18. Atlas
18
ATLAS
T hat was a stupid fucking plan.
My intention was to get the author drunk enough that he’d go to bed early, leaving me alone with Elena.
Instead, I turned him into a horny frat boy. Then I acted like Elena’s overprotective dad, and now she’s pissed at me.
She’s right to be pissed at me. What the fuck was I thinking?
I gave her space all week long because that was obviously what she wanted. But it was torture watching her pick through the breakfast buffet each morning, giggle with Amy at the front desk, play in the garden with Ivy, and stalk the hallways of the hotel with her camera, snapping pictures of anything that caught her interest.
Amy gets to talk to her. Ivy gets to talk to her. But not me.
It didn’t seem fair.
I brought the wine over just to get a look at her up close. I’d never seen her in black before. The dress set her off like a jewel in a velvet box, her sapphire eyes, her blushing skin, her legs a mile long…
I was reckless, squandering the bottle I’ve saved for years because I knew how well it would work. I glugged twelve hundred dollars of that shit into Ronson’s glass while drinking in the scent of Elena’s skin until I could hardly stand up.
I hoped Ronson would drink himself silly and head off to bed, but of course he couldn’t keep his hands off her in that dress. I would have seen that coming if I could have thought about a damn thing besides Elena.
When he manhandled her, I went into a rage. Sixteen years I’ve been running this hotel, and I’ve never once laid hands on a guest.
I regret it.
But only because I didn’t knock his fucking teeth out when I had the chance.
All right, so I’m still a little angry.
No…I’m fucking furious.
He doesn’t deserve her. He doesn’t even love her—there’s nothing real in his eyes, in his voice. He just wants her. For his own fucked-up purposes.
I don’t trust him. He drugged Elena that night; I know he did. He didn’t take a single sip of his wine while he pressured her to drink. And Olivia told me the bottle was already uncorked. He probably thought whatever he put in that wine would take longer to kick in and he could get her back to her room to do god knows what to her. Maybe he planned to blame it on jet lag, but the jet lag knocked her out too soon.
Only guesses, but I know one thing for certain: Lorne Ronson is not what he pretends.
How can I make Elena see it?
She tries to avoid me the next day. I allow her to slip past me out the front door of the hotel, and then I follow.
Elena’s alone today, no pale little shadow trailing after her. I’m not surprised, since I already saw Mrs. Cross dragging Ivy outside by the arm an hour earlier.
Elena has her camera out, slung around her neck with a strap that looks hand embroidered. She never lets the camera bounce but holds it carefully in her hands. The strap is just for extra security.
She pauses to take a picture of the fountain in the town square, full to the rim with scarlet leaves. She snaps pictures of the clock tower and the row of shops then pauses in front of the twenty-foot-tall sculpture of Mr. Bones, mascot of the Reaper’s Revenge. But she doesn’t lift her camera for him.
It’s a brisk day, the wind blowing in off the ocean chilly and damp. That salty sea air whips through Elena’s hair and sends scarlet leaves skittering against my legs.
“Taking your stalking outside the hotel, are you?” Elena says without turning around.
I come out into the square, unembarrassed and unrepentant.
“Whatever I have to do to talk to you.”
She turns, her hair lifting and settling around her shoulders. Her camera is raised to her eye, and she snaps a photograph of me before lowering the lens, frowning.
“I don’t need you following me. And I don’t need you protecting me—especially not from my own fiancé.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” I hold up my hands. “That’s what I came here for, to apologize.”
Elena softens slightly, lowering her camera so it’s no longer a protective barrier between us. But she doesn’t come any closer.
“Look, Atlas…” Her voice is husky and unhappy, her eyes cast down at the ground. “I really appreciate how you’ve tried to look out for me. But this thing between us…it’s not right. Not when I’m with Lorne.”
His ring still hangs on her finger, ugly, heavy, too big for her hand.
I want to argue with Elena. I want to tell her she shouldn’t be with Lorne. But that will only push her further away.
“All right,” I say. “I’ll back off.”
She looks at me in surprise, those blue eyes keenly curious. I pretend to be cool even though every inch of me is on fire beneath my clothes.
“Where are you going to develop that film?” I say as if I’m changing the subject.
“Nowhere,” Elena says. “Not yet. Maybe eventually I can set up a darkroom again. I used the broom cupboard at my uncle’s house. It was cramped, but you don’t need much space—just total darkness.”
“There’s a darkroom at the Monarch,” I say, oh so casually.
Elena’s mouth falls open. Every part of her seems to perk with anticipation: her shoulders, eyebrows, even the tips of her ears. “There is?”
“You can use it anytime you want.”
“Could you show it to me?” she asks eagerly. “Tomorrow?”
It’s so hard not to smile.
“How about right now?”