again, eyes wide. “Thank you. For defending him.”
From the corner of her eyes, Cat swears she sees Kara’s eyes flash—Cat imagines the colour red, just behind that fierce blue—and her hands clench on her knees then, gently, Kara reaches out and the tips of her fingers brush ever so slightly against Cat’s pinkie, the closest point of her body to Kara. Cat’s finger flexes in response.
“Always, Miss Grant,” Kara promises. Her smile is so warm, and she takes her hand away to touch the frames of her glasses. Cat would give anything to know what Kara was thinking in that moment. “You were right. He’s really special, just like you said.”
“Yes. I know.”
Cat leans back in her chair and something in her refuses to look away first. Every second that passes that Cat doesn’t look away hurls them further over the ‘professional’ line but Kara is warm and she’s missed this, she’s missed the late nights and the feeling of, of camaraderie and something else, something shared that goes beyond. So she indulges herself, though it isn’t fair to Kara and they both know it.
After a few long minutes—longer than it should have been, too long not to mean something—it is Kara who looks away, whose eyes slip down to the desk.
“That was the last of the papers, Miss Grant,” she says, and she leans forward to collect them up.
“Thank you.”
“Of course.”
They trade these terse little comments and settle uncomfortably back into their separate boxes—boss, employee—and Kara leaves for home and Cat tries not to feel like she’s let another opportunity slip right through her fingers.
After everything that has happened in the past few weeks, Kara can’t find it in herself to be surprised when Maxwell Lord shows up at CatCo.
He stops off at every level of the building—the gaggle of press that follows him constantly get to listen to him talk about why he’s taking the stairs, about some clever, clever new detail of his fitness line that he’s testing out today—and Cat comments with a huff that he does it “to prove he can single handedly distract every person in my building. They all want to be him or sleep with him.” She scoffs, cocks her hip out to the side to rest a hand there on the slope of her body, and she glares toward the stairwell. “It it weren’t against workplace policy, I would block off that stairway. Kara, look into that for me.”
“Yes, Miss Grant.”
“Then make a note of which floors have the lowest productivity today. They’ll get a carefully worded reminder that they’ve signed contracts detailing their required work hours and how they are supposed to be loyal to CatCo, to me. Not my sub-par “competitors”.” She uses air quotes to show her derision and Kara ducks her head to hide a smile.
“Yes, Miss Grant. Was there anything else?”
Kara doesn’t dare look Cat in the eyes anymore. She can’t risk it. She doesn’t know what accidental or flyaway comment Carter might have made now that he knows. Carter is the best kid in the world—as she has told Alex time and time again, even though Alex ignores her and throws herself instead into every mission that doesn’t involve Kara—but best kid or not, Kara isn’t sure that he can withstand the super-interviewing-villain that is Cat Grant.
“Miss Grant? Was there anything else?” Kara asks again, because Cat has been quiet for a very long time now.
She chances a look up from her tablet to see Cat staring right at her, the arm of her glasses held between her lips. Her eyes are warm and soft and Kara swallows down the nervous sound she wants to make. Only, that gulp is plenty audible in the quiet office and Cat’s gaze burns over the length of Kara’s throat before it drags upwards, to her eyes.
“That will be all, Kiera.”
Kara nods and turns and in a show of strength, doesn’t sprint from the office.
“Oh, Kiera?” Cat says lightly when she’s at the door.
“Yes, Miss Grant?”
“Will I have to concern myself with your loyalties?” Her eyes flick to the stairwell where voices are echoing louder now, signalling Maxwell Lord’s arrival.
“I signed a contract, Miss Grant,” Kara says, and if she thought she would be pleased to see Cat disappointed, she was wrong. The warmth fades and Cat’s lips press into a thin line and she snatches her glasses from her mouth and slides them into place, nodding. The urge to help, to fix immediately what she had wrought, buffets her and she squares her shoulders. “My loyalties are with you, Miss Grant,” she adds, and she waits until Cat meets her eyes again.
“With Catco, you mean.”
Kara remembers last night, defending Cat, hearing Cat saying that Supergirl is extraordinary. Hearing, even if it was from Katherine, that there is something between her and Cat. Remembers locking eyes with Cat and never wanting to pull away or be pulled away. Remembers Cat’s fingers brushing against her wrist and the spark it brought—she remembers thinking for hours about that minute Carter had interrupted, about what might have happened if he hadn’t, and she had replayed Cat’s approach in her mind over and over and over and over again and try as she might she couldn’t quite get what would have followed to play out just right and she had to start all over again. Kara tilts her head ever so slightly to the side in a movement that is not a no, but is decidedly not a yes either.
