Page 41 of Beau and the Beast

Geoffrey had put his hand on Wolfram's back to wake him out of sleep. Violet had touched his cheek to convince him to let Beau stay. Beau had shaken his hand.

And nowthis—this miniscule show of care—was practically crippling him, hobbling his mind. Beau was touching him, wasn't horrified by him, didn't shy away, even, from cleaning away the blood that was oozing out of his palm.

Was Beau courageous or simply dumb? Did he lack something fundamental that made him unafraid, made him lack disgust?

Even after Beau had pried his hands opened and wiped away the blood, he didn't stop touching Wolfram. He traced his fingertips across the palm of Wolfram's hands. For a split second, Wolfram thought of them as hands, too—not as ugly claws or misshapen paws or the crooked feet of some carnivorous animal. They were his hands. Beau was gently touching his hands.

And then Wolfram was back to himself. He slid his hands away, hid them under the table, and Beau seemed to break from a reverie.

"I'm sorry," he said quickly.

"For what?" Wolfram asked.

Beau just shook his head, as if he'd done something so unforgivable that he couldn't give name to it.

He realized, when Beau looked at him again with wide blue eyes, that Beau had been crying.

Crying because of the story about my father? Or because I hurt myself?

Wolfram couldn't tell. Beau was, to him in that moment, inscrutable.

"Thank you for opening up," Beau said. "I'm sorry that you had to go through your life feeling that way."

Wolfram narrowed his eyes at him.

"You had nothing to do with it. It's nothing you should apologize for."

"I'm not apologizing for your father," Beau said. "But you deserve to feel validated, to have someone recognize what happened to you."

"Nothing happened to me," Wolfram said. "I had a roof over my head and all of the opportunities that anyone could've ever dreamed of."

"That's true," Beau said. "But it must have been incredibly difficult growing up with an emotionally distant parent."

Beau had been crying over Wolfram's father, he realized. It was ridiculous. There were people with far worse problems, and here Beau was lamenting an inconsequential man who had done nothing to derail Wolfram's success.

Why wasthisthe first thing that resonated with Beau about his story? He’d been turned into an awful monster and banished to live separate from all of society—and Beau was going to cry about Wolfram’s distant father?

Would the entire book be like this? Some sideshow to talk about how the poor, broken billionaire should be pitied because of his daddy issues?

"I don't need your pity," Wolfram said. He could feel his own voice going hard.

"And I'm not pitying you," Beau shot back, looking suddenly confused, younger.

* * *

Hadno one been kind to Wolfram for so long that he'd forgotten the difference between sympathy and pity?

Or had the man always had a fundamental misunderstanding of what it meant to feel things for other people?

Neither of those options, Beau realized, would really surprise him.

"Youarepitying me, and you're trying to set up a book that manipulates people into doing the same thing you're doing right now," Wolfram said. He pushed away from the table and began to stand.

Beau was shocked. Was he really ending their session so abruptly? What had he done so wrong?

"I put too much trust in your ability to tell this story," Wolfram said, stepping back and looking down to Beau where he remained seated on his cushion. "Until I've put thought into how to proceed, I think we ought to stop."

"Wolfram, I'm sorry I pushed you to—"

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