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Look what you did to me, a rebel born free
Running wild through the concrete jungle
Now I can't seem to stay away
It wasn’t difficult to track Cat down.
She might’ve sold her previous apartment soon after fleeing National five years ago—a sure sign to Kara she had little intention of ever returning—but there weren’t many recent listings that would be suitable for Cat Grant’s ridiculously high standards.
Fortunately, as her former assistant, Kara was well-versed in Cat’s taste in real estate. She stood on the sidewalk and glanced up at the high-rise apartment complex, gaze focused on the penthouse that had been sold three days ago.
She’d debated flying up to the balcony for old time’s sake, remembering fondly many of her and Cat’s conversations on the CatCo balcony, but she was trying something new—trying to fit the two parts of her, kept separate for so long, together—and for a fresh start, using the front door felt more fitting.
Sneaking past the security guard and up thirty flights of stairs required a simple burst of super speed, and she was lifting her hand to knock on the penthouse door mere moments later.
Kara paused before she let her knuckles connect with the smooth wood, trying to mentally prepare herself for the sight of the woman she hadn’t seen for five years. She could hear movement inside, so someone was clearly home, and her heart beat faster with anticipation.
Would Cat be pleased to see her? Surprised? Would she look different after her time away? She’d certainly sounded like her old self on the phone, but so many things had changed since she’d left. Would the years feel like nothing when their eyes met again? Would Kara feel like her equal, rather than her subordinate? Would Cat still take her breath away? Would—
Before she could knock, the door was flung open, but it wasn’t Cat who stood on the other side. Instead, a teenager with familiar blonde curls and green eyes blinked at her in surprise.
“Kara?”
Tall and lanky, voice deepened by puberty, Carter Grant towered over her, his eyebrows furrowed into a frown.
“Carter? Wow. You’ve grown up.”
“That tends to happen as time passes,” Carter said, mouth splitting into a grin. His tone reminded Kara so much of his mother that she chuckled. Gone was the shy boy she’d so disastrously looked after all those years ago, age seeming to bring with it confidence. She wondered what he’d been doing for all these years while Cat had been press secretary and saving coral reefs. “Are you here for my mom?”
“Is she here?”
“Uh-huh. She’s in her office.” He gestured behind him with a jab of his thumb. “Ordering around her poor interior designer.”
As Carter spoke, Cat’s voice echoed down the hall.
“Charles! Be careful with that—I scooped that up from the ocean floor in the Caribbean. It might be from the wreckage of the Mary Celeste, and it didn’t survive all those years down there intact just to be destroyed by your oafish hands.”
Kara snorted. Rao, she’d missed that voice.
“He probably needs saving,” Carter said, swinging a backpack over his shoulder. “But I’ll leave that to you, cause I gotta go.” He skirted past her, pausing to call back over his shoulder. “See you later, Mom!”
“Bye, sweetheart!” Cat replied from within the penthouse. “Have fun!”
“See ya around, Kara.” He slouched toward the elevators, and Kara let the apartment door close behind her as she stepped inside.
“Honestly, Charles!” Cat chastised again, and Kara followed the sound of her voice, passing the large open-plan living room to an open door down the hall. “Anyone would think you—”
“Miss Grant?”
At the sound of her voice, Cat whirled around so quickly it was a wonder she didn’t fall over. “Kiera,” she said, so softly it was almost a sigh, and Kara’s breath caught as their eyes met.
Oh, it had been years but they’d been kind, Cat’s face exactly as she remembered it—devastatingly beautiful. Her black skirt was moulded to her thighs, the top two buttons of her white blouse undone to reveal the smooth skin of her collarbones.
Kara was dumbstruck, and how in the hell had she ever got any work done when Cat was striding around looking like that?
Her crush—obvious to some around her, as Alex had teased her mercilessly when Kara had confessed one night—on her former boss had been something Kara had only realised once Cat was gone, when she’d missed her more than she ought to if things were merely professional.
But laying eyes on Cat again, Kara wondered how she could have ever been so blind.
“What are you doing here?” Cat asked, lips pursing as she settled her hands on her hips. “It’d better not be to turn me down.”
Charles, hovering beside a shelf on the office wall, looked at Kara with pleading eyes, no doubt fearing he’d bear the brunt of Cat’s disappointment if she was.
“No.” Kara reached into her bag and pulled out the contract Cat had sent to her two and a half weeks ago. “I wanted to give you this in person.”
