20. Elijah
ELIJAH
“You haven’t been out with us in ages,” Jeremy said, pushing a glass of scotch down the length of the bar. Elijah caught it, took a long swallow, and nodded thanks to his friend for buying the round.
“Of course he hasn’t wanted to come out,” Marco said. “He’s been busy with that girlfriend of his. You didn’t really think he was going to have time for us anymore once he started up with her, did you?”
“She’s awfully hot,” Jeremy agreed. “The picture of her that ran when you first started dating—how’d you pull a woman like that?”
“I go out with women all the time,” Elijah murmured.
“Yes, but not like her,” Jeremy insisted. “The women you date—I mean, forgive me, I’m not trying to insult anyone, but you’ve always had a type, and it’s sort of… plastic.”
“That’s true,” Marco said. “I bet this one has no surgical enhancements. She’s all natural. What’s her name again? Sarah?”
“Stephanie, and don’t talk about her like that,” Elijah growled. He threw back the rest of his drink in a single swallow and held the empty glass across the bar in the direction of the bartender, seeking a refill. The man nodded.
“Why are you being so defensive?” Jeremy asked. “We’re saying she’s hot. You should bring her out with us sometime.”
Not very likely. It was impossible to imagine being out with these two and Stephanie at the same time. He was a different person when he was with her—calmer, happier, more at peace. And maybe all that was gone now, because maybe the Stephanie he had thought he’d known had never been real at all.
The bartender approached and refilled Elijah’s glass. Elijah took a savage swallow and relished the burn of the liquor. It hurt going down, and that was good.
“You’re drinking like you owe someone money,” Marco said. “What’s the deal here? She break up with you or something?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Marco raised his eyebrows. “Since when do you not want to talk about women, Elijah? Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Can we just drink?” he asked. “That’s why we came here.”
“We came here because we haven’t seen you in weeks,” Jeremy countered. “I can’t tell you how shocked I was that you picked up the phone at all, Elijah. I’ve tried calling you quite a lot recently. I was starting to think I was just getting completely blown off.”
“No,” Elijah said. “I’ve been busy, that’s all. And I don’t want to talk about Stephanie.”
The phone buzzed on the bar next to him.
“That’s probably her,” Marco said. “Go on, take the call. Tell her to come out. We’d love to meet her.”
“We’ll be good,” Jeremy pledged. “We’d both like to meet her.”
Elijah picked up his phone. He hadn’t heard from Stephanie since leaving her house the other day, and he wasn’t sure whether he was happy about that or not.
Everything that had happened between the two of them felt unresolved, and that made him anxious.
But at the same time, he didn’t want her chasing him around trying to force the conversation that he was so unready to have.
He glanced at the alert on his phone, intending not to open his texts. He didn’t want her to see that he’d read the message and decided not to respond. And he definitely wasn’t ready to respond.
But the message wasn’t from Stephanie. It was from his father.
Call me immediately. Short and to the point.
He should have known this would happen. He hadn’t been able to resist firing off an accusatory text after he had learned the truth about Stephanie.
His father was aware that Elijah knew what had happened and he was trying to reach out to explain himself.
That was why he wanted Elijah to call. He was sure of it.
And he wasn’t going to do it. If he was uncertain about Stephanie, he was downright furious with his father. Paying a woman to spend time with him—how could his father have done that? What had Elijah ever done in his life to deserve that?
Well, I have embarrassed him before.
He knew that was true. His behavior had, from time to time, been a problem. He knew he’d gotten too drunk at company events and caused a scene. He had been photographed in public places, and that had caused PR problems for his father. I was never the well-behaved son he wanted. I can admit that.
It burned him all the more to realize that his father’s scheme had worked exactly as it must have been intended to.
To think that he’d spent his time wandering around farmers’ markets and having quiet movie nights at home with the woman he was seeing…
of course that was exactly what his father had always wanted, and exactly what he would have ordered if he could have placed a custom request for Elijah’s behavior.
He set me up with a woman he thought would tame me, and she did.
He hadn’t minded at all when he’d believed it was real.
“Are you going to call her?” Marco spoke up.
“It isn’t her,” Elijah said. “It’s my father. He wants me to contact him.”
“Oh, don’t do that,” Jeremy said. “It’s Saturday night.”
