Chapter 7
Fuck,his neck hurt. He was too damn old to sleep on the floor, propped into a weird half-sitting position, head bent back at an awkward angle. He didn’t know exactly how old he was, but he knew he was too old, nonetheless.
But he’d also known he couldn’t just climb into bed with Ellie. No matter how deliciously warm and rumpled she’d been. No matter how their bodies had swayed closer and closer before she broke the spell. Because then he would have wanted to hold her. Wanted to dip his nose into that sensitive space just behind her ear and breathe her in. And that would be a bad idea. For both of them.
He groaned and pushed himself up to standing, then massaged his lower back for a few seconds before gripping the strained muscles of his neck in an entirely pointless attempt at softening their spasm.
Ellie was gone, her bed left in disarray as she’d slipped past him. He hadn’t expected to, but somehow he’d slept. They’d dozed and chatted off and on for hours until eventually she had fallen completely asleep, and he must have followed soon after.
There was something undeniably intimate about hearing her soft murmurs in the darkness, the same rise and fall that soothed him in the other place. She’d been telling him about her game—the Shadowbound Rift—a world that she’d created full of magic, adventure, redemption… even love.
He could imagine her game vividly, could easily see how her players must love the chance to live those ideals when the real world fell so short. God knew he could do with some magic. He could certainly do with redemption, otherwise why was he here? And adventure was always good too, although after this—whatever this was—perhaps he’d be less interested in more adventure. The only one he didn’t want was love.
He didn’t need to remember his past; he knew this truth. Love wasn’t for him any more than he wanted to be a hero. Even the idea made his shoulders tense right back up.
But Ellie did want love. It was clear in everything she’d said. Ellie believed in love. And that was why he’d been better off sleeping on the floor, no matter how stiff his neck was.
They were both better off keeping some distance.
Still. Keeping some distance didn’t mean he couldn’t spend time with her. He could let her warmth and kindness wash over him. Just for a moment. He could allow himself that.
He rolled out his shoulders and followed the sound of Ellie’s voice down the stairs to her sunny kitchen. She was talking on the phone as he made his way to sit at the gleaming kitchen table. He didn’t pay enough attention to furniture to know what kind of wood it was, but it looked solid and somehow classy.
The last time he was there, he’d been too rattled to really look around, but now he could lean back and take it all in. The kitchen was high-end and smelled of lemon cleaner. Marble counters complemented the sleek blue-green cabinets that perfectly matched the huge abstract painting spot-lit on the opposite wall. It was done in textured oils, creating an effect of golden beams of light falling through waves. He half expected to see a fantastical siren hidden somewhere in the depths.
Everything looked as if it had been carefully chosen and coordinated, but it was also lived in. The coffee machine took pride of place beside a half-empty fruit bowl. A magnetic strip on the wall held a haphazard collection of kitchen knives and scissors, clearly washed and thrown up in no order whatsoever. A well-used novel with an oak leaf sticking out from between its pages was balanced on the edge of the counter beside a neat folder of annotated printouts and a closed laptop.
A well-fed cat was drinking water from a bowl on the floor. She was a short-haired ginger tabby—almost certainly with zero official pedigree—but her big amber eyes and supercilious air told of a cat who knew exactly who was in charge: her.
And there was Ellie herself, moving around the kitchen in worn jeans and bare feet, her hair left loose and soft, a stray curl tumbling over her shoulder toward the expanse of skin left bare by her too-big Stranger Things chain of lights T-shirt.
It reminded him of their conversation the night before. How she’d walked across the room to hold out her hand to him. She’d obviously been nervous—she wore her thoughts and feelings so openly—but she was so brave. And taking her hand in his had been the first warmth on his skin in all the time he’d spent in the darkness.
She grinned at him as she finished her call, and everything else faded. That smile. Sincere and joyful. It almost made him want to reach out and hold her. Almost made him wish he’d climbed into the bed with her and let her chase away the shadows still lingering in the back of his mind.
“Good news.” She slid her phone into her pocket and set the coffee machine to percolate. “You’re not a brain tumor.”
He couldn’t help but chuckle with her. “I’m not a brain tumor?”
“Nope. The doctor’s office just called. MRI was completely normal. As were all the other tests.”
“You went for tests?” Why did that bother him so much? He frowned across the table at her, imagining Ellie in the hospital. Imagining her hurt. And disliking the feeling.
“Hmm.” She shrugged, as if to minimize the words she was about to say. “After we… met. The first time. I thought perhaps it would be worth a checkup.”
When he’d gone back to drifting. To moments of harsh smells and occasional blinding lights—but mostly darkness and the never-ending cold—and left her behind. Left her troubled and alone.
