Chapter Twelve
Elliot
T here’s a heavy warmth in me, on me. And it feels good. Like all is right in the world.
I suddenly go still.
I’m not alone.
Everything last night comes tumbling back.
Ryder Sinclair is in my bed, and that warm heaviness is him. An arm is around me and one leg over mine.
I believe the words here are oh, shit.
Slowly, I edge out from beneath him, freezing when his arm tightens a moment. He mutters something, and a small frown appears and I can’t help it…I take a second to appreciate the sheer beauty of him sleeping. He’s softer in sleep, more accessible. Which is nothing more than a fallacy and very dangerous.
With his arm on me, the winding tattoo is up close and the skeletons are delicate and intricate with the flowers and thorns and vines coming from their hands. I want to touch them, but sanity prevails and I drag my mind from fantasyland and back to the Great Escape.
Ryder shifts and turns over, somehow stealing all the covers with him.
I slide off the bed completely and start to rise when a hand clamps around my wrist, holding me there, setting me ablaze with that connection.
“You’re no fun, Elliot.”
His voice first thing is surprisingly awake, low, and warm. There’s humor there, and it all takes its toll. It’s a nice toll, sweet, and something I don’t want. I try and tug free.
He doesn’t let go.
I bite back a sigh. “I’m a lot of fun. I just need to get a start on the day.”
“Your project is already here.” He’s not holding me there anymore. His hand is still on me, though, his fingers a slow slide against my flesh and that caress is more binding than any cold steel snapped onto my wrist could ever be. “And pajama parties have rules. Like…no sneaking off.”
I pretend I’m made of stronger stuff and keep my tone crisp and edged with sarcasm. “Have you ever been to a pajama party?”
“I went to boarding school. Does torture count?”
“That’s a no, then?”
“And she’s cruel…” The smile in his tone warms me. “No. But this is my pajama party, and my rules. Come on. We don’t have to get up yet.”
I sigh and sit on the bed. “Not getting up somehow morphs into rules?”
“I’m gifted that way?” He lets me go and throws back the covers, patting the empty spot.
Just call me a giant idiot weakling, but the flash of near naked, sleep-warmed man crumbles resolve, and I slide back in.
“This is ridiculous. We have a day to get through, and—”
“Everyone needs a little ridiculousness in their lives.” Ryder’s hand comes to rest on my thigh. “Like take what’s going on with me. It’s all insane on a level I don’t want to think about. Why should it matter what I do outside of doing the job?”
“Because, Ryder,” I say, “as much as you want to go forth and practice spreading your seed—”
“Ouch.”
“—you can’t if you want all the things you want. Money sometimes doesn’t talk as loudly as reputation.”
“I’m not a whore.”
I give him a look and he raises his brows even as a small, sheepish smile plays.
“Okay,” he says, “you and your puritanical ways might think I am, but I’m not.”
“If we’re talking traditional sense, then no.”
“I like having a good time. Don’t you?”
“There’s more to life than that.”
I sound like the worst fun-murderer out there. Give me fun and I’ll kill it for you. He’s probably thinking that, actually.
“There’s boredom, but I’m not into that. I like women. I like sensuality. I like feeling good. And as I said, I do my job and as ridiculous as all this is, I’m doing it. Obeying the law of the land, dead-father-style.”
I study him a moment. “You don’t care about him?”
“I loved my father,” he says quietly. “But he was a hard man to love. An easy man to respect, but love? He didn’t hand it out string-free. It’s been a year since he passed, but in a way he’s been gone for much longer than that. To us, anyway. I guess he was the push the bird out of the nest and move on type. Or, so it seemed.”
He turns to face me and for a moment I can’t think of anything to say. It all sounds sad and I wonder what the little boy he was felt. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. And it’s too early for this.”
“You started it.”
“You didn’t want to talk about you and your aversion to fun.” He stops, his gaze skimming over me, and I fight the urge to pull the covers up as my nipples bead under that look.
“You didn’t hire me to be fun.”
He completely ignores me. “I’m amending that. You act like you have an aversion to it, but you’re a lot of fun, once you get going.”
