by Nadia Lee
My sister doesn’t look at me or say a word. She waits until I take a seat to Elliot’s right, then takes the one to his left. He doesn’t comment, although his jaw flexes and his eyes go remote in disapproval. We eat in silence for a while.
“My band director made it official. We’re going to Vancouver our second semester,” Nonny announces suddenly.
“That sounds lovely,” I say with a small smile.
She stares at her noodles. Her mouth tightens for a moment, then she says, “I want to go.”
“Tough,” Elliot says at the same time I say, “Of course you should go.”
Nonny looks back and forth between me and Elliot. “What?”
“You don’t get to go.” He finishes the last of the noodles on his plate and sets his chopsticks with a carelessness that belies the tension pouring off him. “It’s ridiculous.”
My face flushes. “What do you mean, ‘ridiculous’? I told her she could go.”
His eyes turn into slits. “So?” he says, then turns to Nonny. “You don’t get to go because you don’t deserve it.”
“Elliot…” She’s pale now. “What are you talking about?”
I open my mouth, about to defend Nonny, but Elliot raises a hand, cutting me off. His pitiless eyes are focused on her. “You don’t get to condemn the way your sister’s been providing for you, then turn around and ask her for money when it suits you. If you don’t approve of how she’s been taking care of you, do it yourself, but don’t you dare expect her to keep supporting you.”
Now she’s as red as an overripe berry. She stares at him, and although her mouth parts, no sound comes out. Unshed tears glisten in her eyes, and I turn to Elliot.
“You don’t get to talk to her that way,” I say, suddenly furious at his unreasonable harshness. I’m not thrilled that she’s still upset with me, but strong-arming her isn’t the way to fix what’s wrong between us. Besides, if I weren’t going to pay for her trips and so on, I wouldn’t have agreed to his marriage contract in the first place. Actually, none of this would’ve come about, since I would’ve never taken money from Mr. Grayson and I would’ve never moved to L.A. and… God. I desperately rein in my rising emotions. Losing control won’t help.
“Actually, I do.” Elliot is implacable as he glares at me. “When we got married I became her guardian, too, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“But she’s just a kid. I promised she could go before you and I met.”
“Really?” He cocks an eyebrow. “Was she okay with where the money was coming from?”
“Elliot!”
“That’s enough.” His tone is hard enough to crack a rock. “I’m not going to sit back and watch her judge you anymore. I’m tired of discord in my home, and if you pay for the trip behind my back, I’m going to cut you off.” He stands abruptly, tossing his napkin by his empty plate. “Excuse me. I have a call to make.”
He stalks away into his office without a backward glance. The door slams behind him, making me flinch.
Nonny stares into her lap, her eyes teary. I go over to her and hold her limp hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll help you go.”
She finally looks at me. “Why would you want to?”
“Because you’re my sister.” When she keeps staring, I add wryly, “Do I need another reason?”
Her face crumbles, and tears flow freely down her flushed cheeks. I pull her closer and wrap an arm around her skinny shoulders. She may be fifteen, but she feels so much younger as she clutches me.
“Hey, it’s okay,” I say. “I’m going to make it okay.”
“You shouldn’t be saying that.” She sounds like a teeny foghorn as she tries to talk and cry at the same time against my shoulder. “I’m a mess.”
“What you are is a teenager, and teenagers tend to be…emotional.” And don’t I know it. My teen years were disastrous. Nonny’s a saint by comparison.
She pulls back and wipes her face with a napkin. “I keep telling myself I can be cool, you know? But I can’t.” Her fingers link together, and she stares at them. “I can’t figure out what I hate more—that I didn’t know…or that, if it weren’t for me, you would’ve never done it.”
Her voice breaks at the end, and my heart aches for my sister. “Nonny, it’s not your fault.” I hold her sweat-damp hands in mine. “Everybody has goals they want to achieve, and sometimes we have to do things that we might not otherwise. But that doesn’t mean the goals are bad. I wish I hadn’t had to take that stripper job, but I’m not going to be upset that I have you. You matter to me. You’re important—the only family I have left.”
