15. Stephanie
STEPHANIE
“That was amazing,” Stephanie said, grinning at Elijah across the table. “A really wonderful dinner.”
He rolled his eyes and smiled. “I’ll pass your compliments along to the real chef,” he said with a light laugh.
“Don’t do that. You had every bit as much to do with this meal as I did, and now you’ll know for next time what to do when the pasta starts clumping.” She got up and carried her plate to the sink.
He followed her. Coming up behind her, he wrapped his arms around her and eased the plate out of her hands. He placed it in the sink and turned her back around to face him, and Stephanie couldn’t help it—she sucked in a breath, and her heart began to beat faster.
“Don’t worry about dishes,” he said. “The housekeeping staff can deal with that tomorrow.”
“I feel bad… I’m not used to having staff.”
“You don’t have anything to feel bad about,” he said.
“It’s their job, and they’re well paid to do it.
I take care of my people.” He grinned at her, leaning so close that for a moment their foreheads nearly touched, and suddenly I take care of my people sounded like the sexiest thing anybody had ever said out loud. Her blood rushed.
“We don’t want to spend tonight washing dishes,” he said. “Bad enough that you had to come over here and help with the cooking. I’m not going to have you start doing chores too. You’re my guest, and that’s not what guests of mine do while they’re at my house.”
She smiled. “All right,” she said, stepping away from the sink. The movement took her out of the circle of his arms, too, which allowed her racing heart to return to a normal rhythm—although she had to admit to herself that there was a part of her that would have liked to stay right where she was.
He moved past her toward the far side of the kitchen. “You should see the rest of the place,” he said. “Can I give you a tour?”
Stephanie swallowed. It had been a while since she had been on a date that had ended up in a man’s house, but she knew this move.
It started out with a tour, but the tour ended in the guy’s bedroom.
And then, he would turn to her expectantly, everything in his face and his body language communicating that it was her turn to make the next move.
It was a move she wouldn’t make.
Probably.
But she was less sure of herself with Elijah than she had ever been.
Somehow, she felt both intensely at ease and incredibly excited.
If it hadn’t been for their complex circumstances—circumstances he knew nothing about—she wouldn’t have had any reservations about allowing the night to lead wherever it might.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll take a tour.” She could control herself.
He surprised her yet again. The tour didn’t lead to his bedroom.
Instead, he stuck to the first floor of the house.
He showed her a dining room that looked like it hadn’t been touched in years, a living room with a lot of nice furnishings, and a room he called the screening room, with a massive TV and a lot of recliners facing toward it.
They finished up in a room he described as the den, with warm lighting and a fireplace.
“Can we have a fire?” she asked.
He smiled. “Sure, if you want one.”
“You know how to do that yourself?” she teased. “Don’t need to call your fire staff?”
Elijah laughed. “No, fires I can handle,” he said.
“Though it’s really just a matter of lighting this log.
” It was the easy-light kind, wrapped in a flammable paper, and he held a lighter to it in two places and caused it to catch.
Drawing the grate over the fireplace, he sat back, not bothering to get up off the floor, leaning his back against the sofa.
After a moment, Stephanie joined him there.
He gazed at the flames. “Can I say something that might sound strange?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“I like you like this,” he said. “I wish we’d done this sooner. Come back to my place. Or maybe gone to yours.”
“I knew you were trying to get us behind closed doors,” she chuckled.
“Well, yeah, I was,” he admitted. “But that isn’t what I mean.
That’s not the reason I’m glad you came over tonight.
It’s just… you seem more relaxed here than you do when we’re out in public.
Maybe I’m reading it wrong, but you seem like you’re having a better time than when we went to the steakhouse.
And a much better time than you were at my father’s product launch. ”
“You aren’t misreading it,” she told him. She closed her eyes briefly. How could she explain this to him without giving away the things she couldn’t talk about? “When we go out… sometimes it feels like a performance. It feels like I’m being watched all the time.”
“Because you’re with me,” he murmured. “And I am being watched.”
“I guess I wasn’t quite ready to have my picture show up on the internet the day after our first date,” she said.
His voice turned rueful. “I should have warned you something like that could happen. Honestly, I wasn’t even thinking about it. It’s such a regular part of my life that I never do think about it.”
“It’s all right,” she said. “But that made it harder the next time. Even when we were down at the pier together, and I was pretty sure nobody was going to see us, it was hard to relax.”
“Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?”
“No,” she said. “It’s nothing like that. I guess… I don’t like the idea of being seen at all.”
She was stunned by how truthful she was being. It felt so good to be honest with Elijah for once, to really open up to him. So much of their relationship up to this point had been based on lies, and it was freeing to realize that there was room for truth.
