Chapter 5 #2
Levi is still talking, saying something about her being “wife material with a capital W”, but his voice fades under the static roaring in my ears.
Because I stare at the picture before me, and I can’t help but see her.
Elodie Harper.
Knox notices my pause. “You like that one?”
I look away and straighten before either of them can read too much into it. “No,” I say too quickly, too flat. “She just looks familiar.”
Levi smirks. “Familiar good or familiar trouble?”
My cold glare answers for me.
He raises his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright. Moving on.”
He grabs another batch of headshots from his file and repeats the same process, but I don’t move on. Not internally.
Not when a stranger’s photo just dragged Elodie’s ghost right back into my head.
I think of her in that coffeehouse, and for the millionth time, I wonder what happened to her.
She’s what now?
Twenty-five?
When her family lost their business, she would have just left high school. And would have still been the dreamer.
She wanted to be an English teacher. For as long as I can remember, she was obsessed with the classics and poetry.
The door swings open without warning, yanking me out of my thoughts.
I’m stunned to my core when Parker Vale strolls in as if the place belongs to him—no knock, no courtesy, just that polished, aristocratic swagger he must have learned at whatever pretentious London boarding school spat him out.
His cold blue eyes sweep the office, taking inventory of a world he’s desperate to step into. Then his gaze lands on me.
“Nice office, cousin,” he drawls in a rich English accent, looking at me like he isn’t standing in my doorway uninvited.
My brothers and I fall silent, the brief lighthearted mood we had between us gone in an instant.
Irritation scrapes down my spine at the sight of my cousin. I pin him with a flat stare, forcing my jaw to unclench.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I lift my chin higher.
Parker smiles and slides his hands into his pockets. “Is that any way to greet me? We haven’t seen each other in years. Now here we are, all together, with me about to take your job.”
Knox stands and glares at him, ready for war. “Watch your mouth, cousin. Let’s not forget whose ass you’ll have to lick when my father goes.”
Parker holds up his hands. “Just teasing, Knox. I can see you haven’t changed one bit. Can’t take a joke.”
“Man, why don’t you just fuck the hell off,” Levi jumps in.
Parker switches his gaze to him and looks him up and down as if he’s insignificant. “Which one are you again? Locke, the airhead? Or Levi, the glorified manwhore who can’t control his dick? If you’re the latter, aren’t you the one with the druggie friend?”
Levi’s about to rush him, but Knox holds him back. I almost wish he didn’t. Mentioning Levi’s friend who nearly died a few times and worked so hard to get clean was way below the belt.
“Come over here and say that to my face,” Levi barks.
“Okay, so you are Levi, then.”
Levi’s about to answer him, but I stand and hold my hand up.
Walking with the slow grace of a jungle cat, I make my way over to Parker and stop a breath away. He knows not to fuck with me, so I don’t know why he’s doing it.
“Do yourself a favor, Parker.” I reach out and adjust the collar of his jacket. “Get the hell out of my office and don’t ever come back in here.”
He responds with a Cheshire Cat grin and cocks his head. “Hard not to come back in here when this office space could technically be mine in a few months.”
I give him the same fucked-up smile. “I wonder where you got that intel from. Because I’m not going anywhere.”
“That’s what you think. If you fail—”
“I won’t fail.”
“You can’t fix your image, Dorian. Me, however, I’m the son your father wishes he had.
Not like you guys. The Monster who nearly made the company go under in the wire fraud scandal,” He casts a glance at Knox, then at Levi.
“The playboy who associates with drug addicts and prostitutes.” He looks back at me next. “And the villain. The guy who—”
I don’t let him finish. I grab his tie and pull hard. Within seconds, Parker’s coughing and gasping for air.
Motherfucker.
His first mistake was to step into my lair. His next was to let me get close enough to touch him. He should have known his game was over the moment my fingers brushed over his shirt.
Knox and Levi are on me in an instant, trying to pry my hands loose from Parker’s tie, but I pull even harder.
“Dorian, stop!” Knox shouts, but I don’t listen.