“Wow,” I say, with heaping amounts of dry sarcasm. “Thanks. You’re a real flatterer.”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“You didn’t mean to flatter me? Good thing because you didn’t. I think the word’s insult.”
Ryder laughs, propping himself a little higher with his elbow on a pillow, and he draws a pattern on my thigh, over the quilt. “I didn’t mean you’re anything like a bore. I meant you’re interesting and a good time when you don’t try and…disappear.”
“I do nothing of the kind.” This is true. I can’t help it if I somehow fade into the background. “Besides, it’s my job to not be seen.”
Ryder sighs. “I had a good time because of you.”
My head starts a slow spin. His fingers are magic and his words…
“I know you’re not hitting on me.” I make myself pull away from him and get to slightly unsteady feet.
“Of course not.” He rolls on his back and tucks the pillow under his head. “I wouldn’t do that.”
I stare at him, shaking my head as I try and think of something to say. Instead, I turn away and start grabbing things to take to the bathroom with me so I can emerge dressed and ready for the day. “I know you wouldn’t.”
“Elliot—”
“Stop. You have to get to work. I have to get to work for you. We have our plan to push forward.”
And I don’t wait for his answer. Instead, like the coward with a healthy dose of self-preservation that I am, I hurry into the bathroom like there’s a demon in my bed, instead of a man.
Demon, I think, locking the door, might not be too far off.
My day passes in a flurry of micromanagement and casting longer threads out.
Ryder’s at work, where he’s assured me in twenty texts that he’s behaving. And by that he means Elliot style, not Ryder style.
His words. Not mine.
There’s an event tonight. Boring and staid in his words, mine too, not that I’d admit it to him.
Nothing like a stodgy fundraiser that’s more about a tick on the resume and being seen by the right sort of old money and old-school Fortune 500 company execs than the charity in question.
I’m going with him because after last night, it’s the smart thing to do. Perhaps not smart personally for me, but smart for him, and he’s paying me a lot of money, so I can just swallow down the misgivings with a lot of dollar signs.
I finish my day, shoot Ryder a text with the door code to the building, and after people have gone, I stay in my office tying up little loose ends and generally controlling everything.
Getting ready isn’t going to take me long, I know that, but I still find myself, when I take the elevator to my apartment, spending longer than I ever would.
For what, is what I’d like to know. So Ryder, a man I both want and don’t want and know will never look at me in that way I crave, will fail to be impressed?
He’s seen me in my pajamas. He’s seen me first thing in the morning. He’s told me I’m the last person he’d flirt with…
“Idiot.”
Still…
I’m checking my hair for the millionth time when my door buzzes.
Ryder looks spectacular in one of the suits. “Money speaks,” he says as I give him a long twice-over. “But even so, I suspect you had something to do with the speed of suit one’s arrival by courier today.”
It’s black and the cut classic with a modern edge. “You think I greased the wheel?”
“No.” He laughs. “I think you can make things happen that could be classed as miracles.”
I hate myself, but heat rushes through me, bright and warming at his words.
“You’re on time.” I grab my purse, and sweeping him out the door reluctantly take the arm he offers.
The fewer times I touch him, the better.
We arrive at the fundraiser for underprivileged private school children—I should be blasé about some of the genteel mega rich fundraisers, but I’m not because I can think of so many other things that deserve their money apart from an exclusive school—and it’s as boring and staid as Ryder moaned about the entire trip here.
He comes up to me, his fingers light and low on my back, sending tendrils of electricity tumbling through me. “This is to do…what?”
“Keep the riff-raff out of your schools while looking like you let them in.”
He laughs and takes a sip of champagne, my champagne that he purloins with a smooth move. “You’re not exactly poor or from the riff-raff, Perry.”
“Compared to you, I’m the offspring of chimney sweeps.”
“I can think of worse jobs.”
“Idiot.”
“You like me.” Then he groans. “Here comes trouble.”
His mother approaches, all smiles and discreet, tasteful jewels and a tailored suit. Her gaze flickers to Ryder. “Off with you. But not too far.”
“Mother—”
“Now.” Her expression isn’t one to allow argument, even though Ryder clearly wants to do just that.
