11. Elliot
— ? —
Elliot
I don’t sleep.
I try. After finishing my calls, after setting the lawyers in motion and making sure the security team knows to keep Celine off the property, I go to my bedroom and lie down and close my eyes.
It’s useless.
Every time I start to drift off, I see her face. The way she looked when I kissed her. The tiny gasp she made when I deepened it. The way her body melted into mine, like she’d been waiting for that moment just as long as I had.
Three hours. That’s how long I lie there, staring at the ceiling, replaying the kiss in excruciating detail. The taste of her. The feel of her hair wrapped around my fingers. The sound she made when I pulled away, a soft sound of protest that went straight to my cock.
Fuck.
At 3 AM, I give up.
I throw off the covers and pace to the window. The city sprawls below me, all lights and shadows, but I don’t see any of it. I’m seeing Cassie Wallace, standing in my living room in that red dress, taking on Celine with a fury that made something primal stir in my chest.
She’s magnificent. That’s the word that keeps circling in my brain. Magnificent.
I’ve known a lot of women. I dated some, slept with more. None of them have ever gotten under my skin like this. None of them have ever made me feel like my carefully constructed control is one wrong move from shattering completely.
And I’ve known her for how long? A day? Two days, if you count the gala where we first met?
I remember that night. The charity event where Charles Wallace spent the entire evening ignoring his wife while she stood by his side looking like she wished she was anywhere else.
I remember thinking she deserved better.
I remember thinking, if she was mine, I’d never let her stand alone in a crowd.
Then I pushed the thought away, because she wasn’t mine, because wanting another man’s wife was a complication I didn’t need, because I had my own problems to deal with.
But I couldn’t stop watching her. The way she smiled when someone spoke to her, genuine and warm and nothing like the practiced masks everyone else wore.
The way she tried to engage Charles in conversation and he brushed her off.
The way her shoulders slumped, just slightly, when she thought no one was looking.
I noticed, I always noticed.
And now she’s here. Two floors above me. Sleeping in my guest room. Wearing my t-shirt, probably, since I don’t think she packed pajamas in her rush to escape her old life.
The image of her in my clothes does things to me I’m not prepared to examine.
I need a drink.
The house is quiet as I make my way to the kitchen. I pour myself two fingers of whiskey and stand at the counter, willing the alcohol to calm me down.
It doesn’t work.
I hear a sound from the stairs and look up.
Cassie.
She’s wearing one of my t-shirts. It must have been in the guest room closet, leftover from God knows when, but on her it falls to mid-thigh and makes her look impossibly soft.
Her hair is loose, tangled from tossing and turning, and her face is bare of makeup, revealing a scatter of freckles across her nose that I didn’t notice before.
She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“Couldn’t sleep?” I manage.
“No.” She hovers at the bottom of the stairs, arms wrapped around herself. “You?”
“No.”
She moves into the kitchen, keeping the island between us like a barrier. I watch her take in the whiskey glass, the darkness, the general evidence of my inability to shut off my brain.
“I keep replaying it,” she says finally. “Everything that happened. Charles, Celine, the confrontation, the kiss. All of it, on a loop.”
“That’s normal. Your brain is trying to process.”
“Is that what this is? Processing?” She laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Because it feels more like drowning.”
“It gets better.”
“Does it?”
“Eventually.” I set down my glass. “The first few days are the worst. Everything feels unreal. You keep expecting to wake up and find out it was all a nightmare.”
“Speaking from experience?”
“Speaking from observation.” I move around the island, stopping a few feet away from her. “I watched my mother go through something similar when she left my father. The sleepless nights. The constant replaying. The feeling that the ground has shifted under your feet.”
“Your parents are divorced?”
“Never married. I’m the product of an affair.” I say it flatly, without emotion. It’s an old wound, long scarred over. “My father was already married when I was conceived. He paid for my education, gave me his name, but I was never really part of his family. Just a reminder of a mistake he made.”
Cassie is quiet for a moment. “That’s awful.”
“It’s life.” I shrug. “I stopped needing his approval a long time ago. Built my own empire, my own name. Everything I have, I earned myself.”
“Is that why you married Celine? To prove you didn’t need his family?”
The question catches me off guard. “What makes you say that?”
“You told me earlier. About the pregnancy scare, the pressure from your family. But you also said you could have walked away once the scare turned out to be nothing. You stayed.” She tilts her head. “Why?”