“No, I’m not going to,” Elijah assured him. “I have no intention of getting dragged into whatever he wants from me, don’t worry.”
“I did think you might have turned into a little more of a workaholic than you used to be,” Jeremy confided.
“The fact that we haven’t seen you in such a long time…
I mean, who knows how you might have changed?
You’ve definitely turned into a commitment sort of person.
I never thought you’d be one to settle down. ”
“We’re back on this? I told you that I didn’t want to talk about her,” Elijah said. “And I’m not settling down.” He was going to have to tell them something—they weren’t going to leave it alone. “She wasn’t who I thought she was. She was using me.”
Marco and Jeremy exchanged glances. “She didn’t seem like that type,” Jeremy said after a moment.
“Yeah,” Elijah said bitterly. “I didn’t think so either. But here we are.”
“How do you know that’s what she was doing?”
“I found an email thread. She’s been talking to my father all this time,” Elijah said. “I’m sure that’s what he wants to talk to me about now. He was paying her to spend time with me.”
“Oh, lord.” Marco signaled the bartender. “Every time I start to think I might actually have respect for Oliver Norcross, he proves me wrong. Why would he do something like that?”
“Because he’s controlling,” Elijah growled.
“Because he has an idea in his mind of what my life ought to look like, and he has never been able to accept that I’m not living up to what he wants—even though what he wants and what I want have nothing to do with each other.
That doesn’t bother him. It’s never been about my happiness. ”
“But…” Jeremy hesitated. “But you were happy. Weren’t you?
I mean… you really liked Stephanie. I know you, Elijah.
Paying a woman to hang around you shouldn’t have worked.
You don’t get sucked in like that. You’ve always been the one to walk away.
You were with her because you really liked her.
Regardless of what your father may have thought about it all, this woman mattered to you. And she still does, doesn’t she?”
Elijah looked away. “If she was lying to me the whole time, then she was never the person I thought I cared about.”
“He’s right, Jeremy,” Marco said. “He walks away from women because he doesn’t usually get played. He doesn’t fall for it. But she must have been really good, because we all fell for it. You and I believed she was different. We can’t judge Elijah for having thought so too.”
“I don’t judge,” Jeremy said. “I just think… there must have been something worthwhile about her. Something different. That’s all.”
“Even if that were true,” Marco said stoutly, “the fact that she was collaborating with Oliver to trick him is a complete dealbreaker. How could Elijah ever trust her again? She sounds like just another gold-digger to me.”
Elijah stared down into his glass, wishing he could get lost in the liquid there.
What Marco was saying was true. It made perfect sense.
How could Elijah ever trust Stephanie again, knowing what she had done?
Every time he looked at her, he would be thinking about it.
He would be wondering whether there was more she hadn’t told him, whether she was still in touch with his father.
They don’t even know about the pregnancy. I can’t tell them that. It’s too much. But, my God, if that was part of my father’s plan I will never forgive him. And I can’t possibly forgive Stephanie either until I know for sure.
He got to his feet. “I think coming out today was a mistake,” he said. “I’m going to head home.”
“Oh, don’t do that,” Jeremy said. “We haven’t seen you in forever. Hang around. Get her out of your system. There are lots of cute women here. We’ll hook you up with someone else—someone your father has never even heard of.”
“We’ll go around to a few places with her so you can be sure to get photographed,” Marco suggested. “That’ll pay him back for messing with your life.”
But Elijah shook his head. The truth was, that solution would have appealed to him before. But now the idea of parading around town with some woman he hardly knew made him feel sick. How could it hold a candle to lazy mornings in bed with Stephanie?
She got me hooked on her, and then I found out she was poison all along.
Oh, how he didn’t want to believe it! He wanted to think she was the woman he had always believed her to be. But every time he so much as considered picking up the phone and calling her, he flinched away from the idea of it. Talking to her would be too painful now.
He had to separate from her. He had to find a way to move on, to forget all the good times. But throwing himself back into the whirlwind of his previous life didn’t feel like the way to do it.
So I guess you’re getting what you wanted after all, Dad. Lucky you—you aren’t even having to pay for it.
On the walk home, his phone buzzed again two more times with messages from his father insisting that Elijah call him. Elijah strongly considered blocking his father’s number. But in the end, he settled for silencing his phone and tucking it in his pocket.
There was no one he wanted to hear from.