Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I had resisted Grant when he pursued me at first. Vehemently. I knew dating him would get messy fast, and for the longest time, I’d held out against his rough attempt at flirting. In the end, I’d caved, though, with possibilities and what-ifs and loneliness luring me in.
After a bad breakup, every girl imagined the next time they ran into their cheating ex. They imagined themselves beautiful, with a fresh blowout and drop-dead makeup. No one ever imagined themselves with smudged makeup, a teal polo that probably had sweat stains, and hair that had frizzed the second hour into her shift. They imagined their skin smelling like their buttery, vanilla body wash— not like burnt fry oil.
No, I was living every girl’s worst nightmare—running into an ex wholly unprepared, with bits of food squished underneath the soles of my non-slip shoes.
“Lovisa?”
Was it my brain echoing Grant’s voice out of old habit, or had he actually said my name twice? From the way he looked at me—expectant—I figured it was the latter.
Still, I just stared. Not frozen. Not panicking.
Just… blank.
The elevator doors slid closed before any of us moved, but popped back open a second later as Grant hit the button again. This time, Grant stepped onto the elevator, directing his astonished stare down at me. “Well, this—this shouldn’t have been the last place I expected to see you, but… well.” He spoke as if it was perfectly ordinary to find me on the ground. The doors slid shut behind him, sealing the three of us inside. His eyes flicked to the pile beside me. “Were you the one bringing me my towels?”
His towels. He was in 803. I didn’t know what was worse—him being on the other side of the elevator or on the other side of the door when I would’ve knocked, unsuspecting.
I should’ve been mortified, or furious, or something . I didn’t look at Aaron, and I didn’t move. This isn’t happening —and not in the dramatic, earth-shattering way. More like in the of course it’s today, of course it’s him, of course I’m on the floor kind of way.
And oh my gosh, my hand is still on Aaron Astor’s thigh .
I yanked it off.
Without hesitation, Grant crossed the final step to me. He picked my hands up in his large ones and drew me to my feet, not seeming to notice how much strength he had to use to do so. It was instinct that I gripped his fingers tighter, if only to keep my knees from folding.
“I was going to go to your apartment tomorrow,” Grant murmured, eyes scanning my face. “I’ve tried finding your profiles on social media, but—well, I think I’m still blocked.” He gave a half-hearted chuckle. “I almost resorted to emailing.”
Ironically, that was the one place I hadn’t thought to block him from. If he’d sent an email, I would’ve gotten it.
But the intimacy of I was going to go to your apartment tomorrow —as if the last time we’d seen each other was a few weeks, not six months ago. As if we parted on amicable terms, and not because I’d found him shoving his tongue down another girl’s throat. As if we’d never broken up in the first place.
This cannot be happening .
Grant gave me his signature pearly white grin that used to make me melt. “Do you believe in fate?”
“I don’t, actually.”
It wasn’t my voice, but Aaron’s. His tone was casual, even bored. Grant jolted at it, hands spasming around mine, as if he’d forgotten the momentary glance he and Aaron had exchanged the second he saw me. Grant blinked at Aaron, who still sat with his legs stretched out on the ground. “And… who are you?”
Aaron seemed to decide it’d be appropriate to rise to his feet. He wasn’t nearly as tall as Grant, who towered at a staunch six-two, but somehow didn’t seem to look up at my ex. Maybe because, even though the space of the elevator was small, it still seemed like he commanded it. “I’m Aaron Astor,” he replied, offering a hand out. “Lovisa’s fiancé.”
Ha. No, really. Ha . I was officially in shock. Did I hit my head? I was dimly aware of the elevator dinging as it descended. Did I finally lose my mind?
“ Fiancé ?” Grant’s tone was as horrified as I felt. His focus returned to me, ignoring Aaron’s outstretched hand. “You’re engaged?”
Aaron replied for me. “As of a minute ago, yes.”
Grant twisted my hand over so that my knuckles faced the ceiling, inspecting. “Where’s the ring?”
