Chapter 11 Ophelia #2
When I look back up, I find his eyes are still on me, and when she touches his cheek to get his attention, he still doesn’t shift his gaze. His eyes remained locked on me.
Her gaze follows his and lands on me.
Silas raises his glass in a toast from across the room.
I do the same, then take a sip just to have something to do.
The woman, who must be a model by the looks of her, and obviously his date, sneers. I turn back to the bar, and in the mirror, I see Silas’s sea-colored eyes, those eyes I memorized when I was a little girl, track to the man who is somehow obliviously still talking to me.
“Another round?” the man asks and without waiting for my reply, gestures to the bartender who sets new drinks in front of us.
“I got this,” I say, and this time when he insists on paying, I hand my card over to the bartender, who takes it. At least I won’t feel bad when I don’t talk to him.
In the mirror, Silas watches as I gulp down half my martini before the man knocks his elbow into my arm and the rest of it splashes on my silk dress, icy on my bare legs.
I gasp with the cold, shocked. The man sets his drink down and grabs a bunch of napkins off the bar.
“I’m so sorry!” he exclaims.
I take the napkins and slide off the stool to my feet. “It’s fine. It’s fine,” I say, pushing his hands away.
Probably better it landed on my lap than in my stomach, actually. I teeter on my heels.
“Where’s the bathroom?” I ask the bartender, who points. I thank him and head in that direction, making my way through the crowd. When I glance at Silas’s table, I see the satisfied grin on his date’s face, but Silas is gone.
I try to squeeze past everyone and remember every other time Silas has turned up at exactly the right moment, or the wrong moment depending on how you look at it.
How embarrassing it was when he and his then-date came home to find me clinging to the edge of the pool, terrified to move.
How humiliating when he’d walked in on me and Ethan making out.
When I finally get to the ladies’ room, I am grateful no one is inside so I can just take a minute to grip the counter and close my eyes as the room spins.
It’s all of what is going on. My father’s trial, this new evidence that I know is going to change things, and on top of it, Ethan asking me to marry him tonight of all nights.
That look on his face, like he got when he was a little kid, like he was celebrating.
And I guess he was celebrating our would-be engagement even though I didn’t say yes.
He just didn’t expect—and wouldn’t accept—no.
I should have pushed the ring away. Told him it wasn’t right, that it wasn’t fair to him.
I force a deep breath in, open my eyes, and run the tap to splash water on my face.
Before I get to, though, the door opens. I’m trying to fix my face when a male voice startles me, and I turn to find the man who was buying me drinks standing there.
“Hey, you okay? I feel awful,” he starts, coming inside.
“I’m fine. This is the ladies’ room. You shouldn’t be in here.” I don’t need this, and I don’t want it.
“Oh, no one cares.” His gaze moves to my dress with the giant spot on it, then down to my bare legs. “I’ll pay the cleaning fee. Here,” he says, coming over, standing too close. “Let me get your number, and you can let me know how much it is.”
“It’s fine. I can pay for my own dry cleaning.” As I say it, a voice in my head reminds me that no, I won’t be paying for it. Mr. Fox will. Not that I can’t, but I don’t. Sly Fox takes care of that like he takes care of everything else.
When the company’s assets were frozen, Mr. Fox had insisted on picking up the bill for my schooling, refusing to let me take out a loan.
He called those lenders loan sharks. I promised to pay him back, but he has just waved it away any time I’ve mentioned it, and it’s gotten to the point it’s embarrassing to bring up anymore.
It was doubly hard knowing some of Mr. Fox’s assets, too, were frozen since he was implicated in the embezzlement charges along with Dad.
When Ethan told his father about my job interviews for part time work while I studied, Mr. Fox wouldn’t hear of it.
“It was my fault,” the man from the bar says, leaning against the counter.
I look up at him, at his flushed face, his eyes that aren’t quite focused. He’s drunk.
“Excuse me,” I say, and try to sidestep him when he grabs my arm.
“Really, I insist,” he continues, then brushes my hair back behind my ear. “You’re very pretty, you know that? Let’s get out of here. My hotel is around the corner.”
“I don’t think so,” I say and try to tug my arm free.
“Come on,” he says, backing me against the counter, trapping me there. I realize just how much bigger than me he is and how loud it is in the restaurant and how alone we are in here.
“Get away from me.”
“Don’t be like that. I just bought you some very expensive drinks—”
“I’m happy to pay for my own drinks. Get away from me!” I put my hands against his chest to shove him off but before I can, the bathroom door opens and an instant later, the man is gone.
“What the—” he starts but never gets to finish because his body slams against the far wall with a loud thud.
“She very clearly told you to get the fuck away from her!”
I stare, struck mute. Because there, holding the man by the throat, is Silas Cruz.
“You think a few drinks buys you what exactly?” he asks the man in that low, warning voice of his.
“Hey man, she was sitting there on her own. I was just being friendly. Just wanted a thank you, that’s all—"
“A thank you?” Silas asks, tone incredulous. He thrusts the man’s head against the wall. “How did you expect her to thank you?”
“Silas!” I scream, leaping for him, managing to knock my forehead into his elbow as he draws back to swing at the man. I stumble, dazed, and fall on my ass, but at least I manage to get his attention and stop him from punching the guy.
“Shit!” Silas crouches down and takes hold of me. He tilts my face up to his, touches the spot on my forehead that his elbow caught.
