11. Stephanie
STEPHANIE
“I’ve got the tickets,” Elijah announced, holding them up. “You sure you want to do this?”
“Why?” Stephanie grinned at him. “You’re not afraid of Ferris wheels, are you?”
“No, but this is the second-largest one on the west coast,” he pointed out. “It is kind of a big deal. We’re going to be up pretty high. I wouldn’t want you to get nervous.”
His usual cocky smile had come back, and she was glad to see it. It was good to know that he hadn’t stayed upset about his father’s actions. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I love heights. And I love rides. Besides, we’ll be able to see all of San Valentino from up there, and doesn’t that sound fun?”
She pulled him into the line. She was flirting and she knew it—touching his hand, giggling at things he said even when they weren’t jokes.
It felt good to cut loose with him a bit, to allow herself to stop worrying about appearances and what everything meant.
If Oliver knew they were here, he wouldn’t approve, and in some way that had set her free.
What happened tonight wasn’t part of the agreement.
What happened tonight was real, was between Elijah and herself.
She wouldn’t even report this outing to Oliver.
She would keep it between the two of them, and it would be only theirs.
They waited in line until the giant Ferris wheel stopped, and the ride operator beckoned them forward. He opened the door to the gondola, ushered them in, and latched it closed behind them. The world was whisked away.
Stephanie sucked in a breath. She had told the truth—she wasn’t exactly afraid of heights. Still, the wheel was moving faster than she had expected it to, and she clung to the edge of her seat for a moment as she got her bearings.
Elijah was staring out the window at the ground as it fell away. His good humor had left him as quickly as it had arrived. He was back in his head now, and she was sure he was thinking about his father, about the argument they’d had and the fact that his speech had been canceled.
She wished she knew the right thing to say to cheer him up.
“I really was looking forward to hearing your speech,” she told him at last. “I think it would have been really good.”
“Oh, it wasn’t that great.”
“But you do seem disappointed not to have been able to give it.”
He shrugged. “I told you, it’s not that big a deal to me. I just feel like I wasted my time writing it, that’s all.”
She waited. That wasn’t all. She could feel it. There was more, and if she was quiet, maybe he would keep talking.
Elijah sighed. “It’s just that he always does this.”
“Asks you to write speeches?”
“No, not speeches—not necessarily. I really don’t care about the speech.
It’s the way he looks at me, you know? It’s the things he says.
He pulled my speech because he was convinced that I was going to say or do something to embarrass him.
But I wouldn’t have. It was going to be good.
Maybe he’d have even liked it, if he had given it a chance.
” He raked a hand through his hair. “That’s the thing.
He always starts from the assumption that I’m going to let him down.
He just decides that’s what’s going to happen. ”
“Always?” Stephanie felt sick to her stomach.
Was that true? Maybe she had judged the situation too hastily.
All right, so Elijah was a bit of a player, and he had certainly wasted no time in putting the moves on her.
But that didn’t make him a terrible person.
And yet, when his father had explained to her that he needed someone to babysit him and keep him out of trouble, she had just accepted that without question.
She had stepped in to fill that role, never allowing herself to think that maybe Oliver Norcross was underestimating his son.
It isn’t any of my business… is it?
It wouldn’t have been before. When this had all started, she wouldn’t have been able to summon an opinion about whether Oliver Norcross was being fair to Elijah.
It was nothing to do with her. But it did matter now.
Like it or not, she’d picked a side when she had agreed to Oliver’s deal.
And now, for the first time, she was wondering whether she had chosen the wrong side.
The Ferris wheel ground to a halt, leaving the pair of them suspended at the very top. The gondola rocked slowly back and forth. Elijah gazed out at the world below.
“I know it’s kind of silly,” he said at last. “I know I shouldn’t care.
But… I can’t help it. I want him to approve of me.
I want him to think I’m living well, and not to doubt all my choices.
As it is, I feel like he flinches every time I walk into a room.
He looks at me like I’m a stick of dynamite that might explode and mess up his whole life.
” He shook his head. “I am not the son that man wanted, that’s for sure. ”
“But I don’t see why,” Stephanie said. “What’s his problem with you? Why is he so unhappy?”
“He wanted someone serious and business-oriented to take over when he retired,” Elijah explained.
“I think he still wants me to do it, but he definitely questions whether I’m capable or not.
Sometimes I wonder whether he would have retired years ago if he thought I was up to the task.
I know he’s nowhere near ready to leave the company in my hands. ”
“But you do want it?” she asked him.
“I want him to think I could handle it, that’s all,” he said. Whether I want it or not… it almost feels irrelevant. He thinks I’ll burn the place down.”
“Metaphorically, I hope.” She was going for humor, but it didn’t seem to land the way she had hoped it would. He gave her a small smile, but nothing more.
Stephanie leaned forward, bracing her knees on her elbows.