She shakes her head. “You have Elliot, too, now.”
“He’s my husband, and sometimes marriages fall apart,” I say, since I can’t tell her our marriage came with an expiration date. “But you and me…we’re family. Forever. Nothing can change that.”
Tears running down her face in rivulets, she launches herself at me. I catch her and squeeze my eyes shut in gratitude. This is the longest we’ve ever been at odds, and I’m grateful things are going to be okay again.
I wipe her cheeks with a napkin. “Hey, before you get too comfortable, there’s something I need to say.”
“What is it?” She sniffs.
“There might be more, well, hateful stuff about me coming out. Kind of like the stripper thing.”
“What do you mean? Like what?”
“I don’t know, to be honest, but some people have a way of looking at everything through an ugly filter.”
“Why would they do that?”
I hesitate. I hate to lie to her, but I don’t want her to worry about Annabelle Underhill either. “Elliot is sort of famous, being Ryder Reed’s half-brother and all. And that makes me a person of interest when reporters are looking for something to write about. So…” I clear my throat. “I don’t want you to blindsided. But I swear to you, I’ve never done anything I’m ashamed of. Even the stripping. If I could go back, I would do it all again.”
She looks into my eyes. “I trust you.” It’s a soft whisper, but it’s steady, and I know she means it.
“Thank you.”
“I should apologize to Elliot,” she says, sniffing again.
“For what?”
“For being bitchy to you. I know he’s been sort of stuck between us, and it’s my fault. He told me to get over it before, but I didn’t.”
“You just needed time to put things in perspective.”
She nods and gives me a tight hug before heading toward Elliot’s home office.
I watch her, hoping with all my heart that she can patch things up with him. Part of me wants to hover, but I pull back. She needs to do this herself.
I put away the leftovers and rinse the dirty plates. Staring at the hot water spraying the sauces and small bits of food off the smooth white dishes, I wish my past could be made clean just as easily.
But that’s not going to happen, so I load the dishwasher and shower. The warm water feels nice beating against my tense muscles. Reluctantly, I step out of the stall, dry myself and put on a nightgown. It’s pale lavender with a silken texture that strokes my skin as softly as a baby’s breath.
When I enter the bedroom, I almost come to a stop at sight of Elliot lounging on the bed, phone in hand. He’s in nothing but a loose pair of black shorts, the waistline resting an inch above his hip bones. He looks delicious—illegally so—with his lean, muscular torso bared, his shoulders impossibly broad from swimming. His legs stretch out, long and strong. I’ve seen them kick, propelling his big body forward with awe-inspiring power, and I realize I miss seeing him in the water. I can’t believe it’s been over a week since I watched him swim…
Don’t want to go down that path. “Did you talk with Nonny?”
“Yes. She finally admitted what’s been bugging her.” He shakes his head. “What a stubborn girl. Willful as a mule.”
“All teens are willful.”
“And some adults.” He puts down his phone on the smal
l bedside table and hands me a glass of water and two pills. “Ibuprofen.”
“Thank you,” I murmur, surprised at his thoughtfulness.
He waits until I take the painkillers. “How did the interview go?”
“It went fine.” I check myself. That’s a ridiculous lie, and I don’t know why I should bother. He’s going to find out how badly it went when I get the rejection. “It went okay,” I amend. “Well…so so.” I wave my hand. “Meh.”
He raises both eyebrows. “Keep going. You’ll hit ‘shitastic’ soon enough.”
I snort, then laugh. “My potential boss wanted to know if there were any more potential scandals that might come to light, and how they might affect my job performance. I think she was actually more interested in that than any of my qualifications.”
“Damn.”
“Eh. I should’ve expected it.”
I look around, unsure where I should sit. Before all the mess I would’ve thought nothing of plopping myself next to him, but now… Despite our talk in San Francisco, I still feel awkward and unsure. Something feels unsettled between us.
