Smuggling. Elliot hadn’t blinked at the price when it was offered, and there were no doubts in his mind now. As he handed the thumb drive over to the investor, his thoughts were of Samira. What would she think if she knew he was letting a real criminal use her assets to smuggle untold dangers? Weapons to third world countries? Drugs back to the states? Elliot had no idea what the investor was moving, just that it was less than legal. Would she see it as betrayal? Would she see it all as a lie? None of it had been false between them, but would she be able to see that through his actions? Would words be enough to fix things if she didn’t see it his way?
The investor plugged the thumb drive into a small port near the top of his cane, a little green light flashed next to the port three times and then held steady. The investor pulled the thumb drive and handed it back to Elliot. “Is there anything else?”
“No, it’s all there. Everything you need to get past the firewalls and locked doors. No matter what it is you’re moving, you can get there with that.”
The investor smiled. “Good…Are you sure you aren’t interested in knowing what I’m moving?”
Elliot shook his head.
“I’ve already made you rich; if you want, I could make you powerful. I could make you important.”
Elliot shook his head again. If the offer had been made a day earlier, Elliot might have taken it without second thought, but now Samira’s voice was in his head, reminding him that the only barrier between them had been his fear. “I mean no disrespect by this, sir, but you didn’t make me rich. You gave me a start, you showed me where I should go, but from there it was all me. We’ve worked well together, but if I want power, if I want to be important, I will get it myself.”
The investor smiled. “Are you sure, Mr. Dowling? I would not make this offer to anyone else. I’m not talking about a deal, I’m talking about a partnership. I’m talking about a stake in what I’ve built.”
Elliot furrowed his brow. It was an industrious offer. It was profitable, mysterious, and dangerous, the trifecta of risks in Elliot’s mind. However, it boiled down to the fact that, despite their similarities, Elliot and the investor were just too different. The investor wanted the world to bow before him, he wanted power, but all Elliot wanted was Samira to be his world. Before he could find the words to say no again, the investor stood up from where he’d been sitting and cleared his throat. “It’s an open offer, you have my number.”
Elliot stood up and showed the utmost respect for his investor as he said, “It has been a pleasure, sir.”
The investor nodded his head as he got back into the sedan. “I don’t think it will be long until we see each other again.”
Finally alone again, Elliot looked out over the water and watched the waves. The investor might have been insistent, it might have been a good offer, but Elliot had gotten what he needed out of their deal, and now he had to go make sure the deal didn’t also cost him everything he wanted. Climbing onto his bike, Elliot checked his phone for messages before pulling his helmet back on. Samira had not called or texted him back; he could only imagine what she was thinking, and this was before he told her what he’d done with her company’s assets.
Even without saying it, Elliot knew that hiding what he had done was not an option. Samira was too intelligent, she would smell it on him or she would find it in the books of Exotic Antiques. Then she would take action; she would assume it was a fluke. If Elliot did not tell her the truth now, it would tear them apart when she trusted that he would never do that, only to find out that he had already betrayed her assets. There would be no walls between them, no secrets. He was going to bare everything before her and hope that she could live with it, live with him.
Chapter Nine
The office was not an escape from Elliot; now that he was a part of Foster Acquisitions, sitting behind her desk only made her think of him more. Even if he was only a part of the business on paper, even if he hadn’t contributed anything meaningful yet, he held a staggering amount of share in her company. Even if he hadn’t, Samira knew that she would still think of him sitting behind her desk. This was the place that she’d rediscovered him, after all; it seemed like ages ago, but it had barely been weeks since she’d opened that file on Dowling Holdings.
Her skin was still charged, she still caught herself lost in thought trying to remember every second of their time together last night. There were bits missing, bits that had been lost to passion, but Samira had just as many burned into her mind as memories. The duality of his embrace and then his absence threatened to blacken Samira’s soul with anger. Though a healthy portion of her anger was focused on Elliot, Samira still piled enough in front of herself that it blended with guilt. Was it her fault that he left or was it always in the cards for him to leave? Should she have let him into her life so easily, let him into her penthouse without question?
They had been more than friends but not yet lovers in ages past, but Elliot had said it himself; he was not the same boy; he wasn’t even the man that would’ve grown from that boy. He was something else entirely, and Samira had overlooked that because she had seen the boy she knew in him. Now that she was pacing back and forth in her office, Samira began to wonder if what she had seen were remnants, shards of his former self, and not his true nature.
The pacing turned into walking, which turned into leaving the building and getting in a car bound for the Market District. Samira was not sure why she was going there; Elliot was probably not at home, and he had no reason to believe that she knew where he lived. He should’ve expected it, because Foster Acquisition’s investigators were employed for their skill, not their resume. The car dropped her at the corner, a few hundred feet from the entrance to the building’s lobby, but the cold breeze did Samira well. By the time she walked through the doors to the lobby, she was no longer the confused and fuming long-time friend and one-night stand, she was Elliot’s paramour. She had fixed her hair, undid a button on her blouse, and walked in with the world’s confidence behind her. The attendant didn’t stand a chance as she sauntered over. He tried to stammer out a hello but Samira took the burden of conversation from him. “Hello, my boyfriend lives in Loft 16A. He just closed a huge deal at work and I was wondering if you could let me in to surprise him.”