“Mm.” Cat stepped closer, her perfume washing over Kara like a warm embrace, and plucked the papers from Kara’s hand. “Signed, I hope?”
“Yes.” In the end, the decision had been an easy one. The opportunity to work with Cat—as an equal—in her dream role was too great, and she knew she’d regret it if she turned it down.
Not that she suspected Cat would have accepted a refusal. Kara knew when Cat wanted something, she’d stop at nothing to get it.
She tried not to think too hard about Cat wanting her. It wasn’t in the way she dreamt of, after all. It was in a professional capacity, nothing more. And sure, it would probably be torture working by her side—already, Kara could feel that magnetic draw, energy crackling between them as Cat leaned close, reigniting the flame in her chest that she’d never managed to fully smother—but Rao, it would be worth it.
Anything would be worth it to have Cat in her life again.
“Excellent.” Cat tucked the contract under her arm. “I think that calls for a celebration, don’t you? Join me for a drink. And Charles”—Cat turned toward him—“make yourself scarce, hm? Take some time and think about how you can best not man-handle the rest of my belongings.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Kara winced as Cat’s eyes flashed. It was a look she’d seen countless times before, and seeing it again made her dizzy with familiarity.
She was glad it wasn’t directed at her this time.
Charles quickly realised his mistake. “S-sorry,” he said, beginning to back toward the door. “Sorry, I mean Ms. Grant. I’ll be back tomorrow.” He scurried away.
Cat watched him go and rolled her eyes, and Kara smiled. It was nice to see that some things never changed.
“What would you like?” Cat asked, stepping toward the bar set beneath a large glass window. Kara noted with amusement it was the only part of the room fully furnished, ornate bottles of various liquors sitting on the smooth wooden surface, and two tumblers already waiting to be used. “Scotch? Gin? Vodka?” Cat’s fingers trailed lovingly over each bottle in turn, and Kara bit the inside of her cheek to avoid thinking about what that touch might feel like elsewhere. “Though I suppose none of this works on your super metabolism, does it?”
Kara struggled not to flinch as Cat glanced at her, one eyebrow arched. The urge to react—to deny—was strong, and Kara swallowed the temptation. It was futile now everything was out in the open. “No, but I’ll take a scotch.” She’d learned to like the taste, a glass reminding her of Cat. “How long have you known?”
Cat’s smile turned coy as she poured three fingers into each tumbler. “How long do you think I’ve known?”
Kara bit her lip, casting her mind back. She’d been so certain Cat had bought her lies, but she’d said the other week her glasses fooled no-one. So did that mean…“Always?”
“I had my suspicions from the first time I ever saw Supergirl. They strengthened when we did that first interview. By the time I cornered you on my balcony, I was certain.”
“Then why…why did you let me deny it? Why did you keep my secret?” Kara accepted the glass from Cat, making sure their fingers didn’t brush.
“Because you needed me to,” Cat said, like it was simple, like the words didn’t make Kara’s heart leap into her throat. “Because it wasn’t the right time.”
“And now is?”
Cat’s shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I don’t know. Perhaps not, but I got tired of waiting.”
“Are you not going to ask why I didn’t tell you?”
“I know why you didn’t tell me. Because you didn’t trust me.” Cat lifted a finger when Kara’s mouth opened. “And don’t you dare deny it. It’s okay—I’m not offended. I didn’t exactly handle it the best way that night, telling you to choose between CatCo and Supergirl.”
“And now you’re telling me I can have both.”
“Well, things have changed.”
I’m glad some things haven’t, Kara thought, thinking of the way Cat’s hair glowed in the sunlight. The inviting curve of her lips as she smiled. The way her eyes seemed to pierce right down to Kara’s soul. How she always knew exactly what Kara needed to hear.
“I’ve missed you,” Kara said, her voice thick with emotion as she let the gravity of the moment catch up to her—the fact that she was here, back at Cat’s side, for the first time in forever, on the cusp of doing something monumental—blinking away tears before they had a chance to fall. “You have no idea how much.”
“Oh,” Cat murmured, voice achingly soft, her own eyes shimmering in the afternoon light, “I think I have some idea.” She cleared her throat. “I am very missable, after all.”
“And humble.”
“It’s one of my finest qualities.”