I should deflect. I should change the subject. Instead, I hear myself answering honestly.
“Because it was easier than fighting. Because my family finally approved of something I’d done. Because I thought, if I can’t have what I actually want, maybe I can at least have peace.”
“What did you actually want?”
I look at her. Standing in my kitchen at 3 AM, wearing my shirt, her hair a mess and her feet bare and her eyes full of questions I don’t know how to answer.
“Something real,” I say. “Someone who wanted me for me. Not for my money, not for my name, not for what I could give them. Just... me.”
“And Celine wasn’t that.”
“Celine wanted a lifestyle. I was a means to an end.” I pick up my whiskey, drain the rest of it. “I knew that going in. I thought I could make it work anyway. I was wrong.”
Cassie is quiet for a moment. I watch her process my words, watch her decide what to do with them.
“Can I ask you something?” she says finally.
“You can ask. I might not answer.”
“Earlier. When you kissed me.” She swallows. “You said it wasn’t entirely an act.”
“I did.”
“What did you mean?”
I should lie. I should tell her I was just selling the performance, that it didn’t mean anything, that she shouldn’t read into it.
But I’m tired. Tired of pretending. Tired of calculating every word, every action, every response. And there’s a pull to her, to standing in this dark kitchen in the middle of the night, that makes me want to tell the truth.
“I meant that I’ve wanted to kiss you since the moment I saw you at that gala,” I say.
“I meant that when you walked into my office today, looking like an avenging angel ready to burn down the world, I wanted to drag you across my desk and find out what sounds you’d make if I touched you.
I meant that every minute you’ve been in my house, I’ve been thinking about doing things to you that would make us both forget our names. ”
Her breath catches.
“Elliot.”
“I know the timing is terrible.” I step closer. “I know you’re going through hell. I know the smart thing would be to keep my distance, to let you heal, to not complicate an already complicated situation.”
“But?”
“But I’ve spent my entire adult life doing the smart thing.” Another step. “And I’m tired of it.”
We’re close now. Close enough that I can smell her shampoo, something floral from the guest bathroom. Close enough that I can see her pulse fluttering in her throat.
“I’m scared,” she whispers.
“Of me?”
“Of how much I want this.” Her eyes meet mine. “I spent five years with a man who made me feel invisible. Who made me doubt myself, my instincts, my worth. And now you’re standing here telling me you’ve wanted me since we met, and I don’t know whether to believe you or run.”
“I’m not Charles.”
“I know that.”
“Then trust me.” I reach out, tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “Not blindly. Not completely. Just enough to let this happen.”
“And if it’s a mistake?”
“Then it’s a mistake we make together.” My hand cups her jaw. “But I don’t think it will be.”
She looks at me for a moment. I watch her weigh the risks, calculate the odds, fight against years of learned caution.
Then she rises on her tiptoes and kisses me.
It’s different from before. No audience. No performance. Just her mouth on mine, soft and questioning, asking for a thing she’s not sure she’s allowed to want.
I give it to her.
I kiss her back with everything I’ve been holding in. All the want, all the hunger, all the frustrated desire that’s been building since the moment I saw her across that crowded ballroom. My hands slide into her hair, tilt her head back, and I devour her.
She makes a sound against my mouth, a moan or a whimper or noise in between, and it snaps the last thread of my control.
I lift her onto the counter. Her legs wrap around my waist. My shirt rides up her thighs as I press between them, and the heat of her against me is almost enough to undo me completely.
“Elliot.” She gasps my name as my mouth moves to her neck. “We should, I don’t know if we should.”
“Tell me to stop.” I drag my teeth along her pulse point. “Say the word and I’ll stop.”
“I don’t want you to stop.”
“Then I won’t.”
I kiss her again, deeper this time, my tongue sliding against hers. She tastes like toothpaste and desperation and a flavor uniquely her, one I’m already addicted to.
“Upstairs,” she breathes.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
I lift her off the counter. She weighs nothing in my arms, her legs still locked around my waist, her fingers gripping my shoulders. I carry her up the stairs, down the hall, into my bedroom.
The bed is massive. I lay her down in the center of it, and she looks up at me with dark eyes, her hair spread across my pillows like a promise.
“God, you’re beautiful,” I hear myself say.
“So are you.”