“She wouldn’t come,” Julia pointed out.
“She sounds fancy,” Cole commented.
“She likes to think so,” Julia agreed.
“Yeah, well, fancy or not, Mrs. Louzier is an awful tyrant that treats everyone like her own personal doormat, Julia included. She just happens to be very persistent and I’ve gotten four phone calls from her and two from Jones.”
“Who’s Jones?” Tucker asked.
“Her personal valet,” Julia explained. She glanced at Cole behind her and saw Elliot leaning against the closed front door. Obviously, he’d come into the house at some point and she hadn’t heard him. She didn’t like that he could move into her space without her noticing.
“And, why are we ignoring them?” Cole asked.
“I don’t have time for her right now.”
“You don’t have time for your own family?” Elliot said quietly from against the door. He sounded confrontational, maybe even angry.
He stared at her and she found she was able to return the gesture without batting an eye, as she tried to gauge his question. Was he trying to make her feel guilty? Make her feel bad in some way? Was this some kind of test she was going to fail?
“No. Not right now I don’t,” she said after a tense moment that left everyone else in the room looking at each other awkwardly. She turned to Kelsey. “Block her number if you have to. I hope you have a good night.” As she went to turn around, a hand clamped around her upper arm.
“Now hold on there.” Cole laughed. “Don’t turn on the cold and bitchy act. We were doing fine there for a while. Let’s go back to kick-ass chic and pizza and beer. I liked that plan.”
“What makes you think cold and bitchy is an act?” Julia asked, making everyone in the room laugh.
Everyone except her and Elliot.
Pizza and beer with the Ice Queen was not his idea of a great time. Something about the way she’d blown off her grandmother rubbed him the wrong way, like the woman was nothing but a burden, their relationship meaningless. He and his brothers would have done anything to get more time with their grandmother.
He’d been reminding himself of her ridiculously overpriced wardrobe, admitting, if only to himself, that maybe she intimidated the hell out of him, too.
Plus, there was the fact that she was still a real-estate thief.
It wasn’t hard to conjure his deep annoyance with her, letting it build and burn. The problem was, it was one of those flash in the pan kind of explosions, hot and bright but over quickly.
She listened when people spoke to her, thought carefully about the things she was going to say almost like she was picking her way through a mine field. He found her intriguing, which also annoyed the shit out of him because she was someone he couldn’t forget easily. She was intelligent and concise, and when they were alone, he tended to like her.
Though the scene in her office had his back up. Family was the most important thing to him. He hated to see anyone squander something so important.
Julia ate nothing at the restaurant, just sat quietly at the edge of the booth, her fingers tapping restlessly on the chipped Formica of the table while they ate pizza. Elliot noted that he also didn’t have much to say either, finding it easier to let Cole, Tucker, and Kelsey make inane chatter.
When the meal was over, Cole excused himself so he could shamelessly flirt with the waitress, and Tucker and Kelsey got up to play a game of pool. Elliot looked away, uncomfortable that they’d been thrown together.
“I’ve offended you again,” she said, not as a question.
He didn’t answer. It would be too hard and probably too inappropriate for him to admit why he was annoyed.
“I thought we made some headway on Friday. You were at least speaking to me. But somehow, I’ve offended you again.”
Elliot sighed and rubbed a hand down his face. It wasn’t often that people were so blatant with their questions. Most people would bear the discomfort, never saying it outright.
“I’m sorry,” he told her. He wasn’t sure why he was sorry but he felt like he needed to say it.
“For what?” she asked. Her brow had a slight furrow and she looked genuinely confused.
“For making you feel like you’ve offended me.”
“Haven’t I?” she asked again.
“Christ,” he muttered. “I’m not offended, okay. I just—” He hesitated. “We loved our grandmother, a lot. And to think that she’s gone, it breaks my heart. And to hear you say you don’t have time for yours just rubs salt in my wound that mine is gone and you’re ignoring yours.” He hadn’t meant to say all that.
She didn’t say anything for a few minutes and seemed to weigh her words while her eyes looked somewhere over his shoulder.
“You’re adopted,” she said, finally, her eyes cutting to his and away again.
Elliot narrowed his eyes. “I am,” he confirmed.
“You were adopted into a nice family that loves you and supports you.”
Yes, he had been and suddenly he wanted to shrink and hide under the table. How shortsighted he was, being so far removed from his old life that he couldn’t understand anymore when someone wasn’t as lucky as he’d been. “I was lucky,” he admitted softly.
“I wasn’t,” was all she said.
They sat quietly for a few minutes, listening to the balls on the pool table clack against each other. The smell of hot pizza lingered in the air and he debated taking another slice. Julia, still hadn’t eaten a thing.
“Okay,” Elliot conceded, hating that he’d let himself forget, even for a second, where he’d come from.
Julia’s phone buzzed on the tabletop and she picked it up, tapping furiously with her thumbs before slapping it down again. Her lips were compressed in a thin line and her little nose had a wrinkle across the bridge.
“Who are you always texting?” he asked, uncaring that it was a nosy question.