“Ah, you’re misunderstanding. She proposed to me .” Aaron crossed the miniscule distance that’d separated us, and with deliberate firmness, he reached out and knocked Grant’s from mine. “And I’d thank you for keeping your hands off my fiancée, Mr.…”
“Holland.” Some of his politeness had vanished as his hands fell to his sides. “Grant Holland.”
Aaron didn’t react. “Mr. Holland.”
“Lovey,” Grant said, sounding more confused than upset. “Is this true?”
Of course it’s not true , I needed to say. In fact, I needed to say a lot of things, but the strange numbness that’d set in the moment I saw Grant had tied my tongue. Don’t touch me again , was one of them. Don’t smile at me , was another. You can take your towels and shove them up your ?—
“Oh!” Paige jumped when the elevator opened, throwing her hands up to her mouth. In one hand hung a set of keys. “Oh, no. I—I’m so sorry! I—I realized too late that I’d locked the elevator without checking. Hopefully you weren’t stuck in here long?—”
“Stuck?” Grant looked at me in concern. “You were stuck in this elevator with him ?” With the disdain dripping from his tongue, it was clear he’d already deemed Aaron unlikeable.
Aaron raised an eyebrow. “Surely we weren’t sitting in it for fun, Mr. Holland.” And then he turned to Paige. “Are you aware the ice machine on the eighth floor is broken? Terribly inconvenient.”
Grant glared at him. “Right, the ice machine being broken was inconvenient, and not being stuck in an elevator.”
“Oh, I found that rather enjoyable.”
Paige still sputtered, her cheeks flushing as she tried to maintain her cracking composure. It was like her outsides were matching my insides. “Lovey,” she whispered, as if the boys weren’t standing right there. “I said not to use the east elevator?—”
“I got on after her,” Aaron said. “So I would’ve been stuck all by my lonesome. Perhaps it was fate .” At that, he shot a look at Grant.
I was cursed. Had to be. That had to be the only logical reason for the things happening to me. Cursed.
“I know it’s late,” Grant murmured, reaching for my hand again. “But, Lovey, we should sit down and catch?—”
“I’m sorry.” The words came out almost robotic, but it was as if speaking had opened a rift inside me. Hearing my voice suddenly made everything real —and my pulse became too loud in my ears. I jerked my hand back. “But no.”
I didn’t look at Grant closely enough to see his expression. “He isn’t really your fiancé, is he?”
Paige’s eyes widened further. I bet she hadn’t expected this soap opera nightmare to come waltzing off the elevator. “ Fiancé ?”
“Lovisa has to clock out now, or else we’d love to stay and chat.” As smooth as ever, Aaron reached down and picked up my hand in his, winding our fingers together. The ease of the movement stunned me further. The gentle touch. I couldn’t help but think back to that night at the piano, when my hand was laying over top of his. So this is what the spaces between his fingers feel like . “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Holland. Have a nice trip back to your room.”
And then Aaron led me by his firm grip toward the passageway that led to the country club, giving my hand a comforting squeeze. My feet followed along on their own accord, stumbling forward in a daze.
The passageway was ghostly with all the dark windows. All the shadows were almost claustrophobic. “He hasn’t followed us,” Aaron said, checking over his shoulder. “I think we’re?—”
“He came back early,” I breathed, and now the trembling had begun to set in. My thoughts that had slowed upon his appearance now picked up into double-time, racing around me. “I told—I told Mr. Holland that I wouldn’t see Grant, but now?—”
“It’s all right.” Aaron reached out with his free hand and coasted his fingertips underneath my bangs, brushing them from my eyes, infinitely gentle. “If anyone says anything, I’ll counter it. I’ll tell them that we were never even in the elevator.”
His words were meant to be comforting, but for some reason, they couldn’t burrow deeper than the surface. Unease still gripped my stomach, spreading coldness through my body. What if he tells his dad he saw me? Why did he have to come early? Why did he have to request towels?
Aaron’s fingertips along my cheekbone had me lifting my gaze to his, finding nothing but concern written across his face. My hand felt heavy in his. Why did Grant have to come at that moment?