“I’m okay,” I say, and we both turn to find the guy who was eagerly buying drinks earlier running out of the bathroom. “Problem solved, I guess,” I say, looking at Silas, who is searching my face, frowning.
“What are you doing, O?” O. He’s the only man who calls me that, and there’s a part of me that gets a thrill whenever I hear it.
“Just getting a drink,” I say, my words coming out slower than usual. “It’s been a long day.” Long year.
He exhales, helps me to stand. I stumble backward when he lets me go, and he catches me again, shakes his head.
“I counted three martinis, which is two too many given your size. Did you drink before you got here?”
“You were counting my martinis?” I ask, eyebrows raised. Had he noticed me from the moment I walked in?
He nods once as if he just realized what he gave away.
“Your supermodel date not keeping you entertained enough, you had to count my drinks?”
He snorts.
I roll my eyes, try to tug free of his grip but stumble. “You’d better get back to her. She was giving me looks already.”
“Was she?” He looks me over. It’s the first time he’s seen me in a long time, too, I guess.
At least I’ve had glimpses of him online.
The only time he’d have seen me is maybe in the background when Dad was on the news.
Or those times reporters would track me down to ask what I thought of what my father had done.
I take a deep breath in and exhale.
“Where’s pretty boy?” he asks, referring to Ethan.
“I’m alone.”
He studies me, one eyebrow raised, a look that has my stomach doing somersaults and my face heating up.
“And I’m going home,” I say, realizing I’m more than a little drunk. I clear my throat and I intend to walk past him, but of course he doesn’t let me go.
“I’ll take you.”
“I’m just a few blocks—”
“I’ll take you.” I have a flashback to when I was sixteen and he insisted on walking me home in our cul-de-sac.
“You haven’t changed,” I say.
“You have,” he tells me, face like stone. It sends something cold down my spine. Silas pushes the door open, and we walk out into the restaurant. He picks up my coat from where I’d draped it over the chair and holds it out for me to slip my arms into. I do.
“Does she have a credit card here?” Silas asks the bartender who nods. “I’ll take it. Put her drinks on my bill.”
“Yes, Mr. Cruz.”
I look over at him, eyebrows raised. He takes my card and drops it into my clutch, then hands me the bag, but holds onto my scarf and hat as we head toward the door.
“How do they know you?” I ask him as we walk out.
“Business,” he says, his answer vague.
A sedan pulls up in front of us. Silas opens the back door and gestures for me to get in.
“I live a few blocks away. I’m fine,” I say, reaching for my hat and scarf.
“You’re not fine. You’re drunk. It’s snowing. You’re wearing ridiculous shoes for the weather. And your legs are bare.” His eyes are on my legs.
He drags his gaze back up to mine, eyes darker than usual.
I swallow hard.
“They’re not ridiculous,” I stammer.
He grins. “Right. Even if you weren’t drunk and wearing proper shoes, I wouldn’t let you walk home alone. Get in, O. I won’t ask again.”
“What will you do, deposit me in the car?” I ask, hand on my hip.
He looks at me like it’s a no brainer.
“Well, okay then.” With a sigh—and also because honestly the vodka is hitting me and it’s freezing and the snow has picked up, not to mention that the shoes are ridiculous for the weather—I get in. Silas follows.
“The brownstone, Hamish.”
“You have a driver?” I ask Silas as he straps me in, the two-and-a-half martinis I drank hitting me. “La di da.” I lean my head against the seat and close my eyes to stop the spinning.
He brushes my hair back, the touch of his hand against my skin electric, but when he sets something freezing against my temple, my eyelids fly open.
“What the—”
“You’re cute when you’re drunk. Hold this,” he says. I take it and he sits back, taking out his phone and scrolling.
“Where did you get an ice cube?” I ask.
He points to the ice bucket. Of course, the car comes stocked with drinks.
“I’m fine.”
“It’s for the swelling.”
I lower the window and toss the ice out. “Are you texting your date?” I ask, leaning over to have a look.
“I am, actually.” He pulls his phone away.
“Or should I say sexting?” I cock an eyebrow.
A corner of his mouth tugs upward. This is Silas Cruz amused. I like this version of him. “Would you be jealous if I was?”
“Of course not. Why would I be jealous?”
He turns the phone around to show me he texted that he was sending her an Uber. She replies with two questions marks while it’s still turned toward me.
“She wants to know if she should put on the kitty ears and tail when she gets to your hotel,” I lie, closing my eyes again.
He laughs outright. “Not sure you can see straight to read in your condition, lightweight.”
“I had drinks before. I’m not a lightweight.
” I feel the need to justify, although honestly, I kind of am.
The heat is blasting, and the seat is so comfortable that I settle in.
I only open my eyes when my head comes to rest against his warm, firm shoulder.
He glances down at me, but he doesn’t push me away.
“Almost there,” he says gently, and I close them again, inhaling his scent, that familiar aftershave making all kinds of memories surface, all kinds of emotions twisting and swelling inside me.
I can admit looking back that I had a pretty big crush on Silas Cruz growing up. Who wouldn’t? Now, though, those feelings are confused especially as we fall into our old roles again. Him, the knight in shining armor, me, the damsel in distress.
“You’re always rescuing me, Silas Cruz,” I hear myself say.
“You always seem to be in need of rescuing, Ophelia Hart.”