“Emailing,” Julia corrected automatically. “Who am I not always emailing? Investors, my lawyers, my employees, my sales team, the CEO of the company I’m selling H-Surf to, their sales team, their IT team.”
“Wait?” Elliot sat up straighter. “H-Surf? That online artist community board thing?”
“That’s the one,” she confirmed as she signaled the waitress and asked for the check.
“You own H-Surf?” he asked, his eyebrows so far up they might have been in his hairline.
“The name started as a joke. The boards were meant to be temporary, but kind of caught fire.” Her green eyes finally met his, even if only briefly, green and flashing.
“Kind of?” He laughed as she handed some bills to the waitress. He’d read an article a few months ago in a tech magazine that had said the owner of H-Surf was a brilliant yet reclusive computer savant and was one of the country’s youngest multi-billionaires. For some reason, her name hadn’t rung any bells but the name of the company had. He wracked his brain, almost sure the article had referred to her as J. Hawkins, not Julia.
She threw a few bills on the table when the waitress brought the check and stood to leave. Elliot stood too. She looked startled by his presence looming over her so he leaned back a little, giving her some space.
“Good night,” she mumbled quickly. It was very quiet and before he could respond, she was hurrying out the door without a word to anyone else.
He and his brothers had driven to the restaurant in their truck and Kelsey had brought Julia in her own car. That meant that Julia was walking. The idea didn’t sit well with him so he too left, without even a second thought for his brothers, and followed her.
He caught up while she was getting to the sidewalk at the end of the parking lot. He’d called out to her, but she obviously hadn’t heard him. When he finally did catch up and put a hand on her arm, she screamed like a banshee and tried to club him with her purse. It took him a second to grab her arms and pull her close so that she couldn’t get in another shot with her damn bag.
“Julia! Julia!�
�� Elliot said loudly. “It’s just me. Elliot.”
He could feel her breathing heavily against him, her chest heaving as she turned those electric eyes on him and oh boy, was she pissed.
“Don’t sneak up on women in the dark!” She made an attempt to swat at him again, which made him want to laugh. “I could have—”
“What? Beat me to death with your purse?” He laughed as he continued to hold her upper arms. She was so slender, her arms almost as fragile as baby-bird wings in his hands. Without her usual sky-high heels and expensive don’t touch me dresses, she was approachable and not in the least bit intimidating. If anything, she was delicately built, petite in a way she didn’t always appear with her fancy armor.
She stopped fighting him but didn’t try to pull away. When their eyes met, he could see humor there, though her face was a deceptive mask that told him nothing.
“This is a very expensive purse. I wouldn’t use it to kill anyone,” she told him, her voice flat.
It was a joke. He liked it.
“If you aren’t willing to use your purse to defend yourself against strange men in dark parking lots, then it’s probably a good idea that I walk you home,” he told her, playing along.
“You don’t have to do that,” she told him quietly, her eyes moving away from him. Her dark hair was gleaming in the glow of the streetlight, kinking and curling out of its braid. Without overthinking, he reached up and ran his fingers gently over the side of her hair, then cupped her cheek. She sucked in a gentle breath and leaned into his hand, her eyes sliding closed.
“Julia,” he said quietly. “Let me walk you home.”
She nodded but pulled away from him, trying to gain herself some distance. Elliot didn’t let her get too far and offered his elbow for her to hold. She took it, her hand sliding into the crook of his arm as they fell in step together.
“Why’d you do that?” Julia asked Elliot when they were less than a block from her house.
He pulled her just a bit closer, his body tall and solid.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, sounding just as gruff and serious as he always did.
“I can never tell if you’re mad at me or if you just don’t like me,” she explained.
He ran a hand through his hair, the black mane long enough that it fell back into place easily.
“I like you,” he growled. “I don’t want to, but I do.”
Her eyes flipped up to his and quickly away. “Most people don’t like me,” she admitted. “I would understand if you didn’t.”
“I do,” he said again, through his teeth.
“Friend like or sex like?” she asked, her tone utterly guileless.
That caught him off guard but he sure as hell wasn’t going to lie to her.
“Sex like,” he admitted. “Though I’m not in a hurry.”
“I like sex,” she said plainly. “Though I’m not in a hurry, either. I’m very busy right now.”
“Well, when you’re ready, you can pencil me into your schedule.” He meant it as a joke, but Julia didn’t catch it.
“Kelsey’s in charge of the schedule.” Her eyes met his again. “You were kidding.”
His lips turned up then as her cheeks heated and flushed a pretty pink.
“I was. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, I was thinking we could just maybe just get to know each other.”
Julia brought a hand up and pushed back her sleeve to consult her watch.
“It’s only seven,” she was saying. “I can do that.”
Elliot was still staring at her arm. He couldn’t have helped himself if he tried. Julia was a woman like no one he’d ever met before and every time he turned around, he found something else that was totally unexpected.
He’d seen her as the Ice Queen. He’d seen her as a workaholic. He’d seen her in her cool business attire and down-to-earth combat boots. He’d seen her in her pajamas and her ridiculously expensive shoes.
