“I spent the last two nights with Elias. I’m okay. Are you okay?”
He sighed audibly. “You’re an adult, and I can’t criticize your decisions. I hope you’re still thinking clearly about all of this and your weekend was…” He cleared his throat, stressing his uneasiness with the topic. “Is everything all right?”
“I have to go, Dad. I wanted to let you know where I was.”
“Hanley!” The desperation in his voice called to me. “Is everything all right?”
My smile dropped. “It’s all going according to plan,” I told him and hung up.
I walked downstairs to find Elias there to greet me at the front door.
He caught a glimpse of me and walked up to greet me with a heart-melting smile and a sweet kiss. "Did you rest well this weekend?”
“When you let me, I slept better than I did in my bed at home.”
Lingering at my lips, he cupped my face and gave me another brief peck on the mouth. Tugging me, he directed me to follow him toward the front door. "We're going out for breakfast."
THIRTY MINUTES LATER, Elias pulled off the parkway and drove up to a restaurant situated not far from the Pacific shore.
We rounded the back of the restaurant where a table—draped in a white cloth—and a waiter waited for us on the patio. Due to the absence of customers and the understaffed restaurant, it was clear the place was open just for us.
Our server, dressed in a white button up and black slacks, nearly tripped over himself to fill my white ceramic mug with fresh coffee. “What will you be having today, Miss Harper?” he asked. His accent was thick and tended to roll expertly around the letter “R.”
Curious how he knew my name, I glanced from him to Elias. When my stomach growled, my hunger won out over my need for answers. I quickly perused the menu and had no idea what to order, because the menu was in a different language.
“She’ll have my usual,” Elias told the waiter who nodded in recognition.
I watched the waiter’s back as he disappeared inside the restaurant. “And what is your usual?”
“I normally eat here alone and devour too much food for one person.” The crooked, dimpled smile—indicating he knew what my question was really about —successfully abated any storm of jealousy.
I glanced at the shore, recalling things from the start of the weekend I wished I hadn’t. “Is your housekeeper a regular thing?”
“She was a stripper,” he responded with ease, “invited by Jaco to make you jealous. She’s his…friend. For the record, I would never be so immature.”
In incredulity, I narrowed my eyes at him.
He rounded the table and sat next to me. Pressing his lips against my ear, he whispered, “Would you like me to apologize again?”
“I don’t remember you apologizing the first time.”
“Because I didn’t apologize with words.”
I craned my neck and shook my head.
He toyed with my hair, running his fingers through the length. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
I nodded.
He sucked his bottom lip in a sensuous way that made me beam.
We were almost to another kiss when his phone rang. He looked at it with disinterest at first. Immediately upon catching the name that appeared across the screen, he bristled. “I’m sorry, but I have to take this." He kissed my forehead and walked down the pier, the only words I heard before his voice faded were, “Estou ocupado, mas que raio é que tu queres?”
I ate the majority of my breakfast alone. The entire time it took to devour my food, Elias engaged in a volatile conversation with the individual on the other end of the line. Whomever he was communicating with, it made him so upset that he ended the conversation by breaking his phone. He held onto the banister, wringing his hands around the bar in a harsh manner. It seemed to calm him down, preparing him to return to me.
"Are you ready to go?" He eyed my plate, noting I ate practically everything
“Is everything okay?"
Pulling out my chair, he helped me to stand. “Why wouldn't it be?"
Catching my napkin from falling onto the floor from my lap, I placed it on the table and turned to regard him. “Um…because you’ll probably need a new phone in the near future.”
He cast an even warmer smile at me, erasing any concern I might’ve had that he was going to throw any of his bad mood at me. “I’m perfectly fine, Ley.” Taking both of my hands, his soft warm lips pressed against my cold fist, evoking a feeling that distracted me. With my hand in his, he led me back to the car.
“IT MUST BE nice to own the firm and not actually have to work the hours the architects do,” I stated as he began to drive back to his home. “God, I don’t miss the hours I had to put in to keep up with my coworkers.”
“My schedule is flexible. I have enough people working under me whom I trust. If I wanted to take a vacation for a month tomorrow, I could do that and phone in my work every now and then.”
Sighing, I looked out of the window. “What do you really do, Elias?”
He gave me a genuine smile, linking his fingers with mine as we held the gear shift together. “My profession hasn’t changed overnight. Why the question?”
“No reason,” I responded, dropping the subject.
THE MOMENT WE arrived back to his place, he let go of my hand and became visibly tense. A car, which I knew didn’t belong to Elias, was in the driveway. He had three cars in total. A white Q60 convertible wasn’t counted among his collection.
I checked the time shown on my cell phone. “I have to get to work in an hour.”
“Get dressed here and I’ll take you to work.”
“I have nothing to wear here.”
“Check the bedroom when we get inside.”
Shortly after we crossed the threshold to his home, I spied a statuesque woman with hair that belonged in a shampoo commercial milling around inside the kitchen. Her eyes told me she was old enough to be Elias’s mother, but her smooth skin and personal style made her look like his older sister. Her makeup was minimal but served to bring her dark features to the forefront.
