“I bet there’s a story there,” Isa said. There had to be. Merina and Reese’s dating and married life had been reported in the local gossip rags numerous times. Photos from their (second) wedding over the summer, even though it was a private backyard affair at Alex Crane’s house, had shown up in the Trib. At least Isa and Eli weren’t subjected to that kind of social pressure.
Merina assessed her carefully before saying, “There is a story. Maybe if things work out with you and Eli, someday I’ll tell it to you.”
Isa’s heart fluttered with nervous excitement. On the outside, she remained calm, lifted her glass, and smiled at the bawdy but refined woman sitting across from her. “Well. Something to look forward to.”
Merina grinned. A happily married woman with a secret she loved having.
* * *
“The girls love her,” Tag said, leaning one huge shoulder on the dividing wall between the kitchen and dining room.
Eli looked again. He couldn’t get enough of Isa in a black dress hugging her curves, her midnight-dark hair rolling over her shoulders. Poised, she sat cross-legged on the chair, holding Merina’s and Rachel’s full attention as she talked with her hands.
“Apparently, so do you,” Reese said.
Eli faced his oldest brother. Reese’s eyebrows were raised, his mouth a flat line, but Eli could see approval lurking in his eyes.
“Easy, Cupid.” The L-word wasn’t a term Eli threw around often or lightly. And with a woman he’d dated—never. “We click.”
“Is that a euphemism?” Tag asked with a wry smile. He waggled his beer bottle before Eli could deliver a warning for him to STFU. “I need another.”
Reese stopped leaning on the fridge so Tag could pull out a bottle. Eli and Reese both drank theirs and accepted fresh beers.
“Why’d you invite her tonight?” Reese asked, uncapping his bottle.
“Don’t be a dick,” Tag told him. “You don’t have to answer that, E.”
“Gee, thanks for the permission slip, Taggart.”
There was no easier way to shut his youngest brother up than to use his full name. Tag’s lip curled in disgust.
Eli wasn’t going to psychoanalyze the way Isa made him feel or why he’d given in to the urge to invite her tonight. Better go with the easy explanation.
“You guys are the ones who wanted me to invite her to a dinner.” Now that he and Isa were being divided and conquered by his family, his guard was definitely up. At least Dad wasn’t here tonight to add his own brand of parental pressure. Though Eli suspected that Rhona and Isa would get along famously.
“It’s good you asked her,” Reese said. “Shows you trust your gut.”
“She’s different,” Eli said.
“Than Crystal?” his oldest brother asked.
“Than anyone.” Eli had been involved in several shortish relationships, each more trouble than they were worth in the end. Each with a shelf life of delicate, fresh flowers. It never took long for things to go from full bloom to wilting. Crystal had been the exception to the rule, but then she hadn’t worked out either, had she?
“Makes sense that the relationship is different,” Tag said. “You’re home for the first time permanently. It’s a game changer. No chance of you running off to another country to catch a breather in a few weeks.” Tag guzzled his beer and when he lowered it, Eli was still staring at him. “What?”
“Nothing.” He’d never thought of it in those terms before. Eli knew he wasn’t shipping off to war, but he hadn’t considered that was the reason the relationship with Isa seemed so much—what was the word?—heavier than his other relationships.
“Hey.” Isa popped into the room as if on cue. She snagged a bottle of red wine standing on the counter. “We’re in need of refills.”
No one spoke. Tag pursed his lips. Reese lifted an eyebrow.
“Seems serious in here.” Isa sent a glance around the room, her eyes landing on Eli. “You must be discussing Refurbs.”
“Re-what?” Tag asked, his face screwing into pleats of confusion.
“Refurbs for Vets. The charity?” she said.
Fuck. Eli scrubbed his jaw and took the hit. Isa didn’t know his brothers weren’t in the know. It wasn’t her fault they were going to lay into him the second she left the room. “Yeah,” he told her. “You guessed it.”
“I’ll…um…go open this in the living room.” She grabbed a corkscrew and swished out of the kitchen.