Her movement caused the gondola to rock slightly, and Elijah leaned in too, to balance it out.
He seemed to have done so without really thinking about it, but Stephanie was immediately aware of how close together the two of them were.
She could smell him, warm and musky, and for the first time, she wanted to kiss him.
If I’m ever going to do that, it should be tonight. Tonight is the night when nothing counts, the night when it doesn’t matter what his father would say. Tonight I have permission to do whatever I want to. At least, I think I do.
But she couldn’t. It would have been dishonest, and that mattered more tonight than it ever had, somehow. She sat back quickly, determined to avoid falling any deeper into the moment than she already had.
The Ferris wheel began to move again. That seemed to break the spell, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Elijah looked away once more.
“I don’t know,” he murmured. “I just wish there was a way I could show him that I’m not what he thinks I am.
That I’m better than that, even if I’m not the picture-perfect son he hoped I’d be.
I’m not a mirror image of him, but that doesn’t mean I’m a complete failure, and I wish he saw that. That’s all.”
“Give him time,” Stephanie suggested, feeling helpless. “Maybe he will.”
But Elijah was right. What he was describing… that was exactly the way his father had spoken about him. She knew now that he didn’t see it that way. He believed he was more together than Oliver did. But she couldn’t be sure which one of them was right.
They swung around to the bottom of the Ferris wheel. The ride came to a stop, and the operator opened the door. “Hope you folks had a nice trip!” he beamed.
They got out. Stephanie cast about for something to say and came up empty-handed. It was Elijah who found words.
“Shall we go down on the beach?” he asked her. “Take a walk?”
“I’d like that,” she agreed.
He moved closer to her, holding out a hand for her to take, and she only hesitated for a moment.
It was dark here. As they moved off the pier and into the sand, it became impossible to see what they were doing.
The moonlight glinted off the water, but it didn’t illuminate their hands, and though Stephanie could feel his palm pressed against hers and his fingers curling around the back of her hand, the lack of seeing it made it seem less real, somehow.
It did feel very good. It would have been easy to imagine going on like this for a very long time, walking down the beach hand in hand. Forgetting about the rest of the world, forgetting about all the things that complicated their relationship.
Here in the darkness, Stephanie allowed herself to set aside the person who had gone behind Elijah’s back and made a deal with his father. The person who had (she could think the word now that she had stepped away from it) betrayed him.
Yes, she’d betrayed him. She went on betraying him every moment she didn’t tell him the truth about how and why the two of them had ended up here together.
But how could I possibly tell him? How could I tell him that now, when he’s already so upset about his father’s lack of faith in him?
How would it make him feel to know that I’m nothing but another piece of evidence of that lack of faith?
No, I can’t tell him. I would be doing it to satisfy my own conscience, not because knowing is what’s best for him.
Maybe. Maybe that was true. Then again, maybe she was using that as an excuse because she knew all too well that he wasn’t going to want anything to do with her once he had discovered the truth. He would push her away with both hands.
How bizarre it suddenly seemed that just days ago she had been anxious for tonight to come so that she would be able to stop seeing him! Suddenly, she didn’t want to stop at all.
Maybe it was because she had seen a new side of him tonight. It was impossible to hear those insecurities and not start to think of him as more human—and, as a consequence, to like him more.
Maybe it wasn’t that at all. Maybe it was just the fact that they were walking on the beach together, hand in hand, listening to the rush of the waves, looking up at the light of the moon. Maybe that was what was making Stephanie feel like Elijah was someone she had to hold on to.
He stopped walking and looked out over the water. “I’ve always loved the moon,” he said quietly. “When I was a kid, I wanted to become an astronaut.”
“Did you? What happened to that idea?”
He snorted. “My father told me astronauts had to get straight A’s,” he said.
“And I used to get A’s and B’s. Not good enough.
Of course, I was in the second grade at the time, so I probably could have brought those grades up by the time I was ready for astrophysics.
” He shrugged. “I turned out to be six feet tall, so I don’t think I could have been an astronaut anyway. ”
“But he didn’t have to discourage you,” Stephanie murmured.
“I don’t know.” Elijah was still staring out over the water.
“That’s the thing I’ve never known. Is he discouraging me, or is he just being realistic?
I can’t lie to you, Stephanie, I haven’t always been the most reliable person in the world.
I haven’t been a beacon of good behavior.
My father does have some reasons not to trust me.
I think he gives too much weight to them, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”
“We all have our moments,” Stephanie told him. “We all have things we’ve done—things we wish we could have done differently, things that make it hard for people to trust us.”
That’s certainly true in my case.
She could only hope that Elijah would be able to find a way to go on trusting her once he found out what she had done. But the chances of that were slim and she knew it.
It was far more likely that she had set herself up for a disappointment here. And now Stephanie found herself wondering whether the promise of funding for SilkSoft was really worth all this trouble and heartache.