Chapter 21 #2
I wasn’t sure how I was going to do that yet, but my other plans had been moving forward.
There was no way he was done with his fuckery, and knowing him, it was only going to get worse.
My renewed sense of urgency to implement my plans didn’t extend to starting to push Elliot away, be a bitch, and generally make him fall out of love with me.
He hadn’t repeated the words he’d uttered in front of his family and fire chief that day in the hospital. He didn’t need to. I felt them in every touch, every gaze, in the low timbre of his voice when he spoke to me.
It was agony, his love. Because it was pure and nice and made me feel complete and horrid at the same time. Even more so because I loved him back. With every part of my wretched soul.
My love for him was one of the only good things about me.
I hadn’t said the words. I never would. Because that would ensure Elliot fought for me, whatever I did. It would be the hook on his insides that made him refuse to believe whatever I had to do to convince him we were done.
As it was, I had almost entirely figured out my plan of attack in bringing down an international crime organization, yet I still didn’t know how to orchestrate a simple breakup.
“I have a proposal for you,” I said to Elliot as I sat beside him. He instantly pulled me into his body in a way that was second nature to him those days. If I was within touching distance, he reached for me.
It was something I should’ve found suffocating since I was not affectionate in any kind of way. Yet I relaxed into it. Every time.
His free hand extended to where a feline with patchy, regrowing fur was purring and sleeping on top of the sofa. She let him pet her. And Clara. She hissed at me and attempted to maim me whenever I went near.
Suffice it to say, Fluffy did not have any incurable diseases.
Her vet bill had been obscene, but I couldn’t come up with a way to kill the thing without raising questions.
So I’d somehow acquired a murderous—if only toward me—feline which left dead rats on the doorstep and gave Clara oodles of joy.
I was stuck with the fucking thing.
Thankfully, Elliot had somehow trained it to not use a litter box but go to the bathroom outside, since I’d vowed I’d poison its kibble the first and only time I’d been presented with a soiled litter box.
“You better be hiding a ring box somewhere then, because I’m a diamond guy.” He flashed me a cheeky grin.
My stomach pitched at the obvious joke and the offhand way he said it. Had we entered into the phase of our relationship where joking about marriage was commonplace?
I kept my poker face even though the prospect of marriage to Elliot wasn’t abhorrent to me. Not even a little bit. “Nothing sparkly, I’m afraid.” I leaned forward to reach for my purse, grabbing the papers I’d drafted earlier in the day.
“Reminiscent of the day we met.” Elliot looked at the papers then me, eyes twinkling.
My heart did that thing where it somersaulted, feeling like a lovesick idiot. I didn’t let that show on my face, though.
“This time I’m not demanding money,” I replied. “The opposite, in fact.”
Elliot’s eyes lost a little of their sparkle, and his smile faltered. He grasped the papers from me, reaching to the side table for his reading glasses. Despite my uncharacteristic nerves about the situation, my mouth watered at the sight of Elliot in reading glasses. He wore the shit out of them.
I made a mental note to request he keep them on later.
If he still felt like fucking me later. If he even still wanted me later.
The confidence I’d had about this proposal quickly dissipated as I recognized the risk I was taking.
Male egos were unpredictable and fragile things.
Even if Elliot was the exception in almost every way, he still had the Y chromosome.
“What is this?” he asked after reading carefully for a handful of minutes.
Elliot was not stupid, and I knew he’d read enough to know what the papers were.
“This is my offer.” I motioned to the paper.
“To become a silent investor in Shaw Shack and the fishing business.” I sucked in a deep breath.
“Although my equity would be miniscule, and I’d like to put the rest in Clara’s name, which might require a change in signage to add ‘daughter’ to the back of the boat. ”
Shaw, Sons and Daughter was kind of wordy, but who gave a fuck. Girls needed to be on signage too.
Elliot was silent, staring at the papers with an expression I couldn’t decipher. It was terrifying to not see his feelings plain on his face.
I’d known Elliot was different, but there was only so far even a modern man could stretch when it came to their nature.
He wanted to protect, provide, rescue … all that shit.
And this contract was me essentially taking his balls from him.
Since I was doing the rescuing, in the fiscal sense, at least. It would make him feel small, like a failure.
