Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
THAT FUCKER STUNG
Gordain
In the most relaxed state I’d been in years, I woke, my limbs heavy, my body well-used, and a smile pulling my lips.
Alongside the lingering sensations from the hot night Ella and I had shared, I’d dreamed about the RAF hearing in a couple of days, imagining being able to tell Ella the result. My family, too.
I stretched, reaching out.
Cold, empty sheets met my touch. Ella was gone?
The dawn light fell on an empty bed. Yeah, long gone, by the lack of warmth on her side. I sat up; the room was empty, the bathroom door ajar, and the space dark.
She’d left in the night.
That was…unexpected. Rejection rose its ugly head, the feeling uncomfortable and raw. The time she’d slept in my bed at Castle McRae she’d fled as our families returned.
Ella leaving hurt. No bones about it.
But there could be a hundred good reasons why she’d left.
I needed to rein that shite in until she was in the same place. Except that tattoo and her stories… I pushed away my stupid mood. I could respect her needing space. It wasn’t her problem that I was emotionally messed up.
I’d keep my mouth shut.
I rolled off the bed and rubbed the heels of my hands into my eyes, banishing tiredness. I used the bathroom and dressed quickly.
Knowing James to be an early riser, Sebastian, too, I left my room and headed down the hall to find him. Most mornings this week, we’d gone for a run, taking the baby with us. Or worked out with the bairn in a Moses basket, looking on.
At his door, I stalled. I wanted to walk past. Go to Ella. Demand the closeness I’d missed by waking alone.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I tapped on James’s door instead.
“G?” Ella’s voice sounded behind me.
At the same second, the door swung open.
I bounced my gaze between the Fitzroy siblings.
“Er, come in?” James said when no one spoke.
I watched Ella.
“Okay,” she said, like this was somehow deciding something.
I held my ground as she walked past. Her shoulders were raised and her gait stiff.
Something was wrong.
I followed her in and closed the door, then took a seat at the table, half a room from where Ella perched on the edge of the sofa.
“How’s Beth this morning?” I asked James after a beat.
“Tired.” He tilted his head, looking between us with a furrow on his brow. “I’m a little worried, but she’s promised to rest up. Sebastian is still asleep. I’ll go get him if he wakes. Is… Did something happen?”
“No,” I answered.
“Yes,” Ella replied at the same time. “I had an email in the night.”
I sat taller. “From whom?”
“Richard.”
James took the seat next to her. “What did he say?”
“That he’s planning to come back, and he wants me to persuade you to let him back into our lives. Into Sebastian’s life.”
James reared back. “How can he think he’d ever be welcome? He’s delusional.”
“He won’t set foot near this family,” I vowed, willing to throw myself in between any one of the Fitzroys and their enemies.
Ella took a breath. “There’s more. He thinks he’s calling in a favour after he approved my university fees last summer.”
“He’s contacted you before?” James asked, his voice flat.
Ella paled but didn’t falter. “Yes. I was in my independence phase. I should have told you, but it was about me, not you and your family.”
“You are my family,” James ground out.
She held up a hand. “There’s more. Save your outrage.” Then she looked my way. “This could involve you, too, G.”
I stood and moved to sit on the adjacent seat of the L-shaped couch, almost knee to knee with her.
Ella regarded me, pink flushing her cheeks. She dragged her gaze back to her brother. “Richard is about to sell his apartment in Manhattan. Howard Marks told me this morning. Howard also believes that the place was bought with my money.”
James stilled.
Hot outrage pooled in my stomach.
Ella continued, “I need to challenge the sale. Within the next few days, if I’m to stop him walking away with the cash. Howard thinks that if I try after the fact, I’ll have little chance of seeing a penny of the money.”
“I’m there in any way you need,” I said. “But what does this have to do with me specifically? Did he mention me?”
“I was about to ask the same question,” James said.
A faint cry came from down the short hall at the end of the room. “Sebastian.” James jumped to his feet. “Be right back.”
He paced down the hall, leaving me and Ella alone.
“The problem is that Richard is still my guardian. There hasn’t been time to transfer it or to cancel it. Which means…” Her words dried up, and she dropped her gaze. “Oh boy. This is too hard.”
Then I got it.
Understanding cut into me, knife-deep and twisted. I knew exactly why Ella was cringing. Because she was about to ask me something she’d already tried once.
And I’d said no.
Fuck. That could give her her inheritance back.
She raised her gaze, and I winced at what I saw. Regret.
This was not happening.
“You need to get married for this plan to work,” I helped her out.
“I don’t have to. But it’s an option.”
“Then, Ella?” I sank to my knee, a sucker for punishment. She said I liked pain, and I guessed this proved her right. Because proposing to the woman I loved, who didn’t love me but would accept me for the sake of money? That fucker stung.
“Marry me?” I finished.
“Yes,” she whispered, her eyes wide and round and so utterly fucking beautiful.
Without another word, I climbed to my feet and stalked out of the room.