Cat leans back slowly in her chair, hands moving to the arm rests, and she settles easily into the throne. She looks thoughtful and regal and powerful and a smirk settles into the corners of her lips when she looks over Kara again, luxuriating in what Kara has just told her. She nods slowly.
“That will be all, thank you Kiera.”
“Yes, Miss Grant.”
Cat stays in her office when Maxwell Lord finally steps out onto their level. When everyone else, lead by an only slightly ashamed Winn, falls over themselves to get close to the billionaire genius—an autograph and a gift for each, as well as the chance to talk to him, to even shake his hand maybe—only Kara and Cat remain at their desks.
“Ah. Kara.”
He stops at her desk. When she doesn’t look up, he laughs. “Playing hard to get, I see. I like that.”
He pulls Winn’s chair from across the way—Winn has to remind himself to breathe, because Maxwell Lord is touching his chair and sitting in his chair, the chair he also sits in, and it’s just a bit much to handle, he borrows someone’s desk to sit on and focus on breathing—and sits next to Kara, who is still typing away.
Inside her office, Cat pauses. Lord taking a special interest in an assistant isn’t new. However, when that assistant is potentially her Supergirl and is definitely her own Kara Danvers, Cat finds that she is…displeased by his attention. Even more so, because Max hasn’t come in to see her which means that unless she wants to relent and go out to meet him, greet him like she was waiting for him, she has to wait for him to come to her.
Or.
She tugs the laptop towards herself and hesitates for only a second before she flicks the messaging app up onto the screen.
What does he want? she sends to Kara.
Nothing, Kara sends back instantly, and her shoulders hunch a little more. Her head is bent over her laptop and she’s studiously reading something on it even as Max talks away at her.
“Nothing,” he laughs. “That’s not exactly true. May I?” He points to her computer, finger brushing close to her, and Kara yanks her body away, rolling her chair as far away as she can. She gives him a curt nod—he can use whatever he wants, so long as he doesn’t touch her.
I am offering her a job, please don’t interrupt, he types back and Kara glares at him when she reads what he has sent. She is up and out of her chair and into Cat’s office the very second Cat sucks in a breath to call her name.
Rather than coming to stand in front of her and waiting for direction, Kara continues around until she is standing behind the grand heavy desk with Cat. First, to show him that her place is with Cat. Maybe not next to her, but with her? Absolutely. And secondly, because if he says something stupid she can flip the desk over at and onto him. The thought makes her smile and she entertains it for a moment longer.
Lord follows her in and observes the way Kara stands behind Cat’s shoulder, tall and silent and slightly murderous with a sweet smile. Just his type—other than alien, of course.
“Tell me what is going on.”
“Well—“
Cat holds up a hand to stop him. “Not you. Kara?”
“I’m sorry, Miss Grant,” Kara says stiffly, “I wasn’t listening to him so I can’t tell you.” Cat looks gleeful at the unsubtle disparagement.
“Ooh, chilly.” Max pretends to shudder and Kara narrows her eyes at him. “Please, I come in peace. It’s just a job offer. Hear me out, I assure you it’s all above board and very reasonable.” Kara crosses her arms. Cat blinks. “I’ll pay out the end of your contract so you can come work for me. There’ll be better hours, better pay, you get to pick some of your own projects. I want to put you at the head of my managing team—it’ll be way more fun—“
“No thank you,” Kara interrupts.
He doesn’t miss the way Cat relaxes ever so slightly when Kara denies him.
Cat knows he sees it—Max doesn’t miss much. She picks up her pen and writes in therapist in one of the blank boxes on her desk calendar. Her mother had got to her, apparently. Unless she’s getting something she’ll be the next one out the door. The thought makes her feel ill. And it grates, too, because she is Cat Grant and she doesn’t need anyone. Other than Carter. She certainly doesn’t need her assistant.
It’s the fact that her assistant is being poached—and right in front of her, at that—that makes her burn with anger.
“Come on, Kara.” He steps closer, makes sure Cat can detect the familiar tone he’s using. He’s using her name. Something starts throbbing behind Cat’s eyes. “You can keep an eye on me there.”
Neither Max nor Cat miss the way Kara looks at him then—like she’s seriously considering his offer, as Max knew she would.
It’s honestly the smartest move. Kara shifts a little, uncomfortable, and looks to the ground. Cat lifts her hands from her desk and folds them in her lap, out of Max’s line of sight. They dig into the soft skin of her palm but no expression shows on her face.