“He wanted the villain? Here I am.” I bark in Parker’s face.
His smugness is gone now. His face is red, his eyes watering, his hands clawing at my wrist for dear life.
“What the hell is going on in here?” My father’s voice cracks through the room like a gunshot. And it’s the only thing to break through the wall of rage consuming me.
Knox swears under his breath. Levi straightens, guilt slicing across his features. Parker wheezes, fingers scrambling at his tie.
Dad takes in the scene in one sweeping glance, and his eyes lock on my hands at Parker’s neck. I note the moment he realizes I’m seconds away from strangling my cousin to death.
Dad’s eyes bulge, and he throws up his hands. “Oh my fucking God, Dorian.”
I hold on to Parker for one more heartbeat before I release him, allowing him to drop to the ground. He doubles over in a fit of coughs and wheezes.
Dad shakes his head. “Dorian. My office. Now.”
* * *
The coffeehouse is almost empty when I finally look up from my laptop.
I’ve been here for a few hours. Now it’s late. The kind of late where the chatter is gone and only the hum of the fridges and the occasional hiss of the espresso machine fill the silence.
My cup of coffee sits untouched, long gone cold, the surface as dark as the night sky outside.
I don’t often come here more than once a week. Sometimes not even that. But I needed to get neutral ground to finish up my work. Somewhere that doesn’t smell like my father’s disappointment or Parker’s cologne.
I’m a workaholic at best. Most nights see me burning the midnight oil at Vale Global. But I couldn’t stand being in that building for another second.
My father’s words still ring in my ears. He chewed out my ass and ripped me a new one. Then he had the audacity to tell me I should be grateful Parker isn’t pressing charges for assault.
“Do you have any idea what that would do to us right now? To you?” He’d added with that look of intense displeasure.
I don’t regret putting my hands on Parker. I regret that the door was open.
I regret giving my father more ammunition for his you’re unstable narrative. And I regret the victorious look Parker gave me when he straightened his tie, like he’d just watched me prove every accusation right without lifting a finger.
One outburst, and I’m the problem.
Not the cousin who came into my office promising to take my job.
Not the leak sabotaging our company from the inside.
Me.
I run a hand down my face and refocus on the spreadsheet glowing back at me. Numbers and deals. The things that make sense when nothing else does.
But my mind keeps drifting.
Drifting to all the reminders that I’m one headline away from being finished.
Movement tugs at the edge of my vision, then a flash of sandy-blonde hair.
I look up, and my gaze lands on the beautiful young woman who used to be off-limits to me walking up the stairs.
She’s coming up from the lower level, a dust cloth in hand. She wipes the banister as she climbs, her head bowed and hair slipping forward to hide her face. Then she turns to reach for the next section, and her profile tips toward me.
Green eyes.
A dust of freckles on her nose.
Those curving lips I remember far too well.
For a second, the room tilts.
Elodie Harper.
Again.
The ghost who keeps wandering into my sphere.
Exhaustion tightens her shoulders, and she has a lean, gaunt look that makes her uniform hang loose around the middle. It doesn’t distract from her beauty, but it’s noticeable. So is the lost look in her eyes.
She doesn’t notice me yet. Good. Because I’m staring, and I can’t look away.
Has she been here the whole time?
She looks like she’s been here all day. Maybe she has.
Maybe she was working out back and has only come onto the floor now.
Of course, I thought about her when I came in here, but as it’s so late, I never expected to see her. With the exception of the supervisor, who seems to always be here, none of the morning staff usually work the evening shift.
Yet here Elodie is, looking like she might fall over. She’s clearly going through something. She carries the desolate look of a desperate soul.
I should pack up my things and head home. I should avoid her like I used to, way back when I noticed her watching me more than she usually did.
Back when she christened me Dorian Gray.
She never called me that because of my looks.
Elodie Harper was the first person to see the darkness inside me, and she never thought to run away.
Instead, she looked at me like I could be saved.
Those eyes find mine now. She freezes when she realizes who she’s looking at.
Curiosity gets the better of me, and I decide I’m staying.