Again, when he hadn’t been expecting another facet of her personality to surface, she’d lifted her sleeve only to reveal a whole lot of ink under her shirt. Granted, he could only see about an inch-and-a-half worth of skin, but what he had seen was covered with color and he hadn’t expected that at all.
He’d stopped, dead in his tracks, unable to move.
“Elliot?” Julia asked. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” he mumbled. “Sorry.”
“Bullshit,” she demanded, taking a small step back from him, trying to gain some distance. She was so damned skittish.
He reached out quickly, grabbing her wrist and bringing it up to his chest, and gently pulled her sleeve back a few inches. There was no natural skin color to be seen.
“I just wasn’t expecting this, that’s all,” he told her. When she tried to pull her hand back, he held on anyway. “Stop, please.”
“Don’t lie to me,” she said softly. When she looked up at him he was hit with some of the most unfathomable emotions he’d ever seen from her. Her eyes held a world of vulnerability, but she was so determined and proud that she continued to speak, no matter what it might cost her. “I don’t care how hurtful what you might have to say is, but please don’t lie to me.”
“No lying,” he promised, tugging her wrist gently back into the crook of his elbow.
She hesitated, only for a second, before joining him. When they got to her house, she let him in, no questions asked, and even let him pick the movie.
“What time is Kelsey coming home?” Elliot asked Julia around eleven.
Instead of a movie, they’d ended up watching three episodes of some sci-fi show he hadn’t seen in ages. They’d started off on the long side of the sectional with a few feet between them, but between bathroom trips and Julia’s work breaks, they’d ended up right next to each other. His legs were stretched out onto the coffee table and she sat cross-legged, one of her knees resting on top of his leg. He wished like hell he could figure out what she was doing on her computer, but there was just no way. It was nothing but a jumble of numbers that she typed at warp speed, then fifteen more pop-up boxes appeared and then disappeared. She had one big laptop and then two tiny ones all running at the same time. But she’d also focused on the TV, commenting on the theory of time travel and engaging in conversation.
“Oh.” She looked up and checked her watch again, teasing him with those little bits of ink again. “I just assumed she was heading back to the city. She doesn’t like staying here.”
“Do you want to call her?” he asked without moving. “I can stay until she gets here if you want.”
She looked down at him with a confused look on her face. “Are you only staying because you’re afraid to leave me alone?”
Elliot laughed and dropped his feet from the coffee table and sat up. “No, that’s not why I stayed. But I should get going.”
“Okay.”
She watched him carefully as he got up and grabbed his jacket off the back of the couch. She barely moved when he leaned over and kissed her on the top of the head.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Julia. Lock up when I leave.”
He laughed as he got out on the sidewalk, and dialed Cole’s number, and wondered how long she sat there wearing that stunned expression.
The next morning, Julia showered and dressed in a classic Burberry blazer over a cami and black skinny jeans. Then she sat on the bed and tied on her Christian Dior black-leather wingtip cutout oxfords, alternating between wondering why Elliot hung out with her last night and telling herself to stop thinking about Elliot altogether.
She stood up and rolled her eyes on her way to the dresser to put on her rings and bracelets. She was muttering to herself to stop being such a woman when a subtle cough came from the door. When she looked over, Cole was standing there with a wide smile stretched across his face.
“Good morning,” she greeted.
“I came to tell you how heartbroken I am that you brought my brother home with you last night and ditched m
e. But then I found you in here talking to yourself and now I realize that the only rational explanation for both things is that you’re bat-shit crazy.”
That made her laugh out loud, which seemed to take him a bit by surprise. The expression on his face made her feel self-conscious, all those years of her grandmother’s criticism making her feel as though she were laughing at the wrong time or at the wrong thing. Her smile faded and she looked away uncomfortably as she finished getting ready.
“Since you spent all night flirting with the waitress, I figured you wouldn’t be too hurt if I ducked out early.”
Cole, without invitation, waltzed right into her room and laid himself down on her unmade bed, arms behind his head, big boots hanging off to the side.
“Since you’re all gaga over Elliot, I figured our relationship had already fizzled out and it was time to move on,” he explained, then he shot her a hang-dog expression. “I’m deeply wounded that you’ve dumped me for my brother.”
“I didn’t dump you and I’m not all gaga over Elliot,” she argued.
“Well, he had to call me for a ride late last night and wouldn’t give me any details, so I’m assuming that means they’re pretty juicy.”
“We watched TV. I worked and we talked. He was very nice.”
“Elliot was nice?” Cole pretended to be shocked. “Elliot? Are we talking about the same person?”
“If you’re finished?” she asked with raised eyebrows. When he held out his hand as if giving her permission to proceed, she did. “I wanted to talk to you and your brothers about this contractor’s software I’ve been working on. Kelsey and I have an appointment in the city and I wanted to discuss it before I left.”
“Well,” he said as he got off the bed. “If we can pry Tucker and Elliot from their mad dash to finish your office, we’ll be all set.”
When they got downstairs, both men were there and she couldn’t believe how close they were to being finished.
Elliot: The Williams Brothers Page 6