Still unaware anyone was home, she fiddled with the espresso machine while muttering, “Máquina de merda! Estou a ver que nada funciona corretamente nesta casa, incluindo o meu próprio filho.” to herself.
Elias cleared his throat to gain her attention.
Smoothing out her brassy brown curly hair, she glanced over her shoulder at us. I caught her eye for a second too long as she scanned me from head to toe.
“What are you doing here?” Elias asked, his tone clipped and cold.
She spun around with her hands on her hips. Her heels clicked against the hard flooring with every step she took toward Elias and me. “I was told you spoke to your father this morning. I’m here to make sure you”—her hazel hues darted to me for a moment—“send those plans to your father. He said he hasn’t received them yet. You were in charge of the logistics.”
“There was a delay in customs,” Elias explained, his tone bored and contrived. “It will get done.”
She raised a brow. “Issues?”
“Increased duty fees,” he explained, “that’s all.”
“Greedy bastards,” she muttered. “Don’t ever delay on this again. You’re usually good about this, you seem…distracted.”
“Obviously not too distracted,” Elias grumbled.
She looked me over again. “Good. I’m glad you’re not too distracted. It’s interesting you’ve said that, because your assistant has told me you haven’t been putting enough hours in at work to—”
“Being that I don’t answer to you, I think you’re done,” Elias cut in, edging on the point of anger. “Don’t you?”
Putting her hands up in surrender, she smirked at him. “I know you don’t agree with the changes he’s made, but you know what happens when you disappoint your father.”
“Understood,” Elias pressed firmly.
“She’s a beautiful
distraction,” she remarked as if I wasn’t standing there.
“Thank you,” I said sheepishly. “Hi, I’m—”
“I know who you are.” Returning to the kitchen, she grabbed her travel mug and replaced the lid. Waltzing past Elias and me, she headed to the front door. “Nice having breakfast with you, Elias. See you in Miami.”
I know who you are. The words were enough to make me nervous. I abated my paranoia and gave Elias a smile. “Was that…your mother?” I asked, looking after her trail. “She is…gorgeous and ageless.”
“Her plastic surgeon designed her that way.”
“Was she upset over me being here?”
“This is my house now. Even if she cared, her opinion doesn’t matter. There is only one thing my mother cares about and you heard her talk about it.”
“I don’t know what I heard. It sounded like a lot of code language for something I hope it wasn’t. What’s going on in Florida?”
“The less you know, the better.” He wrapped his arms around me, kissing me gently. “Don’t worry about Miami. I’m not expecting you to go.”
“If I can, I want to go.”
“Forget about it.” He kissed me again. “I don’t want to plan that far ahead.”
I swallowed hard. “Do you mean…because we won’t be together that long?”
“I can’t predict the future. Can you?”
I’d given him more than I should’ve and he was beginning to pull back. My decision to spend the weekend with him became one I sorely regretted. “Just because I can’t read the future, doesn’t mean I don’t hope we will be together for a while. I hope we will be, don’t you?”
He looked at the time displayed on the microwave. “Get dressed and I’ll take you to work.”
Hesitating, I went to the bedroom. The door to his walk-in closet was open. On the right side, seven days’ worth of outfits and shoes were provided. I fingered the clothes, all in the black shades—shoe color excluded—I was forced to wear for work in the correct sizes. Cashmere, silk/wool blends, and Egyptian cotton tickled my fingertips.
Despite his suddenly cold reaction, the clothes and the care in which they’d been chosen indicated things were going as I had planned.
Smiling, I picked out the pencil skirt, a blouse, and blazer.
IN THE MIDDLE of helping a customer with her bra size at La Dentelle, Penelope called me over to the desk. “You’ve got a call, Hanley.” Penelope folded her arms and knitted her brows together. “A personal call.”
I picked up the phone to hear my father yelling in the background. “Hanley. It’s Nurse Barbara. I need you to get down here. Your father has turned violent for no reason. I can’t leave. I’ll lose my job, but if I stay I’m going to call the police on your father.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I promised.
DOWN THE HALLWAY, inside the den, my father ranted and raved while throwing various objects. The nurse looked frightened. Unable to speak to me, she just shook her head while saying two words I’d heard from several nurses before, “I quit.” But she added something other nurses never did. “At first I thought you were as crazy as your father. I know better now. You should go in that bedroom sometime. I think you might be surprised by what you see.”
In the den, my father had strewn books and magazines—anything he could get his hands on—around the room. The place looked like a disaster zone with the furniture overturned and decorative pieces lying shattered on the floor. “She’s not changing her line correctly. She’s going to give her a staph infection. They are all trying to kill her. Kill Frankie. It’s Mr. Natanael fucking Cari. He knows. He knows.” He turned toward me with accusatory eyes. “He knows because you turned on me. You told him, didn’t you? That boy. You love him and now you’ve turned on me. Your own father.”
I was absent, and because I was, he’d turned forgetful and had forgotten to take his medication. I blamed myself for not being here, the only person who could take care of him when he got this way. He must’ve felt alone for too long, rendering him unable to function. “I haven’t lost my focus, Dad.”