“16A?” the attendant asked. “I don’t know if—”
“His name is Elliot Dowling, of Dowling Holdings. I assume you’re on a first name basis with all of your billionaire tenants.”
The attendant did his best to not stammer. “Ell-Elliot, yeah, I know him. You said you’re his wife?”
Samira smiled. “Maybe someday, just his girlfriend right now, though. He could be coming home any moment now; would you mind letting me in? It would mean the world to me.”
The attendant was still not sold, Samira could see it in his eyes. She leaned in closer and read his name tag subtly before setting a hand on his shoulder and whispering, “James, I would be so grateful.”
As she pulled away, Samira’s hand slipped down onto James’s chest, over his shirt pocket, where she left a hundred-dollar bill. James did his best to not look at the bill as he pushed it further down into his pocket to completely hide it from view. James stepped back from Samira and cleared his throat. “You know, Elliot did mention that we could let his guests in if they were waiting on him.”
Samira tilted her head to the side and smiled coyly; she refused to let James have that lie to fall back on after he had made her work for his assistance. “Did he really, James? That doesn’t sound like something my Elliot would say.”
James didn’t say anything in response, instead he walked behind a desk and tapped a few keys to unlock a drawer. He handed a key labelled 16A-Maintenance to Samira and pointed to an elevator across the lobby. “Straight up to floor fifteen, first door on the left.”
“Floor fifteen?” Samira asked for clarification.
“You know these old buildings; we’re not technically a floor here in the lobby. It was easy to redo the
numbers on the doors, but the owners didn’t realize that they needed to change the elevator as well.”
“Or they just didn’t care.” Samira shrugged as she turned to the elevator. “Thank you again for your aid, James. I really do appreciate it.”
The elevator was too nice to be original, which reinstated the idea that the owner either didn’t think to change the floor listings to match the numbers or didn’t care. It was a smooth ride up to the fifteenth floor, but once she got there, Samira found herself stuck in the hallway. There was nothing blocking her, no one in her way, and nothing but her own thoughts clouding her path. What if Elliot was on the other side and the attendant just didn’t know? What if he was with someone else? What if Elliot wasn’t who she thought and an unadulterated look at his dwelling place would confirm that?
Samira found her way to the door and through it into the lifeless loft that Elliot called home. It was somewhere between pre-furnished and minimalistic. The Elliot she knew had not been one for trifles or baubles, but the loft was bordering on model-home status of clean and bare.
The first thing that caught Samira’s eyes were the blinds pulled back, revealing a glorious view of the Financial Quarter and Market District, but there was no life within the walls. There was no art, no decoration, and nothing that said someone had been here. While it did not fit with her memory of Elliot, it did fit with the man she’d come back into touch with. Outside of his interactions with her, there was nothing personal about the Elliot Dowling she spent last night with.
His business was bare bones and extremely fast paced, his deals were tactical and purely financially motivated. There was nothing to him other than a climb back to the billionaire’s table. Except for when he looked at her; when he looked at her, he was the same boy she’d known. His eyes held the same fire, his hands felt the same as she remembered if only stronger, firmer. The passion between them had been unbearable when they were almost adults, but it had not diminished in the years that had passed. Samira was never fond of the phrase, “absence makes the heart grow fonder”; she felt that it was dopey and unrealistic. However, she now knew that absence truly did make the passion burn hotter.
Just thinking about the way Elliot’s hands felt on her skin, his fingers dragging along her thigh, and his body pressed against hers was enough to distract Samira from the world around her before she realized it. The phone rang. Samira was unsure why, but her eyes went to a novelty phone on an end table near the front door, but it wasn’t ringing. It was her personal cell ringing in her clutch. Pulling it out, Samira recognized Elliot’s number and hesitated before answering.
Was he calling to apologize? Was he calling to let her know that he was available again? If she let him back into her life, would that be their relationship? Was she just a good fuck for him? It made her feel dirty and used to think about it like that, but what if it was the truth? Samira didn’t even realize that the phone had stopped ringing until it pinged saying that Elliot had left a message. She didn’t bother listening to it; he would come home and find her here. That would be the moment she delivered her ultimatum.
The only thing that truly spoke to Elliot’s tastes in the entire apartment was the bar. It was filled with mostly full bottles of exotic liquors and spirits. When they’d been together as children, they had given into the temptation of alcohol on several occasions. At galas and gatherings, no one second-guessed their orders as they approached the bar like they owned it. As the children of powerful people, they might as well have owned it. They could have whatever they wanted, and Elliot had put that nugget of wisdom to the test.
From age-old scotch found on a sunken ship to spirits distilled in a country no one had ever heard of, in a still the size of a kettle, to wine pressed from grapes hand cared for by monks with nothing else to do, Elliot had pushed the boundaries of what was available, and every time the bartender bent over backwards to do their best as they fulfilled his request. On two separate occasions, Elliot was made to wait thirty minutes for his drink as a courier brought the bottle across town.