But Elliot senses my uncertainty and pats my side of the bed with his palm. I take a breath and settle down next to him, then arrange my nightgown around my legs. He bends a knee, rests his elbow on it and turns his body toward me. His gaze is exceptionally shrewd as he waits for me to go on about my day.
I oblige. “I wouldn’t want to hire someone with baggage like mine if I knew her dirty laundry might come out any day. It’s bound to be distracting.”
Elliot is looking at me expectantly. I gaze back, unsure why he’s staring at me with what seems to be a certainty that I’m about to tell him something earth-shatteringly important. The interview was pretty run of the mill. Unless… Did he put in a good word for me?
I dismiss the thought. He may be Gavin’s friend, but he probably doesn’t know Jana. Besides, I didn’t get the impression that she’s the type you can manipulate easily.
“At least I’ll know why I’m getting rejected,” I say finally with a lame smile and a shrug. “She seemed like a straight shooter, no bullshit. I would’ve liked to work for her.”
Elliot reclines, propping his elbow against a couple pillows, and cradles his jaw in his hand. Despite the indolent pose, his eyes are sharp. “Is that so?”
I nod. “Anyway, all I have left to do is wait, but I doubt it’s going to be what I want to hear, so…”
“Anything else you want to tell me?”
That makes me turn to him, suddenly nervous. I pull on the sheet, needing a cover. “Like what?” He can’t possibly know about my uncomfortable encounter with Dennis. I don’t want to tell him and cause any hard feelings. Even though Dennis thinks Elliot and I are trying to ruin him, we aren’t. I’m certain that as long as we keep clear of him, he’ll realize he was being paranoid for no reason.
“You’ve been gone for a while.”
“Oh. I ran some errands and saw Traci.”
I didn’t, but hopefully he doesn’t know that. I took the afternoon off to go to the library to browse the self-help section and skim through some titles before buying an e-copy of a couple that looked most interesting. I feel self-conscious and presumptuous about reading books on finance and career management for new college graduates, because I’m not one. It may very well be that I’ll end up unemployable after my time with Elliot is finished because of the baggage I carry becoming public. Regardless, I don’t blame him for the unexpected complications. None of us could have known, and I just have to be extra careful with the money I get at the end of our contract.
Elliot frowns for a moment, as though he’s disappointed and vaguely unhappy about something. I get the feeling that the “something” is me, although I can’t imagine what I might’ve done to upset him now.
Suddenly he leans over, his tongue licking my lips. I hesitate for a second, then open my mouth for a deep, lush kiss. The heat between us I understand, and I’d rather focus on that than whatever caused him to frown.
He shifts, coming over. His weight settles on top of me like a blanket, and I pull him closer, my fingers tunneling into his warm, silky hair. He continues to stroke me with his tongue. The kiss is gentle but still completely erotic. I clutch him tighter as my blood heats, my skin prickling with rising lust.
I cup his face, holding his flushed cheeks in my palms. The rough stubble scrapes my skin, and I want to feel it against the sensitive spots along my breasts and below.
As abruptly as he started the kiss, he pulls back. His uneven breaths fan my lips, and need pulses through me, pooling between my legs. I stare up into his eyes, so darkly dilated. “I’ll never let anything happen to you, Belle.”
The words are whispered so softly that I almost don’t hear them. I inhale sharply and close my eyes against what I see in his gaze. I don’t understand what it is, and I don’t want to understand it.
He tilts my head, his fingertips tender on my face. “Look at me.”
The command is gentle, but still has steel behind it. I open my eyes and stare up at him. Our breaths mingling, we peer into each other’s eyes as though searching for the secret to the universe. My heartbeat grows more erratic the longer we stay like this.
“Annabelle Underhill talked to me on Saturday,” I blurt out in a whisper, then cringe inwardly. I wasn’t planning to tell him until I could figure out what I needed to say to convince him I’m telling the truth.