“Oh? Oh?” He rocked on his heels and wagged his index finger at me. “I see it in your eyes. I tried to deny it, but I see it. Don’t believe his lies, Hanley. Don’t fall for him. Don’t disappoint Frankie and me.”
“I needed to spend the weekend with him. It won’t happen again without what we talked about. It will go back to what we planned. I promise.”
He grabbed my face, hurting me with his grip. He was so far gone, I knew it wasn’t intentional. “I’m losing her. What am I going to do if things go wrong again, and instead, I lose you?”
“You won’t lose me. Elias means nothing to me.”
The man who raised me knew when I lied no matter how hard I tried to hide it. There was nothing I could do to make him believe that I felt nothing for Elias. It was a lie I couldn’t make sound convincing.
As if I had said the truth, he closed his eyes. Despondency clouded his face as he slumped to the floor. “If I had the strength, I would keep you from seeing him again. You will focus on what matters, even if I have to force you to.” He brought his knees up to his chest and stared at the wall. “Do not disappoint me again.”
Disappointment: A word which tore me apart whenever he said it. “I won’t,” I swore to him, my voice quavering with regret. “I’ll go get your meds and a glass of water.” I walked down the hall before my legs failed me. I slipped down against the wall and, for a moment, let down the wall of strength I always had in place—the wall that was decrepit and barely together.
FOURTEEN
WHILE GATHERING MY KEYS from my clutch as I walked in the parking lot—ready to go home after my grueling shift—I was greeted by Elias sitting on the hood of his car, in the place my car should’ve been. It further pushed me into bitchy territory, being that I got the car back just yesterday.
He gave me a grin I couldn’t match as he took me in his arms and kissed me. “You stood me up last night and didn’t answer my calls or texts. I was worried about you, Hanley.”
“I had to leave work early yesterday for a family emergency,” I explained, trying to take his hands from my waist, but his strength overcame mine. He held me tightly, pressing my body against his. “Where is my car, Elias?”
“Being detailed,” he said nonchalantly. “What’s going on with you? Is there anything I can help you with?”
“It was just my father…having an episode.”
“Episode?” he asked, the word slipping slowly from his lips.
“He has his good and bad days.”
His eyes shot up to the sky as though he suddenly realized the truth. “Is that why you live with him? To care for him? He needs professional assistance. Assistance you can’t and shouldn’t be expected to provide. It pisses me off that his burden is being carried on your back.”
“Look,” I snapped, “I understand you missed my mouth around your cock, but there is this crazy little thing called a hand. If that’s all you wanted, you could’ve used that, or the stripper slash housekeeper slash Jaco’s friend with benefits. You don’t have to insult my father or my relationship with him because you were horny last night.”
He held steadily to his wry smile. “I’m in a good mood, Ley. Don’t persuade my mood to swing somewhere else. If I only wanted to see you so I could fuck your mouth, nothing would’ve stopped it from happening.”
I lifted a brow at him. “You have to earn the right to talk to me like that. Making me come countless times in a weekend doesn’t grant you that privilege.”
He chuckled and brought a hand down his face. “I was right about how dangerous you were, but for all the wrong reasons. Ah, Hanley.” He came forward, his fingertips grazing the side of my face. “You don’t want me to fall too hard for you. It’s a very scary state for me to be in, and do you know why?”
I shrugged, urging him to answer.
“Because I’ve never completely fallen for someone before
.” He slipped a small piece of paper from his back pocket, slowly unfolding it. “The title. Real. Authentic. Officially yours.”
“I’m worth more than a car.”
“I have full knowledge of what you’re worth, minha amada. Come home with me and I’ll show you a little taste of what I think that is.”
“I can’t.” I averted my eyes, the words paining me to say. “It bothers me that you seem at odds with a man you’ve never met. It’s important that you are at least indifferent, if you can’t like him. Maybe it would help if you actually met him?”
“I don’t do that—the meeting of the parents,” he rejected the idea quickly. “Never have and never will.”
“No, you wouldn’t do anything out of the ordinary for me,” I said with enough irritation to cloud the air between us.
“Of all the women I’ve dated, there are many things I’ve done out of the ordinary for you. With all that your father is putting you through,” he leaned down, whispering against my lips, “let me take your mind…and your body to a better place.” The moment my lips parted, inviting him to kiss me, he began to walk backward. “I have plans for you, and I promise when you find out what they are, you’re going to beg for what I want to give you.”
HE DIDN’T SAY a word nor did he kiss me when we reached his bedroom. The moment the door slammed behind his entry, I turned around to regard him.
His eyes were cast to the floor, a cruel smirk pressed across his lips. He stood there, stilly, in a pensive state for too many uncomfortable moments.
“Elias?”
He held up a finger, stalking toward me. “I have an issue with being disrespected and ignored…again. I have an even bigger issue with the way you spoke to me earlier.” He grabbed my head, his palms pressing into my cheekbones. The abrupt and possessive touch startled me, provoking a gasp. “Apologize to me.”
I blinked, stunned by the sudden change in his mood.
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