“Plus, you must be dying to get out of this place. Everyone knows how Cat treats you. Her little lapdog assistant. Fetch and carry, right?” Max grins, easy and glib. “A collared falcon, more like.”
“That’s enough.”
“Do you beg for treats too?”
“Shut. Up. I don’t know what game you’re playing but I’m not interested. And if you’re trying to endear me to you, you’re doing a really bad job at it.”
“Sorry, sorry,” he holds his hands up in surrender but his smug smirk remains. “Touchy. But don’t lie to me—I know you’re interested. Very interested.” Kara grits her teeth. “Lord Tech will offer you opportunities. The like of which you really can’t get here. There are lots of projects, lots of advancements to be made.”
They both know he’s not talking about money or name. The things the DEO could do with his brain, with his tech… She isn’t tempted but the DEO absolutely would be.
“Besides, you know what they say about enemies and being close. In such close quarters, there’s a lot I can think of doing with you.” The suggestive tone masks his real meaning, a little. It has the added bonus of making Cat’s throat blotch ever so slightly with fury.
“I’ve made myself very clear on where we stand, Max.”
Cat reddens further with her assistant’s confirmation that she had been anywhere with Max, alone or otherwise. Kara crosses her arms and lifts her chin and he can faintly see Supergirl there, just behind the softness.
He forgets about Cat and their charade, dropping his slime and charm. He’s a genius—he can read the energy of a room—and he knows exactly why Kara is tempted. All he has to do is play on that, he knows, and he’ll have her.
“I’m serious. Think about it. There is so much opportunity at my company to do good. We can work together. I’m a genius billionaire philanthropist and have degrees in pretty much every field, yes, but I need someone as smart and driven and dedicated as I am so that everything runs smoothly and that’s you. I need your brain, I need your smarts, your talents.” He’s talking about Kara Danvers now, which was a mistake though he doesn’t yet know it.
Kara Danvers despises Maxwell Lord.
Kara Danvers despises that a man thinks he’s clever enough to fiddle around with a hurt, dying girl and hurt her more. Change her. Subject her to his wonderful, wonderful plan simply because she can’t say no.
Kara Danvers knows what he means when he says he needs her brain—she is Kryptonian smart, which here means that she is fast and clever and the balance in math and science is as beautiful to her as music—but she can’t unsee a cracked face, her face, finally relaxing out of extraordinary pain when they essentially had to re-kill her.
When the temperature of the room drops several degrees and Kara doesn’t shift at all, her eyes fixed on him and clearly holding back only barely from blasting him away, he realises that he has made a mistake somewhere.
“Think about it. We have to talk at some point. You know that we do.”
“Make an appointment.”
“On your personal cell?” he quips, falling back into slimy playboy persona. Cat feels the crescents of her nails dig a little harder into her skin. “It’s a date.”
“It’s not a date.”
He clicks his tongue. “Ah well, a shame. I’ll call you then?” Kara barely gives him a nod. “It’s been a pleasure, Kara. Cat.”
“For you maybe,” Kara mumbles and she lifts a hand to her glasses. Max steps closer. “If you touch me, I will have security show you out.”
“You won’t bodily drag me out yourself?” he asks, and he looks quickly at Cat before he drags his eyes purposefully over Kara.
“I will break your arm for you,” she offers, ever so sweetly.
“Hmm. Tempting, but I need both. Thank you though.” He pulls his hand from his pocket and holds it up. “Relax. I’m just leaving you with a gesture of good will.” It’s a USB, and he places it on the corner of Cat’s desk. Kara snatches it up before Cat can even move and Max smiles. “Your eyes only, Kara. You understand.” He gives Kara a slow smile—lecherous by any and every metric—and Kara huffs and picks up Cat’s work phone. A liberty he thinks anyone else would never take, one that would at least make them hesitate. These two, the Supergirl assistant and the queen reporter, they’re another puzzle to consider. How lovely.
“Hi there, Max Lord is in Miss Grant’s office and was hoping for an escort downstairs. Sure Luke, I’m sure he’d love to sign some stuff for your daughter. Okay, okay. Yeah, thanks.” She smiles saccharine sweet to their unwelcome guest and hangs up. “It’ll be a pleasure seeing you dragged out, Max.”
“Charming.”
When a burly security team shows up, he leaves with them. By the time they’ve reached the elevator, Max has at least one of them smiling at him but despite their awe, they still do their job and Kara listens as Max is taken down to the ground level and waits until she hears him settle into his car.
“How did it go, sir?”
“You know I don’t like to discuss ongoing projects.”
Kara lets her hearing shut down bit by bit, lowering the intensity until it’s just this floor and the one below that she can hear. Then, she realises that Cat is looking at her with a particular look and she gives her an uneasy smile.
