Chapter 26
Ellie
Istill smell like coconut oil, and I have no desire to wash it off.
Everything about the party was bliss, and ever since I got home, I’ve been replaying the details in my head.
While I didn’t spend a whole lot of time with Damien, it was beyond lovely to be able to hang out in the pool, sipping a Salty Dog and chatting with the other hotel employees.
Even though I am just Damien’s assistant, it gave off the vibe that I was back in the industry, at my old job before everything that was ruined by a name I refuse to mention because I don’t want to ruin this moment.
It wasn’t too shabby that I could feel Damien’s brooding eyes on me the entire time, too.
The fact that he allowed me to be more than an arm’s reach away the entire time, drinking and socializing, and having conversations he couldn’t monitor gave me a sense of power.
It made me feel like there was some sort of small shift between us.
Like maybe, on some small level, he is starting to trust me.
Right now, though, I am not over thinking anything.
After we left, Damien was his normal quiet self on the wonderfully air conditioned car ride back to the Redwood other than softly telling me I could take the rest of the day off.
It was around three in the afternoon, and Luca was getting out of school and heading to his friend Teddy’s house for a sleepover.
That meant I would have an entire, luxurious afternoon and evening to myself, which also means wine and Bridgerton.
I rent a small home far away enough from the strip that I don’t feel the chaos of it, but close enough that I can still see the skyline lights at night.
I pick up laundry and Luca’s toys. I clean the kitchen and vacuum, making everything feel organized and fresh.
As a single mom with an unpredictable job, it’s easy to let things go a little on a daily basis and fall into the pit of survival mode.
An afternoon to hit the reset button is wonderful.
I have the second season of Bridgerton playing in the background as I pour myself another glass of wine and scroll through Thai restaurants that deliver when suddenly there’s a knock at the door.
“Coming,” I say just as I add pineapple fried rice to my cart on the app.
I pad across the original hardwood floors barefoot and brush my hands on the cotton shorts I changed into when I got home.
I open the door, expecting to see a solicitor or maybe my neighbor Marjorie, a thin, smiling older woman who is always offering me veggies from her little garden. I am not expecting to see Damien.
I blink twice, but sure enough, Damien is standing on my steps still wearing his too-dark-for-this-weather suit and his notorious furrowed brow.
“Oh,” the word escapes my lips and evaporates immediately in the dry heat. It’s the only reaction I seem to have because my boss in his high-end suit is the last thing I thought I’d see on my rundown doorstep.
“Can I come in?” he asks, and I realize that my mouth is open.
“Yes,” I nod, stepping aside. I close the door behind me, and Damien proceeds to simply stand like a statue, his head not moving while his eyes slowly survey the room. “I was just cleaning up,” I say after a long, awkward moment.
“For me?” he asks, and I can’t tell if that was a joke or not. I find it hard to tell at all when he’s joking.
“Would you like some wine?” I ask. His facial expression hasn’t changed, but his eyes are very alert as they sweep over the room again.
The old leather couch I found at an estate sale.
The bright red and purple rug covering most of the living room floor that I got at a flea market.
The funky lamps and array of random art hanging on the walls that the landlord let me paint.
Peacock blue. The kitchen cabinets were without a doubt handcrafted in the fifties.
Not to mention all the houseplants I have miraculously kept alive.
“Not right now, thank you,” he answers. I, on the other hand, am in desperate need of the glass of wine I just poured and snatch it off the counter, taking another sip before the world’s most unnerving house visit continues. “You have…a lot of plants.”
I can’t tell if he’s making small talk or criticizing me. Now that I think about it, I’ve noticed that about him. Unless a conversation is business related, his small talk tends to sound a lot like criticism. It makes me wonder if he doesn’t have a lot of friends outside the office.
“I guess I like taking care of things,” I answer.
He nods stiffly and only once. “Cactus though? Don’t you see enough of them outside?”
I study him for a moment, and my lips quirk in the corners.
He is out of his comfort zone, and it is wild to watch.
At the hotel, Damien is in charge. Every inch of every floor belongs to him, designed by him, creating a habitat that suits, well, him.
But here, in my little rental home that I am over a hundred percent sure is a far cry from his own luxurious home on the other side of the city, he doesn’t know how to function.
It’s kind of funny.
“Well,” I say as I reach for my phone. “I was about to order Thai food if you’re hungry.”
“I’m not staying,” he quickly answers. “Not for long.”
I nod slowly. “So, why are you here?”
“I never read your application,” he says, and it’s a foul ball to the head. Of all the things to fly out of his mouth, I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting that.
“I–”
“Or your resume,” he cuts me off. Then he rakes a hand through his hair.
His eyes are darting around the room, only meeting mine every couple of seconds.
None of this makes sense. Why would he come here instead of calling?