He scratched a thumb through the thick stubble on his jaw, pushing away the uncomfortable realization that he felt responsible. God.
A misty, dreamlike image filtered into his mind. A young man scowled at him, a man who looked a lot like him… but not quite the same. Some relation? A brother, perhaps? “You’re not the boss of me,” the man spat. “I don’t need you. I don’t even want you.”
The words churned through him, as barbed and painful as if he was standing right there in front of that unknown man. He rubbed at the ache in his chest, fighting the feeling. Fuck. He didn’t even know if any of that had happened.
Ellie reached into the cupboard for two mugs, thankfully oblivious to his unsettled thoughts. “Coffee?”
He shook his head, bringing his focus back to the kitchen. To this time, in this place. “No, thanks.” His lips were dry, but the thought of drinking anything felt wrong somehow. “Maybe later.”
Ellie took a long, closed-eyes sip of her coffee. She was so vibrant. And so beautiful. His palm still tingled at the ghost-memory of her skin on his from the previous night. The memory of her heat. Her life.
He had to remind himself that he shouldn’t step into her space, walk her back to rest against the counter, sink his fingers through her tousled hair. Here in a room that felt like sunshine on water. She wasn’t his—couldn’t ever be his—even if something inside him wanted her to be.
Ellie put her mug down and looked at him. She had already finished her breakfast. In a minute, she was going to suggest looking for someone who knew him. She was going to suggest trying to find answers. And she would be right; he needed answers.
But whenever he tried to force himself to remember where he’d come from, the freezing darkness gathered at the corners of his vision. The cold taunted him, hungry to take him back. And he wanted to stay in Ellie’s warmth just a little longer.
It was even worse now that he knew she would be worried when he left. He cast around for a sensible topic, something to divert them both. An excuse to stay. “Do you need help with anything? If you have to work, maybe I could do something useful?” he offered. “I won’t pretend to know anything about game design, but I can read stories? Or if you have some more manual labor, I like being outdoors. I can… dig?”
Ellie smirked. “Dig?”
“I guess.” God. What an arse. Of all the things he could have suggested, he went with dig. “I’m good with my hands. I think,” he added and then almost groaned. He was making it worse.
Ellie’s brows raised, her eyes sparkling. “That’s your special skill?”
He leaned forward. “If it’s special skills you want?—”
The doorbell chimed, breaking into the far-too-flirtatious comment he was about to make. Thank fuck.
Ellie frowned as she turned to press a button on a screen beside her fridge. A view of the front entrance flicked to life. A middle-aged man in an expensive-looking business suit was looking at his watch outside the door.
“It’s my father,” Ellie said, her frown deepening as she fidgeted. “I didn’t know he was coming.”
It was the first time he’d seen her look quite so uncertain. But even as he watched, she seemed to settle herself. She took a breath, wiped her hands on her jeans, and then straightened. “I’ll let him in. Wait here, and I’ll bring him through.”
Meeting Ellie’s father sounded like a hideous idea. What was he going to think of an unknown man in his daughter’s house for breakfast? Or when he asked questions and Jon had no answers… and no idea how long he could even stay?
He stood and walked around the table—away from the door to the front hall—to lean against the counter where Ellie had stood earlier. There was a shaft of sunlight there, a gentle beam that warmed his shoulders, even while the rest of him felt cold once more. How the hell was he going to introduce himself? “I’m Jon,” didn’t feel right, no matter how many times he said it to himself.
He still didn’t have an answer when Ellie returned.
Her father was instantly recognizable as related to her—they shared the same honey blonde hair, the same green eyes and slightly pointed chin—but where Ellie was soft and generous and kind, this man was cold and hard. His suit was pristine, his jaw perfectly shaven, and the expression on his face as he looked over Ellie’s loose hair and rumpled T-shirt was, at best, disappointment.
The cat took one look at him, stuck her nose in the air, and stalked out.
“Dad—Steven—I’d like to introduce you to Jon, he’s… uh?—”
Steven pulled out a chair and sat, leaning back and running his eyes over Ellie’s kitchen as if surveying his territory as he interrupted. “I won’t be here long. I’ll take a small black coffee and then I have a meeting to get to.”
Ellie glanced at Jon and then back toward Steven. “But Jon?—”
“We can talk about Jon another time. Right now, I’d like to talk about you.”
Ellie cast him a bewildered look before focusing back on her father. “About me?”
“Victoria said you had been back to the hospital for more tests. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t think?—”
“You didn’t think.” Steven grunted, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m your father. And now I’ve had to come all this way. You know how busy I am, Ellie.”
Jon crossed his arms over his own chest, irritation starting to rise.