“Did you say something, Miss Grant?”
“No.”
“I’ll go back to my desk th—“
Cat’s hand snaps out and she snags her, snags the closed fist, the one holding the USB, and she holds tight.
“I’m incredibly wealthy, Kara. It may not be polite to discuss, but like most things, I don’t care for niceties. So let me reiterate—I am incredibly wealthy.”
“Yes, Miss Grant.”
“Do you know that I spend a lot of money on the theatre?”
“Yes, Miss Grant. I buy your tickets for you,” Kara says, though she isn’t sure where this is going.
“That’s right. So you understand, then, that I can spot an elaborately staged performance when I see one. Like, for instance, what just happened.” Cat raises one perfect eyebrow and Kara wilt. “Explain yourself.”
“I—“ she swallows. “It’s embarrassing,” she offers.
Cat doesn't look away.
“Okay. Umm.” With her free hand, Kara adjusts her glasses and she swallows again and does what she has to do.
She lies. A little. She mostly tells the truth. But a little bit of it—like deliberately phrasing truthful things so they are less truthful to mislead Cat in order to protect her other identity—is a lie.
“He approached me after your Supergirl launch,” she starts. “He, uh, flirted with me?”
Also, the part where Maxwell Lord was flirting with her. That’s a lie too.
“Are you telling me or asking me?”
“Asking you, I think. I’m not sure that it was flirting.” Cat rolls her eyes, mutters something that sounds like ‘Kara, honestly’ and Kara hurries on. She tells Cat he contacted her several times—which was true—that they met when Carter was on the train—also true, but mentioning it doesn’t endear Cat to her at all—and then she tells her that they had talked a few times. “He said it was all business, made it sound like it was about maybe setting up talks with you about mergers with Lord Tech or something, but,” Kara shakes her head. “It never amounted to anything.”
“And I assume he was harassing you like he was doing today,” Cat finishes, frowning at the elevator. An employee scurries across her line of vision, head ducked low.
“Yes, Miss Grant.”
“I see.”
Kara knows how unlikely it sounds—she’s Kara Danvers, assistant. There’s almost no way that Cat would buy her story that Maxwell Lord was interested in her, but it’s the only story that fits all the pieces that Cat already had.
“Do you want to take the job?”
“No,” Kara almost shouts. She covers her mouth, eyes wide, and whispers, “Sorry. No, Miss Grant.”
“Very well.” Cat releases her hand. “I won’t ask to see the USB. I do ask that you don’t open it on CatCo owned computers. It’s possible that he’s been harassing you to get to the company and it could be a virus.”
“Yes, Miss Grant.”
Cat looks her over shrewdly. “His behaviour wasn’t appropriate, and I believe you when you say you aren’t interested, Kara. If you like, I can move to sue him.” She looks thrilled by the idea.
Kara shakes her head no. “But thank you, Miss Grant.”
“Hmm. Fine. Back to work, Kiera.”
//
Cat keeps her close, after that.
It’s a blessing and a curse. While she’s away from Lucy’s impatiently curious eyes—and her questions, she has so many questions—she’s right next to Cat, who isn’t even trying to keep her distance.
The woman mutters to herself, low and fast and angry about sloppy work and makes small barbed comments under her breath and Kara pretends that she doesn’t hear them but she can’t help smiling at some of them. When they aren’t directed at her, Cat’s insults really can be quite funny. If a little mean.
The worst thing about it if when Cat lays her hand on Kara’s wrist. They’re looking at layouts Kara had collected earlier and Cat tells her to sit and starts to tell her exactly what is good or bad about the example. Kara holds the sheet and Cat leans forward to point with one hand and uses to the other to balance herself. After every point she makes, she presses a little harder onto Kara’s wrist and Kara feels her pulse jump its response.
Cat’s skin is very white against her golden tan, Kara notices, and she doesn’t notice anything else until fingers squeeze against her wrist and tug her focus back.
The whole ordeal feels orchestrated and purposeful and possessive and Kara wouldn’t mind it in the slightest—she actually really enjoys it for a moment or two, because Cat is touching her carelessly and she’s giving her direction and proper work and sharing her thoughts with her again and asking for her opinion, and did she mention that Cat had touched her? But she does mind. Because Cat hasn’t said anything about it, and so Kara needs to operate on the assumption that they are still strictly professional, despite all evidence to the contrary, because at some point Cat is going to revert back to that and Kara will have to get used to it all over again.
And she’s not entirely sure that if she so much as nudges over that line, that she’ll be able to go back.