He huffed out a breath, put the papers on the coffee table, and laid his readers on top of them before turning to face me with that terrible blank expression.
“I have plenty of money,” I blurted even though I’d promised myself I’d stay silent, vowing to let him have whatever reaction instead of explaining myself, trying to stroke his ego.
“Ridiculous amounts of it,” I continued. “It’s uncouth to talk about, but people would use a lot of words to describe me, and couth would not be one of them. More than likely, they’d use a four-letter word beginning with the same letter.”
Elliot did not crack a smile at my poor joke. I could barely hold it together. Elliot, my expressive Elliot, didn’t even give me a hint as to what he was feeling. It had me in freefall.
“The money I have, I earned it by not so honest means.” Ashamed, I lowered my voice.
I hadn’t admitted the breadth of my sins to Elliot, not yet.
And he hadn’t pressed, but I was going to give him the truth so he could refuse it if he wanted.
“Legally, technically. But it would make me feel better, good even, to put it toward something wholly good. It’s selfish, really. ”
Shut up , I told myself.
My lips glued shut, and I tried to remember how I’d kept my composure in front of rooms full of men without so much as breaking a sweat.
“There’s something wrong with that,” Elliot finally spoke, tapping his long fingers on the paper.
His voice was deep, without lightness or teasing.
I braced myself. For the explosion of anger that was surely coming from a wounded male pride.
I braced myself for Elliot to show me he was just like other men, validating what I’d been bracing for all this time, unable to accept that he was as good as he seemed.
“Your percentage,” he cleared his throat. “It’s too low.” He grasped my hips and pulled me to sit on his lap.
I was so surprised, I moved on autopilot, relief flooding through me at the contact, at the pressure on my hips from his hands. I was supposed to be preparing myself to push him away and I’d been a wreck for the minute he didn’t touch me. I was screwed.
“My percentage is not too low,” I scoffed. “I’m not taking an ounce of ownership away from your family. I didn’t build it. It’s not mine.”
That was important to me. For legal reasons, and in the act of protecting all egos involved in the transaction, I’d given myself a percentage so on paper, it would be an investment instead of charity.
But there was no way I’d keep even a decimal point of something that had been in their family, a legacy I hoped would last long after I was gone.
Elliot’s eyes turned stormy. He reached out to grasp my neck, clutching it tightly.
“ Your family,” he corrected in a stern voice. “It’s yours now too. If it’s time for proposals, I’d like to make one too, though I doubt I could afford the type of diamond that you’d be worthy of.”
I wasn’t breathing. Couldn’t be.
“And there’s the matter that I doubt you’d be amenable to engaging in any kind of mainstream ceremony rooted in women being used as pawns to solidify business deals and property arrangements.” He stroked my jaw, the steeliness in his voice gone.
I knew I was breathing because I didn’t pass out, but my lungs still burned from lack of oxygen.
I didn’t speak because if I did, I was terrified that I’d do something like say yes to his almost, kind of proposal.
“But…” he added after an indeterminate amount of time. “I’m not going to try to scare you away by pushing the issue.” He tenderly smoothed a knuckle down my neck, not knowing that the thought of a proposal wasn’t scaring me away. It was doing something worse, pulling me closer.
“I do have a request, though. Or rather it’s a condition to me signing the papers.” He tipped his head toward the documents. “You have to get on the boat that you’re buying a stake in.”
“A small stake, a decimal stake. And I’m a silent investor,” I reminded him.
Elliot smirked. “Calliope, you are a lot of things. Silent is never going to be one of them. You’re getting on that fucking boat.”
I hardened my gaze. “I’m not getting on that fucking boat.”
The very next day, under Maine’s late summer sunshine, I was standing on the very dock I’d met Elliot, staring at the boat I would own a small stake in.
I was as inappropriately dressed as I had been the first time. The heels were not as high, but I was wearing a similar pair of linen pants and a matching blouse. With a large straw hat because no way did I expose my skin to the sun. I was approaching forty and trying to age gracefully–ish.
Large Gucci sunglasses finished the outfit, along with the leather tote that I’d packed a flask of vodka in. For emergencies.
It was about as nautical as I got.
And although Elliot had given my outfit a long once-over before we left, he said nothing. He was wearing his usual casual clothing—backward cap, faded band tee—except he wore boat shoes this time instead of Birkenstocks.