Kara chuckled, knowing the high of this moment would take days to fade. She could scarcely believe the turn her life had taken in the last few weeks. She’d gone from having nothing, feeling completely lost and alone—to feeling like she was floating.
“Along with hiring incredibly talented members of staff,” Cat continued after downing the remainder of her scotch. “I’m glad you came to your senses, Kiera. I was concerned I was going to have turn up at your door and beg.”
Kara’s mouth felt dry at the thought of Cat begging her for anything—at the image of Cat on her knees, desperate, or breathless and aching beneath Kara’s mouth, begging for release—and she swallowed, praying to Rao her cheeks weren’t bright red.
“If we’re going to work together,” Kara said, forcing out the words though her tongue felt leaden in her mouth, “then you should probably call me by the right name.”
“Supergirl?” Cat suggested, eyebrow arched in challenge.
Kara rose to it, tilting her chin in defiance. If this was a test, she was going to pass it. She took a step closer. “Try again.”
“There’s my girl of steel,” Cat said, and Kara’s heart nearly stopped at the thought of being Cat’s anything. “Good.”
If Cat had put those two sentences together and called her a good girl, Kara was pretty sure her knees would have buckled.
Cat seemed oblivious to the thoughts swirling around Kara’s head. “You’re going to need that backbone if you’re going to be a good editor-in-chief.”
“You still haven’t said my name,” Kara said, hating that Cat had rendered her nearly breathless merely by occupying the same space as her.
If she didn’t get past this soon—this heady rush, the excitement of seeing her again, of Cat being so close she could reach out and touch her, and it wouldn’t be a figment of her imagination—then working together would be nigh impossible.
“Don’t push it.” Cat’s tone turned sharp—but it wasn’t nearly as devastating as the finger she pressed against Kara’s sternum with each word. “Kara.”
Kara nearly trembled. When Cat’s hand flattened against her chest it was a miracle it didn’t knock her clean off her feet. She hoped Cat couldn’t feel her heart thudding against her ribcage in a desperate rhythm, hoped Cat didn’t notice her pulse throbbing in her neck.
What was Cat doing? Did she had any idea what affect she was having? Any idea how much self-control it was taking for Kara to keep her hands to herself?
Cat seemed to have no such qualms, her fingers curling around the collar of Kara’s blouse and tugging gently. “I have to say that this wardrobe is definitely an improvement. I won’t have to hold an intervention over your use of fuzzy cardigans.”
“I’ve changed a lot since you left.” Kara’s voice was low, rough, affected by Cat’s close proximity. When Cat tilted her head to meet Kara’s gaze, Kara drew in a ragged breath. Rao, this was torture.
And Cat had to know it.
Didn’t she?
Surely she couldn’t be this oblivious.
“Have you, now? Tell me how.”
“I-I’ve learned a lot. I’m a better journalist—”
“I already knew that,” Cat interrupted. “I wouldn’t have hired you—Pulitzer-prize winning Kara Danvers—otherwise.”
“You’ve been following my career?”
“Of course I’ve been following your career,” Cat said, like it was obvious, like she’d thought of Kara often—like she was offended Kara would think otherwise. “I trained you. I wanted to see you flourish—and you didn’t let me down. I always knew you had the ability to be one of the best.”
“Always?” Kara asked, voice heavy with scepticism. “Really? Even when you were yelling at me for getting your lunch order wrong?”
“Just because I knew you had potential didn’t mean you were necessarily going to use it,” Cat said smartly. “Besides, I couldn’t be too nice to you. What would the people at CatCo say if they knew their cynical old boss had a heart after all? I had a reputation to uphold.”
Kara snorted. “I always knew you had a heart.”
“Yes, well—you like to see the best in people, don’t you? Even if they’re cruel to you.”
“You weren’t so bad,” Kara said, and Cat eyed her in disbelief. “You weren’t! You taught me a lot. How to be brave. How to stand up for what I believe in. How to be a good leader, how to inspire people.” Kara glanced down, unable to stop her gaze flitting to Cat’s lips. “How to go after what I want.”
“And what is it you want?” Cat asked, voice breathless, eyes dark, her fingertip brushing against Kara’s collarbone and making all the breath leave her body.
“I don’t think I should answer that right now.”
Cat had taught her the importance of honesty, too, though right now Kara was regretting saying what was on her mind. They were winding down a dangerous path—and fast approaching the point of no return—and Kara had no idea how to stomp on the brakes.
