13. Atlas
13
ATLAS
E lena spends the next hour trying on everything in Vivian’s shop that could possibly fit her. At first, I act casual, like I just came to check in, but soon I can’t resist slipping in a few items myself.
When Ivy tires of the jewelry, she joins Elena in trying on hats and gloves, sweaters and skirts. Vivian’s children’s section is much smaller, but Ivy seems particularly delighted with the items that are miniature versions of the women’s clothes. She chooses a button-up cardigan, a pair of embroidered jeans, and two dresses that are all smaller versions of what Elena has set aside.
Elena agonizes over each item, obviously torn between what she personally likes and what she thinks is “normal” in Grimstone—all balanced against her fiancé’s demands.
Watching her try on clothes is a maddening form of torture. Each outfit brings out some new facet of her attractiveness—the ski sweater that highlights her Siberian cheekbones, the jeans that hug the curves of her ass, the leather bomber that makes her look like a badass bitch. It’s driving me nuts knowing that it’s the author who will get to enjoy it all, day after day, night after night, long after Elena has checked out of my hotel.
Watching her and Ivy try on matching outfits should slap me in the face with that particular reality. But all I can seem to notice is the adoring expression on the little girl’s face as she holds up a T-shirt printed with butterflies for Elena’s approval.
She’s like a different kid when Elena’s around.
I get it—I’m a different kind of man. The kind who obsesses over a smile or a glance or the chance to sneak a stolen half hour with another man’s bride.
Elena adds everything Ivy wants to the purchase stack, but she’s much more hesitant with the items for herself. She pares down her purchases to a meager selection of some of the clothes she seemed to like the least.
“That’s all you’re getting?”
She flushes. “That’s more than my whole wardrobe back in Lviv.”
“I thought you didn’t like this one?” I hold up a stiff, dark dress that came down to the knee and didn’t flatter Elena in the slightest.
She won’t meet my eye. “It’s fine. It’ll be useful.”
Meaning, she thinks the author will like it.
“You’re not getting that one?” Vivian points to the teal gown, carefully replaced on its hanger and hung on the rack with the rest of the rejected clothes.
“I don’t think I’ll be attending any balls anytime soon.” Elena keeps her tone light, but I catch her last, wistful look at the dress.
Vivian rings up the purchases, giving Elena the deep discount usually reserved for employees.
Elena still flinches at the total. But since more than half the items she’s buying are for Ivy, she boldly swipes what looks like a shiny new credit card.
“One moment,” Elena says as Vivan wraps up the purchases. She hurries up to the front of the store where the birthstone necklaces are displayed.
“May fifteenth, right?” she says to Ivy, bringing back the emerald necklace the little girl looked at longest.
Ivy nods, eyes alight with hopeful longing. Elena fastens the clasp behind Ivy’s neck and steps back to examine the effect.
“It matches your eyes.”
Ivy hurries over to the closest mirror and stands there motionless, gazing at the tiny, glimmering jewel on its silver chain.
“I’ll pay cash for that,” Elena says, taking out her wallet once more to retrieve a hundred-dollar bill that looks like it was folded up tiny at some point in its life, still marked with creases though it’s since been smoothed flat. “I want to buy it for her myself,” she murmurs when she sees me watching.
I’m wondering if that’s all the money Elena has. The hundred-dollar bill was the only cash in her wallet.
Purchases safely wrapped in tissue and hung over her arm inside a pale pink bag, Elena has to drag Ivy away from the mirror.
“Come on, little love. I’ll take you for ice cream. Thanks again, Vivian!”
“Anytime,” Vivian says, banging a fresh roll of quarters against the edge of her change drawer.
Elena turns to me last of all. She seems to want to say something particular, her fox eyes searching my face, her lips slightly parted. But in the end, all she says is, “Thank you, Atlas.”
It’s all I need. The sound of my name on her lips is almost as good as a kiss.
The bell jingles as the two girls depart, Ivy’s thin, pale hand linked with Elena’s.
When they’re gone, I tell Vivian, “Pack up the rest of the clothes. Send them over to the hotel, along with the bill.”
Vivian raises one thin, black eyebrow. “Customer service has reached a whole new level at the Monarch, I see.”