“Why wouldn’t you want to be seen?” He frowned, reached out, and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. It was deliciously tender. Stephanie couldn’t hold back a shiver.
“San Valentino is so ritzy sometimes,” she said.
“Such a fancy and flashy place. And the truth is, I’m not sure I fit in.
It’s like that awards ceremony where we met.
Everyone else there was successful and important, a big deal in their field.
And then there was me. Since I came to this town, I haven’t felt like I belong here.
I haven’t been sure what my place was. All I want is to make my skincare business a success, but sometimes I don’t know if that’s ever going to be a reality. ”
“I’m sure it will,” Elijah encouraged her. “You’re so dedicated. So hardworking. I get the feeling from you that you would do anything to achieve your dreams.”
Her gut twisted. He’d meant that as a compliment, she was sure. He couldn’t have known the dagger it would be.
“Sometimes I wonder if that’s true,” she said softly.
“And if it is… is it a good thing? Would I really do anything to reach my goals? Would I go against my true nature? Sacrifice who I really am? Would I do something that seemed immoral if I thought it would help me advance?” She hesitated.
“I wasn’t invited to that awards party, you know.
I lied to the bouncer and snuck in because I wanted to make connections.
And I wonder… how far would I go? What lines would I cross if I thought it would help me succeed? ”
It was hard to draw breath. She hadn’t imagined she would come that close to divulging the truth. She couldn’t even look at him.
“You’re a good person,” he told her gently.
“Don’t doubt yourself, Stephanie. Even if you’ve had to blur the lines here and there, even if you’ve had to do some things that made you feel surprised at yourself…
I know we haven’t known each other that long, but I can see you.
I know who you are. You have a great heart. ”
Stephanie exhaled slowly.
It felt so good to hear those words from him—but could she believe them?
He clearly meant it. And she thought he probably did know her well enough to pass a judgment about her character.
It was true that they hadn’t known one another for long, but in the time they’d spent together, there had been some very tender moments. They’d grown close quickly.
But there was a very big thing he didn’t know.
Would he still have said she had a good heart if he had known the truth?
She swallowed hard. Maybe I can accept it anyway.
Maybe I can let him see me for who I am at my core.
I don’t have to be defined by the fact that I made a deal with his father—that doesn’t have to be the most important thing about me.
The fact is that by coming here tonight, I made my choice.
I chose Elijah. I can end my arrangement with Oliver and I can just be whoever I am to Elijah…
we can leave that messy business in the past.
Her heart felt lighter, and she closed her eyes. For the first time, she allowed herself to let her guilt go.
Releasing it hurt. What she had done was wrong, and there would have been a kind of relief in confessing to Elijah and getting his forgiveness. But to do that would have caused conflict, and it would have hurt him.
By putting it behind her, she was making an agreement with herself—if things moved forward, Stephanie would have to live with the knowledge that she had been dishonest in the beginning.
That would be painful for as long as Elijah was a part of her life. And that pain would be her penance.
“You’re not like that,” she said. “I mean… you wouldn’t sacrifice yourself for business success.”
“Well, I’ve never cared that much for business success,” Elijah said.
He shifted slightly, bringing his body closer to hers, and her heart rate increased again.
“I’m supposed to take over for my father, you know, but the way he wants me to live my life to be worthy of that has never appealed to me.
I think about the way I grew up. He was never present.
I was raised by the housekeeper, for all intents and purposes.
And…” He trailed off for a moment, but then kept going.
“And if I ever had a kid, I wouldn’t want it to be like that for them. I’d want to be able to be present.”
She glanced at him. “Is that something you want? Kids? A family?”
“I think about it sometimes. I don’t know yet. It’s not something I’m ready to rule out.”
“And here I thought you were just a player.” She smiled to show him she didn’t mean it, but her smile faded quickly. She was too breathless to sustain humor. He was so close to her now.
“If I had a kid of my own,” he murmured, “I’d be the kind of father I always used to wish I had myself. I’d be able to create the kind of family I always wanted to be a part of. It’s hard not to want that.”
“I hope you get it someday.” Her heart pounded madly.
She ached for him to touch her, to relieve some of this tension.
And at the same time, she felt more simply fond of him than she ever had.
She could love a man like this, a man who wanted to be a good father and could openly admit it, a man who thought she had a good heart…
He leaned in, his eyes fluttering closed, and in the moment before he kissed her, Stephanie saw the way the whole night was going to unfold.
She saw herself following him to the bedroom, letting him lay her down on the bed.
She saw the moment when he would ask her the question she had always sensed in his mind—do you want to?
And, finally, she knew without a doubt that she would say yes.