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t think you want to hear the answer.”
“Oh, Kara, you have no idea what I want.” Cat’s words were laced with anguish, her eyes fluttering closed. “I thought it would be different,” she said, so quiet even Kara had to strain her ears to hear her. “I thought five years would be long enough. I thought diving to the darkest depths of the ocean—the Mariana Trench is as terrifying as you can imagine, by the way—and putting thousands of miles between us would be enough to make me forget how you make me feel, but God, I was so fucking wrong.”
Kara was sure her ears were ringing. Deceiving her, at the very least, because there was no way Cat had just said what she thought. No way Cat might be confessing something Kara had only ever dared dream.
“How—” Kara’s voice trembled, and she cleared her throat. “How do I make you feel?”
Cat’s eyes blinked open, her gaze open and raw and vulnerable, and she took Kara’s breath away. “I don’t think you’re ready for that answer.”
“Please.” One of Kara’s hands settled on Cat’s waist, both of them sucking in a breath at the contact. Cat felt dainty in her grasp—but warm, solid, real in all the ways Kara had imagined. She curled her other around Cat’s cheek, thumb sliding over her skin. “I want to know.”
“We’re about to work together,” Cat said, her breath shaky beneath Kara’s touch. She was stalling for time, but if this was how Cat needed to work things through, Kara would allow it.
“You’re not my boss anymore.”
“I’m twice your age.”
“I’m well aware of your birthday. It’s never changed anything.”
“People will talk.”
“When have you ever cared what other people think?”
“This wasn’t the plan,” Cat groaned, and Kara smiled.
“What was the plan?”
“I hire you, I come back, I manage to forget all about how you make me want things I can’t have, and we run our media empire together.”
“I have a new plan,” Kara suggested, scarcely able to believe what was happening, and completely convinced she’d wake up any moment in her bed the night before the fight with Lex, Cat nothing more than a distant memory. “You hire me, you come back—you realise you can have those things—and we run our media empire together.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It could be. What’s more simple than falling in love?”
Cat’s gasp was immediate—as was her hand sliding around the back of Kara’s neck.
“Because I could, you know,” Kara said, admitting something she’d tried to deny for a long time. “Fall in love with you. I think it’d be pretty easy, actually. If only you’d let me.”
“It’s a bad idea.”
Kara shrugged. “Maybe. But we won’t know for sure unless we try. And I think it’s worth the risk—don’t you?”
Kara held her breath, knowing she’d be crushed if Cat said no. She’d never put herself out there like this—never dreamed she would in front of Cat Grant—but it was too late to take it back now, and Kara didn’t regret it.
Two weeks ago she’d watched her sister get married with an ache in her chest, a longing for herself to find that same happiness, one day—and never for a moment thinking the perfect person would fall right into her lap.
The silence stretched on for a beat too long, heavy and unbearable, and Kara prepared herself for the worst, for Cat pulling away, for Cat making her excuses, for Cat breaking her heart—but the moment never came.
Instead, Cat tugged her down—and Kara went willingly, because she’d follow Cat to the ends of the Earth if she asked—to press her lips against Kara’s in a hot slide, and oh, this was even better than Kara had imagined, paled in comparison to her wildest dreams, because this was real, Cat was really in her arms, opening her mouth for Kara’s searching tongue, her breathy moans sounding in Kara’s ears, and nothing could ever compare to that.
“We should talk about this,” Cat said when they parted, her ragged breaths matching Kara’s, her cheeks flushed and her eyes wild, and Kara agreed, she really did—they had a lot of things to figure out, after all—but…
“We will,” she promised, even as her hands slipped beneath Cat’s blouse, splaying across the warm skin of her back, “but I’ve waited five years for this, and I think another second might kill me.”
Cat chuckled. “Aren’t you invulnerable?”
“Not the point.” Kara tilted Cat’s head back with gentle fingers and pressed her lips to the skin of her neck, teeth grazing her pulse point. “I need this. I need you.”
“Well, far be it for me to deny Supergirl what she wants,” Cat said, her hands tangling in Kara’s hair. “Do you want to test the structural integrity of my new desk? It’s not quite the same as having you bent over the one in my old office like I imagined three dozen times, but it’ll have to do.”
Kara hoped Cat took her groan as an emphatic yes.
This woman might be the death of her, but Rao, what a way to go.