Refusing to be baited, I fold my arms over my chest and give her my most glowering stare. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work as well on people with the last name Covett .
Vivian lifts the skirt of the teal gown and lets the silk flow through her fingers like water. I shiver, remembering how it painted Elena’s curves.
With a wicked glint in her eyes, she says, “Even this one?”
“ Especially that one.”
By late afternoon, I’ve had the wallpaper and the locks replaced in Elena’s room. She could have asked me to move her closer to the author, but she didn’t, and that gives me a fierce satisfaction.
She hasn’t returned with Ivy. I find myself picturing the pair slipping in and out of the shops together, buying ice cream and sweets, maybe carrying their prizes down the rickety wooden steps to the black sand beach below. As I imagine them out in the fresh fall wind, bits of colored leaves blowing into Elena’s hair, the hotel has never seemed stuffier or drearier. I’m tempted to sneak out again to join them.
But that’s ridiculous. It was already risky walking over to the Dapper Dress. What if Ivy tells her father?
Speak of the devil.
Lorne Ronson leans his elbow on my reception desk, chatting up Amy.
Unfortunately for him, Amy hasn’t come to like him any better. In fact, she likes him worse. It’s the shitty brunch tips. Amy is a whiz with numbers—it only took a glance at his bill for her to snort, “Thirteen percent! With the money he makes!”
Still, she has her best fake smile pasted on her face while Lorne Ronson drones on and on about something he clearly finds fascinating.
When Amy sees me watching, she widens her eyes ever so slightly in silent annoyance. Lorne, oblivious to her boredom, notices immediately when her attention shifts. He turns and plasters a fake smile of his own across his face as he strides forward.
“Atlas! Just the man I was looking for.”
Goddamnit.
“How can I help you?” Out a fucking window…
Now Lorne fashions his features into an expression of concern no more genuine than the smile.
“Your receptionist just told me that someone broke into my wife’s room.”
The fact that he’s still calling Elena his wife makes my skin crawl. I must not have hidden it as well as I thought, because something flickers in Lorne’s eyes in response. He’s wearing a dark suit today, more formal than usual, hair combed back. I can’t help but think he’s trying to intimidate me.
“I’ve already had the locks changed,” I say.
His eyes narrow slightly. “I haven’t received the new key.”
“Maybe it would better to keep the spare at the front desk.”
“Why would that be better?” Lorne demands, attempting to stare me down.
Since his last name isn’t Covett, that’s not going to work. I fold my arms and give him a return stare that makes his left eye twitch behind those stupid fake glasses.
“Because it would minimize the chance of loose keys floating around between children, housekeepers, and…anybody else.”
We both know that the anybody else I’m referencing is standing right in front of me. And he doesn’t appreciate the implication.
There’s a new edge to his voice as he says, “You’ve taken quite an interest in my wife.”
“Is she your wife already? I hadn’t noticed a ring.”
A brick-colored flush tints his face, even the whites of his eyes. “She’ll be my wife in a few more weeks.”
Weeks.
It sounds like a death sentence. The idea of Elena married to him forever, shut away in his creepy castle instead of here with me…
No. Every bone in my body rebels.
“If she makes it that long.” I didn’t mean to say it out loud, but I don’t regret it, either.
Lorne Ronson goes still, an odd blankness falling over his face, his eyes seeming to deepen and darken like boreholes.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I know I should stop, but instead I step closer. “It’s funny, don’t you think? All these things happening to your fiancée when she’s been here less than a week. Does she even know anyone in Grimstone? Besides you, of course.”
Lorne snarls, “All these things happening in your hotel.”
“That’s right. It is my hotel. And I’m going to make sure Elena’s safe while she’s here. Safe from anyone who might want to hurt her.” I lay only the slightest stress on the word anyone, but he knows exactly what I mean.
Lorne’s not flushed anymore. He’s reached a new level of rage that drains the blood from his face until his lips are pale as worms, his eyes flat and lightless.
His voice comes out in a low hiss. “Don’t mistake your role here, Atlas. You own the hotel, not the guests. Elena belongs to me . You hold the door for her.”
I don’t think I’ve ever been so close to punching a guest. My fist is a lead weight on the end of my arm, and I am aching to smash it into the middle of the author’s face.
But all I say is, “Then I guess we’ll see who protects her best.”