Eli could feel Reese drilling a hole through his head with the power of his mind. “What charity?”
Eli pulled in a breath. “One of the reasons I’ve been too busy for Crane business is because I started a charity for injured vets…with a focus on amputees.”
Reese set aside his beer bottle and folded his arms over his chest.
Tag, all ears, mimicked their brother, folding his arms and leaning on the countertop next to Reese.
Then, Eli told his brothers everything.
* * *
“You have to meet Alex,” Merina said again, her voice boozy. As if the family patriarch would answer every unanswered Crane men question.
They’d all reconvened at the dining room table, and a third bottle of wine had been opened. The aforementioned Crane men held fast to their beers—but they sipped slowly, letting the girls bottom out the wine. Isa had covertly switched to water a few glasses ago, but Rachel and Merina were set on taking down another bottle.
“What’s Alex like?” Isa asked, feeling relaxed and at ease around her new girlfriends.
“He’s like…” Merina paused to think, narrowing her eyes at her husband.
“A combo of Reese and Eli.” Rachel pointed at one, then the other.
“Yes.” Merina raised her hand for a high-five and Rachel slapped her palm.
“Hey.” Tag gestured to his wide chest. “What about me?”
“You’re more like Mom than Dad,” Reese said. “Or, at least, you have her hair.”
Tag narrowed his eyes, but as per his usual, his expression was playful. Rachel, who sat next to him, ran her fingers through his long hair and cooed, “Taggart.”
He smashed his mouth against hers and Rachel giggled as she kissed him.
“He hates that name.” Merina elbowed Isa. “It’s too regal for him.”
“I can be regal,” Tag argued.
“Says the guy in cargo pants,” Reese put in.
“At least Rachel calls you by your given name,” Isa piped up on the end of a laugh. “Eli doesn’t like my name, so he calls me Sable.”
“Eli!” Merina clucked her tongue in reprimand.
Eli shifted uncomfortably. He’d grown more withdrawn as the clock ticked on. Isa couldn’t have been the only one to notice, which made her wonder if his family was used to him sitting silently while the rest of them chattered. She wanted to check on him, but from across the table, she couldn’t casually lean in and ask if he was okay.
“Sable. That’s sexy.” Rachel rested her head on one of Tag’s big shoulders and yawned. It was late, yet no one seemed eager to cut the evening short.
“Eli knows she’s sexy,” Merina, wineglass in hand, pointed at her brother-in-law. “I can see the glimmer in his eye.”
“I’m not glimmering.” Eli might not have been smiling, but the glimmer was there all the same. Isa liked being the reason for it.
There was a beat before Rachel filled the gap with, “What are your parents like, Isa?”
“My father is English. My mother is Spanish, but grew up in Greece. I’m a mixed bag.” She had her mother’s dark features, but her skin was a shade lighter than her mother’s deep olive due to her father’s fairer coloring. “They own Sawyer Financial Group, which I’m sure you’ve all heard of.” Murmurs and nods confirmed. “My father is professional and intelligent, and my mother works hard at both business and the business of being social.”
“Socialite,” Merina said, her tone not the least bit judgey.
“She’s a master,”
Isa replied.
“I’ve met Helena. She’s both a socialite and an intelligent businesswoman,” Reese said approvingly. “You look like her.”
“Beautiful, he means,” Eli murmured. From across the table, they shared a heated look. She held his eyes for a few seconds. He looked away first. He was either wrestling with unnamed emotions or good old-fashioned fatigue. Leaning back in his chair, arms folded, eyebrows down, he didn’t look up for company any longer. Thinking she was doing him a favor, Isa spoke up.
“You know, it’s getting late.”
Every pair of eyes at the table landed on her.
“For me, I mean,” she quickly corrected. She faked a yawn.
Tag’s head turned to Eli, then Isa. “I see.”
“No, that’s not what I—” Isa started.
“Time to call it a night.” Reese interrupted, offering a hand to his wife.
“It’s okay, Isa. We’ve all been there. The infatuation stage.” Merina slipped her palm into Reese’s and rose from her chair gracefully—after all that wine, how she did anything gracefully was a mystery.