“Are you all right?” Aaron asked, and the slight fingertips on my cheek became something more like a caress. For a brief moment, instinct had me turning into the touch, even just a fraction of an inch. “Or shall I go back there and properly defend your honor?”
And that was what broke the moment. My honor wasn’t his to defend—I was not Fiona. I dropped his hand, pulling my head away from his touch. “You shouldn’t have told him that,” I said shakily. “You shouldn’t have told Grant I proposed to you.”
Aaron tilted his head. “But you did.”
Panic gripped me, almost as urgent and strong as it’d been when Grant stepped into the elevator. It shouldn’t have surfaced now, though. Not when the poisonous flower that was Grant Holland was still at the reception desk waiting on new towels. But here, standing with Aaron and his beautifully wide brown eyes, alone —it reared its head in full force. “I—I didn’t mean it.”
Yes, you did. In that moment, when you said it, you meant it. I shoved the thoughts down, on the verge of hyperventilating.
“When I said I’d marry you—or when I told you to marry me.” I shook my head, trying to clear it, as if the shake would ease some of the lung-constricting panic. “I didn’t mean it.”
I couldn’t explain what I was doing, what I was saying, only that everything was too much all at once.
The next time I looked up at Aaron, something had changed. The concern in his eyes had disappeared, almost as if shutters eclipsed their brightness. He no longer seemed stunned, but a hardness filled its place, transforming him entirely. “Of course you didn’t,” Aaron said flatly. “Because who ties themselves to someone out of pity?”
“It’s—it’s not that.” At least, not entirely, even though it did sound crazy. “I can’t just marry you . And you don’t want to marry me. I’m—I’m not at all put together. I’m?—”
Aaron’s eyes flashed. “I swear to God, Lovisa Hahn, if you call yourself the help one more time?—”
“I’m not impressive,” I said over top of him, breathing hard. “I didn’t go to college. My highest degree is a high school diploma. I’m not smart, or refined, or even remotely on your level?—”
“One glimpse of the ex has you rethinking your decisions, does it?” Aaron turned his face away, scowling down the dark hallway. “He was quite handsome, wasn’t he? I was hoping he’d be ugly, not looking like a Greek god in football pajamas.”
“ Aaron .”
“You’re right. I don’t want to marry you.” He turned back to me, abruptly bored. His expression was flat, lips twisting with an almost irritated frown. “If I am correctly recalling, anyway, you were the one trying to dissuade me . But marrying you and starting a business from scratch, or marrying Fiona with her winery? An easy choice, isn’t it?”
I deflated with his barbed words. They shouldn’t have hurt as much as they did. In reality, I was the one rejecting him first— after I’d been the one to offer. It made no sense to feel offended, and yet those words— an easy choice, isn’t it? —slid under my skin like the blade of a knife.
Aaron glanced down at his palms. “It seems I’ve forgotten my ice bucket.” He smoothed one hand down his arm, as if dusting for invisible lint. There’d been a tremble to the movement, though, one he couldn’t hide. “Thank you for listening to my sob story, Lovisa, but if I find out you’ve told a soul, I’ll buy your mother’s dream house only to burn it down.”
I opened my mouth to call after him, but he strode away too quickly, and my brain couldn’t come up with a response quick enough. Not that it would have mattered.
I almost felt sick as I stood there, his final words echoing in my head. I saw them for what they were—his way of lashing out. Just as I lashed out that day at the piano, calling him a fraud, he lashed out now. But it was different. That day, Aaron had just been saying something I hadn’t wanted to hear.
I was worse. I offered to marry him, to save him from marrying Fiona after he’d confessed he didn’t want to, to help him start a business to impress his parents—and then practically shouted just kidding!
But I hadn’t even thought it through before blurting the proposal. It’d been a temporary insanity, one driven by the choked quality his voice had taken on. I couldn’t marry someone I met two weeks ago . In that moment, I’d have done anything to relieve him of the pressure—now, though, what had I been thinking ?
And this time, I didn’t think a simple white flag would fix this.
Heart heavy, I forced myself to walk down the country club hallway, heading to the employee lounge to clock out, but the suffocating shadows from the passageway never left me.