Why is he just now admitting that he knew nothing about me when he hired me?
Why is he a man who never gets even the slightest bit anxious about literally anything, and yet, right now, he looks like he’s about to crawl out of his own skin.
Then it hits me, and my heart drops from my chest into the pit of my stomach.
He found something in my resume he did not like, and now he’s going to fire me. I set my phone down without completing the order. I’ve lost my appetite, and I can physically feel my face flush.
“Listen, Damien,” I start in, sitting down at my dining room table. “I know the last few years of my work history are…less than great. But my life hasn’t really allowed me to have the kind of job I used to. The upper end of the hotel industry doesn’t care how hard your life is at home–”
“Tell me about the job you had before,” he cuts in as he pulls out a chair.
I take in a deep breath. Not because it’s hard to talk about, but because it’s something that hurts every time I think about it.
“I was working at the Suerte Hotel. It wasn’t one of the best hotels by any means, but it’s no continental breakfast kind of place either,” I say with a smile, but his mouth stays slack.
“They accepted interns, so I figured it was a good starting point.”
“You went to college,” he says, and I’m a little surprised. Has he even looked over my application or is this a test?
“I did. Marketing and business. Double major.”
His eyes dilate ever so slightly as surprise flashes over his typically unshakable face. It’s a small victory for me getting any kind of rise out of Damien Graves. I pocket it and go on.
“From there I was hired for their HR department, which I didn’t love. But it showed them my PR skills. From there, the advertising department was where I began to move up the ladder at a rather nice pace.”
“And what happened?” he interrupts again. “Why did it stop there?”
I chew on my lip for a moment while turning my glass in a circle on the table. This time I am the one who can’t make eye contact. “I got…involved…with a man in my department. He was a new hire at the time, and I was sort of his mentor.”
“You were mentoring a man?” he asks, and I zero in on him.
“Yes. Is that so hard to believe?”
After a two second staring contest, Damien blinks. “No. I suppose it’s not.”
“Eventually we became rather competitive, and I guess that sort of led to some kind of chemistry. We began seeing each other. It lasted a little over a year.”
“What happened?” he asks.
“He cheated on me,” I answer with a straight posture. I don’t like talking about it, and if I don’t shield myself in some way, I will probably become a blubbery mess because it ruined the trajectory of my life.
“He cheated on you,” Damien echoes.
“With the secretary.”
“Of course he fucking did,” he mutters, leaning back.
“After that, things just got messy. People gossiped, took sides, and eventually it was easier just to leave.”
“You resigned because some dick who was most likely less qualified than you wormed his way in, took your job and then left you for a woman whose highest qualification is answering phones?” he asks sharply.
“He made my life miserable. So yes. I left.”
“You know you could have taken his ass down, right?” he asks.
“It’s not worth it.”
“Your job isn’t worth it?”
“Not that job, no. Even if I did love it. Once I realized the kind of people I was working with were not people I could trust, I realized there had to be something better out there.”
Damien leans in, and this is suddenly feeling like an interrogation. “Your next job was at a dentist’s office.”
The words sting, but I keep my head up. “So you did read the resume.”
“Today,” he admits.
“The Suerte fiasco left a bit of a blemish on my professional reputation. It was easier for me just to duck out of the industry at the time. Even if that meant taking a low-paying job that I was overqualified for.”
“You let him win,” he says.
“I protected myself,” I combat.
After that, Damien motions with his hand for me to go on.
“I was depressed. I’m not going to lie. I lost my job and the man I thought I loved all in one fell swoop.
And while I was, as you put it, doing nothing more than answering phones at a pediatric dentist’s office, he was working his way up the ladder.
Way up the ladder. But eventually, I put myself back out there again. ”
“But your next job wasn’t until a year later. Waitressing…” he points out, and little by little I feel like a balloon slowly losing all its air.
“I meant in the dating department. I got a little adventurous.”
Damien scowls at that, and it’s obvious how uninterested he is in it. “I don’t see what a couple of one-night stands has to do with your career going off the rails.”
“I got pregnant,” I tell him, and for the first time I see actual shock on Damien’s face.
He turns, looking at the small, worn-out shoes by the door. Before he got here, they were thrown about. Now they are neatly lined up. Then he looks at the fridge, covered in crayon and marker art work. His eyes, dark and unreadable, land on mine.
“You have a kid?” he asks.
I am lost. He didn’t know? “I do. A son. He’s five. And once he was born, it kind of tanked my options career wise.” There is a brief silence between us before I ask the looming question. “Is that going to be a problem?”
Damien sniffs sharply and stands up. Then he turns his back to me and puts his hands on his hips as he looks around the room again.
“I am not a family man myself.”
And if I didn’t know any better, I’d say I just tanked my career twice. I should have known better than to think a man like him would hire a woman with a kid to be an all-inclusive personal assistant.