“We’re not used to Eli having anyone—I mean, anything—to do,” Tag teased. Rachel play-punched his bicep.
Isa wasn’t convinced any of them were out of the infatuation stage.
Eli stood, interrupting the banter with an announcement. “I assume everyone knows the way out.”
Then he turned on his heel and walked into his bedroom. There was a slight hitch in his step. Maybe the phantom pains had returned—or were about to. Was that why he’d gone quiet?
There was an uncomfortable silence as everyone stood around the table, staring at the closed door at the end of the hall their host had vanished behind.
“I’m sorry. He’s…” Isa trailed off when she realized she was addressing a group who knew what Eli was like. Complicated. Moody. Reluctant.
“Don’t apologize for him,” Merina said. “He can do that for himself.” She palmed her empty glass and, along with Rachel and Reese, carried the remaining glassware and bottles to the kitchen.
It was Tag who stayed behind. “It’s back?” Tag’s face morphed into a mask of concern as he cast a glance to Eli’s bedroom door again. “The pain?”
So she wasn’t the only one to notice the change in Eli’s stride. She sent Tag a shaky smile, unsure how much she should say. First she’d let the Refurbs cat out of the bag, now this. “Um. Sometimes. Rarely. I massaged his foot the other day and it helped a lot.”
“He doesn’t share stuff like that. Doesn’t confide in us.” Tag’s frown deepened. “Does he tell you things, Cap’n?”
She debated lying, then decided against it. Looking into Tag’s intense blue eyes compelled her to be truthful. “He does.”
Tag gave an approving nod. “Good. I’m glad he has you.”
Rachel appeared at his side a second later. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, Dimples. We’re leaving the Cap’n in charge, and that’s not a bad thing.”
Reese delivered Merina’s, then Rachel’s, coats. “Isabella, good to see you.”
“Thanks for dinner.”
“Anytime.” He stole a glance at the bedroom door as well but kept his questions to himself.
“I’m going to check on him before I go,” Isa said.
Reese dipped his chin in a silent thank-you.
“You let us know if there’s anything we can do,” Tag said, Rachel’s hand in his. “We’re not far.” Tag and Rachel filed into the freight elevator with Reese and Merina. By the time the metal door crashed shut and the elevator chugged to the bottom, Isa was on her way to Eli’s bedroom.
“Eli?” She rapped her knuckles on the wood and called through the closed door, “Are you okay?”
No answer.
“Eli?”
“Stop knocking, Sable. You want to come in, come in.” Well. He didn’t sound like he was in pain. When she twisted the knob and stepped into his bedroom, she didn’t find him doubled over or in a cold sweat. In fact, he appeared…fine. He stood at his dresser, digging through what sounded like loose change in his top drawer.
“You favored your leg on the way in here. I was worried you were having an attack.”
He lifted a decorative pin from the drawer and ran his thumb over it before tossing it back in.
“You became suddenly quiet tonight. Care to tell me why you left me alone with your family?”
“No.” More rummaging. When she got closer, she saw not only pins, but also medals. Several of them.
“Wow. Are these yours?”
“All of them except for this one.” He handed over a heart-shaped medal. “Dad’s. He has more, but that was the one he gave me.”
She ran her fingers over the smooth ribbon. She didn’t know much about military medals, but she knew what a Purple Heart looked like, and this was definitely one of them.
She handed back Alex Crane’s medal and Eli dropped it into the box with the others. “I’m assuming this isn’t a military medal.” She lifted a gold disc engraved with the words FIRST PLACE.
“Marathon.” His lips tipped into a sad smile. He took it from her and rubbed his thumb over the words.
“Will you run one again?” she asked, wondering what was feeding his melancholy.
“Maybe.”
Okay. This was getting her nowhere. Time to do what she did best—push him.
“Your brothers didn’t know about the charity, did they?” After her visit to the kitchen, she’d left Eli with some explaining to do.
Eli met her gaze wordlessly.
“What did they say?”
