Chapter 24 #2
A lady pushing a small cart passes us, and it’s then I remember we are still very much in the middle of busy Chicago and having a conversation that we probably shouldn’t be having in public.
My companion thinks the same thing. “Can we go somewhere and talk? I can explain my thought process.”
“I’m not going to your place.” Or mine, I add in my head.
He lets out a sigh. “There’s a coffee shop a few blocks over. We can go there.”
He’s enticing me with food. These last few days, he has learned how much I like to eat, and he’s using that to his advantage. I hate him for it.
I should tell him no, that I don’t want to hear what he has to say, that I’m done with him. But the look he’s giving me stops me.
Everything about his expression looks sincere.
With a simple look, I know this man could absolutely break me, but even with knowing that, I gravitate toward him. I want to be with him in a way I’ve never wanted to be with anyone before, and that fact does scare me.
Because of that, I concede. “Fine.”
He looks so relieved I agreed, his shoulders even fall a bit.
With a small smile, he waves me toward the car a few feet away.
Without saying a word, I walk over to the car. The second I sit in the passenger seat, I’m enveloped by his cologne.
I should feel ashamed I know the name of it, but I’m not. There may have been snooping done when I was working with Grayson and Elliot was traveling. I may have looked up the name and the notes. It suits him.
Once he’s in the car, he just maneuvers the car back onto the street and drives us to the coffee shop he mentioned in silence.
To my surprise, it’s fancy, with a hostess who seats you and everything. I didn’t know a place like this existed. We get seated right away, and the hostess leaves us with menus, but Elliot doesn’t look through his. Instead, he just looks at me.
As I browse what the cafe has to offer, I feel his eyes on me, never wavering. I don’t waver either, keeping my eyes on the menu until I pick out what I want, only meeting his gaze when I’ve read through every single item.
I’m acting childish, I know.
“I’m not going to turn into your sugar baby,” is the first thing out of my mouth.
He gives a small snort. “I think we established in Vegas that you were older than me by a few months, so I don’t know if the title would fit.”
I roll my eyes. “Fine—I’m not going to be your sugar adult, cougar, whatever. You are not paying for the roof over my head.”
“Why not? You know I’m able to. If this is something I want to do, why not let me do it?”
I narrow my eyes. “I’ll answer your question with one: why do you want to pay for my apartment so bad?”
We stare at each other for what feels like forever, neither one of us saying anything.
Eventually, he breaks the silence. “Honest truth?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know why I want to do it.” He sighs and places his elbows on the table, never taking his eyes off me.
“I don’t know why I want to pay for the apartment, I just know I do.
There’s this urge to take care of you running through me.
Not only that, but I want to give you everything and anything you want.
I know you don’t need it, but I still want to do it.
And maybe that stems from being the oldest; maybe it’s my subconscious way of making sure my time with you isn’t cut short.
I don’t know. I just know I want to give you this because I care about you.
I care about you in a way I never have about anyone outside of my family.
And it isn’t just because of our arrangement; this urge has been running through me since Vegas.
I’ve wanted to give you something, do something for you, with you, and I guess this is my way of doing it. ”
He cares about me, and he has since Vegas.
He cares about me.
Do I care about him the same way? If I were to answer honestly, I think I do.
I don’t know how long I sit there in silence, but I only come out of it when the waitress takes our order. I don’t even remember what I had picked when I looked at the menu, so I just give her something random. Elliot simply orders a sandwich.
When she leaves, he puts his attention back on me.
“Now will you answer my question? Why don’t you want me to take care of the apartment for you?”
To him, it’s a simple question, one he is possibly expecting me to answer in a self-righteous way.
He is probably waiting for me to say something about how I don’t want a man to take care of me, how I am an independent woman and I don’t need a rich man footing my bill.
The last part is very much true, I am independent woman, and I don’t need anything from anyone, especially if they want to change me.
That’s not why I accused him of wanting to make me his sugar baby. Not fully, anyway.
I debate with myself about opening up to him, about telling him why I left Texas and came here. I could lie, give him the reasons he thinks are going to come out my mouth already, but I don’t want to. I want to open up to him, I want to tell him everything.
Maybe once he knows, at least the majority of it, telling Serena would be a lot easier.
“Honest truth?” I start the same way he did.
He gives me a nod. “Always.”
This is my chance to finally get everything I’ve been keeping in for years out in the open.
I take a deep breath. Here goes nothing.
“Remember me telling you I had met a guy a few months after Vegas?” He gives me a nod, and I continue.
“Well, it turns out, I was his mistress, and he did things during our time together that were out of line and controlling. I told myself I would never step into something like that again. And you paying for an apartment feels like it will fall right into that.”