Chapter 13 #2
As a teenager, it never bothered me; after all, it was all I knew growing up. But watching Elliott’s brow scrunch and his jaw muscle tick as he took in the bare walls, I couldn’t help but want one childhood photo to show him.
I bet his family home was full of childhood memories and photos of him and his brothers.
“Do your family dinners usually look like this?” Elliott asked as we entered the dining room. As per usual, the room was dressed to impress. Several huge bouquets of white lilies, Maya’s favorite, adorned the long table. “It’s—I’m not sure if impressive is the right word to use.”
There was a lot, and I mean a lot of negative things I could say about my mother. But she knew how to dress a room. For crying out loud, it was supposed to be a simple family dinner, and she had solid gold and pearl candelabras.
“More like ridiculous and unnecessary,” I scoffed. “We normally do these dinners every month, and I swear the table gets more extravagant each time.”
His eyes widened. “It gets more extravagant than this?”
“Trust me, this is the tip of the freaking Titanic-ending-sized iceberg.”
“I take it you’re not a fan, huh?”
“It doesn’t exactly scream family dinner time, does it?” I plucked a petal from a lily. “I mean, when you have dinner with your family, does the dinner table look like the Queen of freaking England is joining you?”
“Do my niece’s fairy tea-parties count?”
I smiled despite the nerves rattling freely in my chest. “You have tea parties with your niece?”
The corners of his eyes softened. “Penny is quite legendary when it comes to her infamous tea-parties, and honestly, it would be easier to tame a lion than it would be to say no to her when she asks me to strap on a pair of fairy wings, douse myself in glitter, and join her.”
Imagining him sipping tea with a pair of plastic fairy wings all for the sake of his niece made my poor excuse for ovaries almost explode.
“What age is she?”
“Her birthday passed a couple weeks ago. She turned seven and still is a firm believer that magic and good exist in this world.” Elliott’s smile wavered. “Frederic surprised her with a trip to Disneyland and flew the whole family out to celebrate with her. Well, everyone except me.”
“Hold up. He didn’t invite you?!” I gasped. “I realize everyone calls him the Ice Man, but fuck me, that’s colder than cold. That’s heartless, not to mention freaking cruel.”
How dare he!
The next time I bumped into Frederic Dade at an event, I was going to give him a piece of my mind, right after I stepped on his foot with my pointiest high-heeled for good measure.
“No, he did. Many times. But with work, the sudden move, chasing the promotion, and with how everything went down between us seven months ago…” Elliott’s sentence tailed off into silence.
I waited for him to elaborate, to give me even a small crumb about his life before he moved to New York, anything about him that would satisfy my building curiosity.
Curiosity that was not at all fueled by attraction…
Instead, he cleared his throat and grabbed the back of a dining chair. “I couldn’t bring myself to go; it wouldn’t have been the right thing, not when I still have amends to make.”
I didn’t have the faintest idea what happened seven months ago, and from the pain that was etched all over his face, I knew it wasn’t right to ask.
After all, it wasn’t my place to ask. That was what real girlfriends were for.
Resting my hand on his arm, firm bicep muscles tightened beneath my touch. “Elliott, I realize our situation is unique and has an expiry date.”
A muscle in his jaw bounced.
“But I get the whole family’s being complicated thing, so if you ever need someone to talk to, you can always count on me, even after this is all said and done.”
Hazel eyes flickered to mine, right on time for me to see a swirl of regret and guilt before he got the chance to blink it away.
And sweet hell, it nearly broke my heart.
Before either of us had the chance to say anything more, Maya and Daniel finally showed up. Not a single apology for being late, or even a recognition that Elliott and I were there; they simply sat down right as my mother made her grand appearance with Fernando in tow.
My step-father looked like he had as much interest in licking battery acid as eating with us.
My mother instantly zoned in on Elliott like a shark smelling fresh blood. “Finally, I get to meet the mystery man that Livi has been hiding from us all.”
“Get ready,” I whispered to Elliott, before turning to my mother. “Mamá, this is my boyfriend, Elliott.”
Any whisper of what Elliott felt before vanished and was replaced with an earth-shattering smile. “It’s a pleasure, Ms. Garcia.”
“Charmed, I’m sure.” She grabbed a bottle of champagne from the table. “Gretchen clearly is losing her sight and mind if she thinks we are drinking this swill tonight. Livi, go and get the vintage bottle of Dom Perignon.”
Oh, fan-bloody-tastic, she is in one of these moods.
“There’s nothing wrong with what Gretchen picked, mamá.”
“We aren’t drinking that stuff. She may as well have served us sewage water. It won’t do, not when we have a guest.”
“Don’t put yourself on my account, Ms. Garcia,” Elliott said. “I’m happy with water for the night.”
“Water? No, that won’t do.” She thrusted the bottle into my hands before turning her attention swiftly back to Elliott. “Livi will get us the good stuff. After all, we have much to celebrate tonight. A wedding, and my darling Livi finally seeing sense and moving on.”
My back teeth collided together. “Maybe Maya can go to the wine cellar instead of me.”
“Your sister has already sat down; you’re still on your feet. Think of it as a way to work up that hearty appetite of yours,” my mother said, completely oblivious to Elliott’s grip on the chair’s back tightening. “Your boyfriend will survive five minutes without you, carino.”
Leaving Elliott alone was a bad idea, especially with my mother being in one of her infamous swing moods—it’s when she was most volatile, unpredictable, and downright nasty.
But when Elliott finally relinquished his grip on the chair and placed a hand on my waist, all concern, hell, all thought flew right out the window.
All I could think about was the way his impressively large hand curled perfectly around my hipbone, the smell of his aftershave, and the soft scratch of his unshaven stubble as he pressed his lips so close to mine that one wrong move and we’d be kissing.
Every single cell in my body seized.
“I’ll be fine, I can handle this,” he whispered on my skin. “Relax. You need to take a deep breath for me.”
An impossible ask, because my lungs were clearly now solely for decoration purposes.
“Did I tell you how breathtaking you look tonight?”
Heat crept into my cheeks as I gripped the bottle tighter to stop my hands from trembling like some giddy schoolgirl.
“Hurry back, Peaches.” The echo of lips burned on my skin as he slowly moved away and sat down.
Turning on my heel, I nearly tripped over my own feet running down to the wine cellar.
When I say there was enough wine in Fernando’s collection to quench an Italian city, it was no word of a lie.
The collection and the money’s worth were absolute insanity, especially considering Fernando didn’t even drink the stuff. He built it for my mother, keeping it well stocked with expensive bottles without hesitation.
No wonder it was the pièce de resistance of the house tours my mother forced guests to take when they visited.
Grabbing the bottle I was sent down for, I turned to go straight back upstairs to save Elliott from the lion’s den, only to be met by an oh-so-familiar pair of brown eyes and mop of sunny blond hair.
“Holy shit, where did you come from?!” I gasped, grabbing my chest and barely managing not to drop the champagne bottle. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!”
“My bad,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Then why the hell are you standing there like some silent serial killer?!”
“I just… I wanted to, you know… Sorry, fuck, I really didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“You could have given me a freaking heart attack!”
“I’m so sorry, Liv.”
The healing lines etched around my heart threatened to rip back open at those four little words. The words that I waited to hear for all the hurt he had done.
Maybe one day it would get easier being alone with him, but today was not that day.
“What are you doing down here, Daniel?”
His throat bobbed slowly. “We need to talk.”