“They said they’d feature Refurbs for Vets at future Crane events and help me raise money.” Then why did he look upset?
“That’s good, right?”
“Yes.” After a beat, he added, “I haven’t done much to deserve their help.”
He was so damn complex. What was he trying to live up to? Why was he in here studying his and his father’s medals?
“I don’t understand where this is coming from, Eli. I thought we were having a good night. Your family is so great and—”
“And they’re here for me. Because I’m here. Not everyone gets so lucky.” Eli lifted a stack of pictures, handed over the top photo, and closed the drawer. In it was what appeared to be a game of some sort. Eli and another man held men on their shoulders who were fighting with sticks. All of them were grinning. Eli, clean-shaven and head shaved, was almost unrecognizable, save for the grin on his face. She’d seen that expression on him lately. There was a circle of soldiers surrounding them, arms raised like they were cheering.
“You look happy.”
“I had my moments.”
Had. She didn’t like how past tense that sounded.
He sat on his bed like the weight of the entire world was on his back. She joined him. Eli’s blunt index finger tapped the man on his shoulders in the picture. “Benji doesn’t get to be here.”
Benji. One of his friends who died.
“The one who left a wife behind,” she said. “Sad.” What an understatement. Isa’s heart crushed under the weight of knowing the smiling, younger guy in the picture never returned home to the woman who loved him.
“They both left wives behind.” Eli’s nostrils flared, his voice hardening. “Benji’s wife won’t talk to me.”
Isa remembered him mentioning Benji’s wife in the journal entry, but what she didn’t understand was: “Why not?”
“Because she knows it’s my fault.” Eli tossed the photo on the nightstand. “She won’t return my calls and she’s no longer checking his e-mail. Or if she is, she’s not responding. Tonight, I was sitting there with my pain-in-the-ass family and got to thinking that Benji didn’t have any more moments with his family. No time with his wife or his brother or his parents. No one bringing him meals because his leg is gone. It’s unfair.”
This was the kind of grief she wasn’t sure how to deal with—that she wasn’t equipped to deal
with. Isa had never suffered loss at his level. She’d never witnessed the tragedy Eli had lived through.
But she couldn’t help trying to comfort him. “Eli, you’re allowed to be happy even though he’s not here.”
“He’s not here because I didn’t save him,” he said, his voice vacant. “I should have saved both of them.”
That, she could argue. “I haven’t known you for long but I know for a fact if there was any way you could have saved them, you would have—or died trying.” She put her hand over his and offered a tender smile. “Am I wrong?”
“No.”
She thought she’d reached him until he jerked his arm away.
“But that doesn’t change the facts.”
“What facts?”
“I’m not good for anyone, Sable.”
When he said anyone, it sounded like he was including her.
“You don’t believe that.” She wasn’t accepting a brush-off. Not when she had invested in him. She cared about him. Couldn’t he see that? She’d stayed instead of filing out the door with everyone else. She was here now, trying to understand him.
“You didn’t cause your friends’ deaths,” she tried again.
If Tag had been here, or Reese, what would they say to Eli to pull him out? How would they reach him? Like a flash, she knew. She didn’t miss the flinch of hurt when Reese teased Tag about resembling their mother.
“And you didn’t cause your mother’s death.” She put a hand over his forearm to soften the blow. “You’re good for a lot of people.”
Like me.
“What the hell do you know?” Rage permeated his features, his eyes going cold. “You, who continue coming back like a kicked dog no matter how I treat you.”
“I do not.” That wasn’t true. Not even a little. She was here because she cared about him. Because of what they’d shared.
Eli got to his feet. “It wouldn’t matter what I did, would it? You’d stay.”
“Are you trying to make me to leave?” she asked with an incredulous laugh.
“I always knew you were smart.” He turned and crossed the room, leaving her sitting on his bed in shock.
Oh. Hell. No.
She stood in the center of his bedroom, anger vibrating across her shoulders. It was so like him to wall up and shut down just when she was reaching into a part of him he hid from everyone.
The Bastard Billionaire Page 17