He thinks better of it and slinks off with my champagne.
“Don’t think I’m fooled,” Faye Sinclair says. “About the girlfriend thing.”
Of course she isn’t.
“You’re way too good for him, much as I love him. Ryder’s a…work in progress, and worth it, if he can get over himself.”
I stare at her. We spoke the night before, and he told me his family knows he hired someone.
“Well—”
“I like you, Elliot. I think you’re what he needs.”
Of course she likes me. Mothers always do. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“The letter, the job. It’s not a secret.”
This should flood me with relief, hearing it not just from Ryder, but from his mother, but for some reason, it doesn’t. I give her a speculative look. She only smiles.
“You could give him a pass,” I say.
“This thing, it’s more complicated than Ryder thinks.” She turns her champagne glass. “It’s not just about the outer image.”
“It’s about change. But in what way? Ryder’s Ryder. How he is outside of work doesn’t affect his job.”
“As I said, it’s complicated.”
“And you’re in charge of this.”
She pauses to say hello to a passing senator. Then she refocuses on me. “I’m overseeing things.”
It’s clear to me she’s pulling whatever strings she feels like pulling, but there isn’t a hint of malice about her. Whatever she’s up to is for Ryder’s sake. And it isn’t my job to judge. It’s my job to make sure Ryder gets what he wants.
“Inner change can come, but in four weeks?”
Faye sets a firm, warm hand on my upper arm and squeezes gently. “As you said, Ryder’s Ryder. He is capable of change.”
“If he wants that.”
“Yes.” There’s a small smile right before she takes a sip of her drink. “If.”
“You’re aware of my job here, so if you have anything I need—”
“There’s a lot at stake, Elliot.”
“Okay, but if I’m helping him, how does that do anything? You know with the four weeks change will be mostly cosmetic.” I’m saying this, not because I want to, but because it feels the right thing to say. His mother isn’t the kind of woman to take to bullshit. I want—need—to see what her game is.
“I’m the one judging, as I know him best.”
I nod. “So you’re willing to just say he’s changed?”
“If he changes, yes.”
I really wish Ryder hadn’t taken my drink. I could do with something to occupy my hands. Instead, I keep them by my side. Image goes a long way with others. “Why would you do that, say he’s changed if he ticks all the boxes, when you know he hired me?”
“I’m his mother.”
“Not some all-seeing being.” I decide to push it. “I said inner change can come, but after a long, hard slog; after effort and micro shifts. People don’t change. Not in four weeks.”
“Elliot,” she says, “that’s where you’re wrong. People can and they do. And there’s a lot more to my youngest son than there might seem.”
“I’m keeping my judgments to myself.”
His mother laughs. “You’re too good for him, but he’s got it in him to rise to that level.”
I stare at her. “Ryder and I…there’s nothing there. He’s not interested and I’m not what he wants.”
“I’m just saying,” she says, “that if anyone’s up to the job of implementing a life change in Ryder, it would be you. The trick is, Ryder can’t do just a cover up that lasts up to the end of the four weeks. It has to be that something in him really changes.”
“I don’t think he sees it that way.”
“Not yet.”
“Does he know about this?” I ask.
Faye only smiles and it’s clear Ryder doesn’t know. Not on a deep down level, not…whatever it is she’s hinting at.
“Elliot,” she says, “the trick here he doesn’t and he shouldn’t. You need to bring this fundamental change in him. One he doesn’t see coming, and you can’t discuss this with him. Do the job as you both planned, but I like you, so I wanted you to know I’m looking for something else—”
“Like what?”
“I’ll know it when I see it.”
What the hell have I gotten myself into here? “You want me to bring about some kind of magical change in him that I don’t know what it is, and neither does he?”
“Exactly.”
“Oh, well, in that case,” I say, letting the sarcasm out, “that sounds easy.” I stop, look at her. “Are you going to offer me more money for this?”
Faye takes another sip of champagne. “Would you take it?”
“No.” There’s not even a question. “I just want to know what it is you’re actually asking.”
“What the fuck are you two talking about?”
We both turn and there’s Ryder. Waiting.