As Samira looked at Elliot’s bar, she saw several bottles that she recognized from their time together. After pouring herself a glass of something palatable, Samira disappeared into Elliot’s bedroom to find more signs of the boy she knew. His clothes were all neat and tucked away, but they were in the same hues and shades that Elliot had always preferred. Even his blacks were not true black; they hid hints of green and brown. Everything was pressed and put away carefully, from cufflinks to socks to ties and bows.
The only thing that Samira knew was out of place was a watch sitting on the edge of the dresser. It was balanced so perfectly on its edge that Samira wondered how it was keeping itself up. The band was old, worn leather that might’ve been chocolate-brown at one point but was now a muddy brown. The mechanics weren’t operable, the hands didn’t move, and there was a crack in the glass. Samira recognized the watch after a moment of staring at it; it belonged to Elliot’s father. It was a reminder of what had happened, motivation to move forward.
Everything fell into place in Samira’s mind as she looked at the broken heirloom and it nearly broke her heart. She was beginning to wonder if Elliot had any room in his heart for prolonged feelings with such a weight pressing down on him. Even if he truly meant that his father held no power over him, he could only mean personally. As a businessman, Elliot Dowling would always be associated with the Mr. Dowling of Dowling Investments. Even if he owned his past, even if there was no way to use it against him, Elliot would constantly be fighting the bad taste in his potential client’s mouths. Money never forgets; that was a lesson her father had passed on to her before he died.
It was fate for them to be together. She was the counter to his chaos, he was the variable to her stability. As Samira closed up his closets, closed up his bedroom, and relaxed on a stool at the kitchen island, she hoped that he would see it like that as well. She hoped that he would give in to her demands and tell her everything.
Her phone rang again, but this time it only rang twice before Elliot ended the call. He opened the door a moment later, dumbfounded that she was within his apartment. Samira took a sip of her drink and smiled. “Welcome home, Elliot.”
“Sam…How’d you get in? How’d you…” Elliot looked around, as if he was suddenly afraid for his safety, but the look passed before Samira thought too much of it.
“None of that matters, Elliot.” Samira set her drink down on the island and stood up.
“Okay.” Elliot nodded, and the fire in his eyes threatened to break her resolve and burn away any idea of an ultimatum. In that moment, they were together again and nothing else seemed to matter. They were more than what they had as children, not so different than the passion of the night before. He could’ve had her spinning circles for him, but he had to speak up and break the trance she’d sunk into. “Then what does matter, Sam?”
“Us,” she said unsteadily before she got her verbal ground beneath her. “I want you, Ell, but I need it to be more than convenient. I want you when it hurts, I want you when you’re busy, and I want you when I don’t have words for how angry I am at you. That is what I want. I could give in right now and we could burn brighter than possible, but I need us to stay alight or be smothered entirely. I need to know that I matter beyond what free time you have. I need to know that we are your priority. I need to know what happened to you.”
Elliot walked passed her, to the bar, and grabbed the bottle that she had taken a drink from. He poured himself a glass and refilled hers. “It’s not a short story.”
“I don’t care.”
The bottle still in one hand, Elliot seemed torn between putting it back on the bar and keeping it within reach. He sighed. “I’ve done things.”
“I don’t care.”
Elliot let out a deep breath and set the bottle down on the kitchen island. “I don’t even know where to start.”
Samira set a hand on his shoulder. “At the beginning, from the moment you
left my life up until the moment I walked back into yours. I’m serious, Ell, if you can’t open up to me right now and spill it all, I’m going to walk out that door and I will be nothing but the head of Foster Acquisitions. You will never see me outside of the shareholder conferences and I won’t even deign to look at you.”
Elliot took a drink and sat on the stool next to where Samira had been sitting. “You’ll want to sit, this is going to take a while.”
Samira sat down next to him and took a drink from her recently refilled glass. “As I said—”
“You don’t care,” Elliot cut her off, “but I’m afraid that you don’t care because you don’t know…Once you know, I wonder if you’ll care then.”
“Only one way to find out, my love.” Samira looked him deep in the eye and said, “From the moment you left my life, to the moment I walked back into yours.”
Chapter Ten
All Elliot ever wanted, finally within his grasp. He knew that the darkness within was no match for Samira’s light; he was so sure of it, after one more drink he broke down any wall he could’ve had between them and let her know the whole truth of his history. This was not a conversation, it was not even a discussion. Samira sat patiently and settled in to wait for Elliot to finish before she made any comment. Unfortunately for her, the monologue that Elliot had been launched into would take longer than she could’ve guessed.
What Elliot had already shared was perfectly honest. After her father rejected him and forbid him from seeing her ever again, after his own father turned out to be nothing more than a snake caught by the feds, and after the job he landed through an aunt fell through, Elliot did get launched into a partnership that involved importing and exporting. What he hadn’t shared before, what he unpacked for Samira now, was the true nature of the business.
Reclaimed Page 5