“She threatened you.”
I gape at him.
“She can’t hurt you. I won’t allow it.”
When my brain kicks in again, I manage, “How…?”
His eyes flicker with something that feels suspiciously like exasperated resignation. “Paige overheard. She was in one of the bathroom stalls.”
“I see.” I break eye contact and look away. “Well, that was easy.”
“What do you mean?”
“If I’d known there was a witness to back me up, I wouldn’t have agonized over telling you so much.”
His head dips lower, the tip of his nose grazing mine. “I would’ve believed you without Paige.”
“You didn’t believe me about Mr. Grayson.”
“No. I was furious you didn’t tell me.” A beat. “There’s a difference.”
My eyebrows pull together.
“It’s one thing if you tell me the truth yourself. It’s quite another if I find out some other way.” He pauses, and I can see him deliberating, as though choosing the right words for what he needs to say is the most important thing he’s going to do this year. “Belle…it isn’t easy for me to trust people. In general. It’s doubly difficult when I know they’re keeping things from me.”
I trace the sharp lines of his sculpted cheekbones. “It isn’t easy for me to share things with people.”
“I know. But this…this is doomed if we stay mired in our old habits.”
“What ‘this’? We don’t even have a year left. Can’t we just get along until the contract’s over?”
His entire body goes rigid, and I know I’ve made a mistake…although I’m not sure exactly how. My unease intensifies when a small muscle in his jaw flexes, and an impenetrable shutter comes over his gaze.
Abruptly he rolls over and sits up, his spine stiff. I pull myself up as well, a hand on my throat. I feel cold without his body heat enveloping me. The air between us crackles with tension, and I realize with shock that I’m shivering.
“I’ve come to a decision.” Instead of making me feel better, his terse announcement twists my gut until I feel nauseated.
I wait for him to continue, but when he merely taps his fingers on his legs, I prompt, “Okay…”
“I want us to tear up the marriage contract.”
A gasp rips from my throat. Dread floods through me like icy water, swiftly followed by anger.
He circles my wrist with his hand. “Before you jump to conclusions, Belle, I’m not asking for an immediate divorce.”
My pulse is st
ill erratic, but I watch him, sitting tight for an explanation.
“We did this all wrong from the very beginning. I see that now.” His voice is quiet and firm. “I want to start fresh.”
Elliot… “We tried that already. Even talked about it last weekend.”
“No. There could never be a new start with the contract hanging over us.”
A realization strikes me. “If this is about that one-time indiscretion…”
A dark brow quirks in a silent question.
“I doubt I’ll get pregnant.”
The incredulity crossing his face is absolute as he shakes his head. “That has nothing to do with what I’m proposing.”
“Then why?” If an unintended pregnancy isn’t a factor in his decision, I don’t know what is.
“It’s…” His throat works. “Belle, I want more than a year with you.”
Thoughts and contradicting emotions ram into me. He reaches over and takes my limp hand in his. Uncertain hope flickers in his gaze.
I look down at our linked hands. His long, strong fingers stroke the stunning six-carat diamond he gave me. If he’d asked me two weeks ago, I would’ve jumped at the chance. But now…
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” I murmur finally. “We both have really complicated baggage. I don’t want to live my life wondering if something else from my past is going to set you off, and I’m sure you don’t want more of my ugly history to become public and embarrass you and your family.”
“I don’t give a shit what other people think. You should know better than that. I released a sex tape, for god’s sake.”
“But you did it on your own terms. Dirt on me won’t be like that.” Annabelle Underhill vowed she’d dig until she found all there was to know. I have no doubt she’ll follow through and make my life hell. To be honest, I have no idea how Elliot will react…but based on how he was about Mr. Grayson, it won’t be pretty. And I can’t bring myself to tell him every little thing I might’ve done wrong in my life in a bid for potential damage control.
His fingers tighten around mine. “Belle, don’t. What the media says won’t make a particle of difference. I mean it.”