Ellie poured a small mug of black coffee and passed it across to her father before turning to him and mouthing a small, “Sorry.” And damn if that apology didn’t make his irritation rise further. Not with Ellie, not at all. With Steven.
Ellie walked over to lean against the counter beside him, and he very nearly took her hand.
Ellie stuck her hands in her pockets. “Why are you here, Dad?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Steven asked.
It wasn’t to Jon, but from the expression on Ellie’s face, it was obvious to her. And he had a horrible feeling it wasn’t to check up on Ellie’s health. He wanted to tug her hands from her pockets and hold them in his.
Steven took a sip of his bitter coffee. “When are you going to finalize the sale of The Shadow-rifting Chronicles?”
“The Shadowbinding Chronicles,” Ellie murmured, looking more weary than she had even at midnight.
“That’s what I said.” Steven drained the rest of his coffee and then pushed the mug away.
It wasn’t, but Steven didn’t appear to care.
“I don’t want to sell,” Ellie replied, her voice soft, but firm. “I’ve told you this already.”
“Come now, Eleanor.” Steven leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowed. “I’ve created an opportunity for you that anyone in the world would be grateful for. I’m trying to help you.”
“It’s my game, Dad. And it’s doing really well where it is,” Ellie replied, her arms coming up to wrap around her stomach. She’d done that before when she’d been under pressure, and he didn’t like seeing it again, especially when she’d been so relaxed and happy before her father arrived.
“It’s okay,” Steven allowed. “But it could be a real success. And everyone would benefit. All your employees. Victoria. Our family. Don’t you want to work together on this?”
“Would we work together though?” Ellie muttered half under her breath, but Steven didn’t seem to notice as he continued, “Silver Wolff would take it much higher than you ever could.”
Ellie’s shoulders curled, just a fraction. Jon probably wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been standing right beside her. But she didn’t back down. “Silver Wolff would turn it into a combat-based RPG.”
“And what’s so wrong with that? You’d reach a far wider audience.”
“A younger, far more male audience, you mean,” Ellie argued. “People who are constantly being told that romance is stupid. We both know Silver Wolff doesn’t care about a happy ever after.”
Steven dipped his chin in agreement. As if Ellie had finally said something sensible.
“But isn’t the whole point of the game that it’s a romance?” Jon asked. Ellie had been so passionate when she’d explained it to him. “Isn’t that the essence of the story?”
Steven ignored him completely, focused only on Ellie. “I’ve worked hard for you all your life. Trust me to know what’s best for you now. Throwing away this opportunity would be a huge misjudgment. Just think of how much money you’ll lose. How much credibility.”
Ellie was silent for a moment, but then her spine slowly straightened. Jon could see it was difficult for her, but she spoke clearly and calmly as she replied, “You asked me to think about this, and I did. The first game was far more successful than I’d hoped, and we have a good chance of winning New Game of the Year with part two. And, even more importantly, if I keep creative rights, I can make sure both games stay true to their values. I can keep my promises to our players.” She didn’t look away from her father as she continued. “We learned a lot with the first game, and part two is going to be a fantastic launch… but not if we give it away to someone who won’t love it.”
Ellie looked so determined. Like a knight standing up to a dragon. Perhaps a little uncertain, but still on her feet and fighting. It took everything he had not to wrap his arm around her shoulders and pull her into his side. To give her his support. To tell her that she wasn’t alone.
But he didn’t do it. They both knew he couldn’t make promises like that.
Steven stood and straightened his already immaculate cuffs. “Now you’re just being silly. You’re not giving it away, you’re selling it. This is business; it’s not the place for falling in love with a product.”
“I’m not being silly.” Ellie’s face was blotched with pink, her eyes shining just a little too bright.
“I’m not just going to let you make such a big mistake. Max at Silver Wolff said there’s still time for you to sign the contract. You can call him this week and get it finalized. We’ll go out together afterward and celebrate.” Steven gave a sharp nod, as if it was all decided. “I realize now that I haven’t spent enough time with you lately, and there’s a lot I could teach you.”
“But—”
“No buts. It’s time to grow up.”
Ellie’s face twisted, but she didn’t speak.
It was too much. The look on Ellie’s face was unbearable. She wasn’t alone. She had his support. And Jon was not going to wait on the sideline if she needed him. He strode forward to stand between them, a human buffer. “That’s enough, Steven. If anyone’s making a mistake?—”
Ellie’s father cut him off, stepping up close enough to touch him. “You need to do what’s right, Eleanor.”
Steven was far too close to be anywhere near comfortable. But that wasn’t the problem. The real problem was that Steven was still speaking to Ellie. He was still looking at Ellie. And he was looking right through Jon.
As if he wasn’t there at all.
As if he didn’t even exist.