17. Elliot
— ? —
Elliot
I watch her sleep.
It’s creepy, I know. Stalkerish, even. But I can’t help myself. In the soft gray light of early morning, with her hair spread across my pillow and her face relaxed in sleep, Cassie is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
And she’s mine.
The thought sends a possessive thrill through me that would probably alarm a therapist. I’ve never been like this before.
I’ve had women, plenty of them, but I’ve never wanted to mark someone, claim them, make sure everyone who looks at them knows they’re taken.
I’ve never woken up hours before I needed to just so I could watch someone breathe.
But with Cassie, that’s all I can think about.
She stirs, mumbling something incoherent, and I hold my breath until she settles again. I’m not ready for her to wake up yet. I’m not ready for this moment to end.
It’s been three days since the function. Three days since she destroyed Charles in front of everyone who matters. Three days since she fell into my bed and showed me what I’ve been missing my entire miserable life.
I haven’t been able to think about anything else since.
My phone has been buzzing with work notifications for hours. There are contracts to review, calls to make, decisions that require my attention. I used to be obsessive about work. It was the only thing that mattered, the only thing that made me feel like I had value.
Now I can’t bring myself to care about any of it. Not when she’s lying next to me.
She shifts again, rolling toward me, and her hand finds my chest in her sleep. The touch is innocent, unconscious, but it sends electricity racing through my veins. I’m already hard, have been since I woke up next to her, and the feeling of her palm against my bare skin isn’t helping.
I should let her sleep. She was up late last night, reviewing the divorce paperwork her lawyer sent over, and she needs the rest.
But then she opens her eyes, and the sleepy smile she gives me wipes out every noble intention I had.
“Morning,” she murmurs.
“Morning.” My voice is rough with want. “Sleep well?”
“Mmmm.” She stretches, and the sheet slips down to reveal the curve of her breast. “Best sleep I’ve had in years. Must be the mattress.”
“The mattress.” I roll onto my side, facing her. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”
“Well, the mattress is very comfortable.” Her hand slides down my chest, tracing the lines of my abs with deliberate slowness. “And the company isn’t bad either.”
“Not bad?” I catch her hand before it can go any lower. “I think I need to try harder.”
“Oh?” Her eyes are dark with mischief. “What did you have in mind?”
I show her.
***
An hour later, we’re finally out of bed and attempting to be productive humans. Cassie is in the kitchen making breakfast, wearing nothing but one of my shirts, and I’m pretending to check emails while actually watching her move around my space like she belongs there.
Because she does. She belongs here. With me.
I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. When I married Celine, it was a transaction. A way to get my family off my back, a way to fulfill an obligation that I’d created through my own carelessness. I never expected to feel anything for her, and I never did.
But Cassie... Cassie is different. She walked into my office spitting fire and demanding revenge, and something inside me recognized her. Saw her. Wanted her with a ferocity that took my breath away.
I told myself it was just physical. She’s beautiful, after all, and I’m not dead. It made sense that I would want her.
But it’s more than that. It’s the way she laughs when she’s being devious. The way she refuses to back down from anyone, including me. The way she looks at me like I’m a person, not a bank account or a status symbol or a means to an end.
She sees me. The real me. And she hasn’t run away yet.
“You’re staring,” she says without turning around.
“I’m appreciating.”
“You’ve been ‘appreciating’ for the past twenty minutes.” She glances over her shoulder with a smirk that does things to my self-control. “Don’t you have a company to run?”
“It can run itself for a few more hours.” I abandon the pretense of working and cross to stand behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist. “I’d rather run my hands over you.”
“Insatiable.” But she leans back into my chest, tilting her head to give me access to her neck. “Is this what I have to look forward to? Being constantly accosted in the kitchen?”
“Among other places.” I press a kiss to the spot behind her ear that makes her shiver. “The living room. The office. The shower. The car-”
“We’ve already done the car.”
“Then we’ll do it again.” I spin her around to face me. “And again. And again. Until you’re sick of me.”
“What if I’m never sick of you?”
“Then I guess you’re stuck with me forever.”
The word hangs in the air between us. Forever. It should feel too big, too soon. We’ve been doing this for less than a week. Saying words like forever should send me running in the opposite direction.
Instead, I find myself hoping she means it.
“Elliot.” Her hand comes up to cup my face. “What are you thinking about?”
“You.” I turn my head to press a kiss to her palm. “Always you.”
“That’s very romantic.”
“I have my moments.”
She pulls me down for a kiss that starts sweet and quickly turns heated. I’m just lifting her onto the counter when my phone buzzes with an incoming call.
I ignore it.
It buzzes again.
“You should get that,” Cassie says against my mouth.
“Don’t want to.”
“Could be important.”
It buzzes a third time, and I growl in frustration before pulling it from my pocket. The name on the screen makes my blood run cold.
SECURITY - FRONT GATE
“What?” I answer sharply.
“Sir, there’s a woman at the gate. She says she’s your wife. She’s... sir, she’s making quite a scene. Crying, screaming. The neighbors are starting to come out.”
Cassie has gone still against me. She can hear the conversation, can see the tension in my body.
“Don’t let her in,” I say. “Tell her if she doesn’t leave in the next five minutes, I’ll call the police.”
“I already told her that, sir. She said she doesn’t care. She said...” The security guard hesitates. “She said she’s not leaving until she talks to Cassie.”
I look at Cassie. Her face is pale but determined.
“Let me handle this,” she says.
“Absolutely not.”
“Elliot.” She takes my face in her hands. “She’s not going away. And I’m not going to spend the rest of my life hiding from her. Let me handle it.”
Every protective instinct I have is screaming at me to refuse. To shield her from Celine’s poison, from her manipulation, from whatever scheme she’s cooking up.
But Cassie isn’t a woman who needs to be shielded. She’s a woman who burns her enemies to the ground and walks away smiling.
“Fine,” I say reluctantly. “But I’m coming with you.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
***
Celine is waiting at the gate, just like security said. She’s pacing back and forth, her hair wild, her mascara streaked down her cheeks. When she sees us approaching, she rushes to the iron bars like a prisoner begging for release.
“Finally!” She grips the bars. “You have to let me in. You have to listen to me.”
“I don’t have to do anything.” Cassie’s voice is calm, almost bored. “What do you want, Celine?”
“I want my life back! I want my husband back! I want everything you took from me!”
“I didn’t take anything from you. You threw it all away when you decided to fuck my husband.”
“Charles seduced me!” Celine’s voice cracks and climbs until it’s almost a scream. “He told me his marriage was over. He told me she didn’t understand him. He made me feel special!”
“And you believed him.” Cassie shakes her head. “You believed every word that came out of his lying mouth, and now you’re surprised that he’s doing to you what he did to me?”
“It’s not the same-”
“It’s exactly the same. You were convenient.
You were easy. And now that things have gotten hard, he’s thrown you away just like he threw me away.
” Cassie steps closer to the gate. “The only difference is, I landed on my feet. And you’re standing outside my house in yesterday’s makeup, begging to be let in. ”
Celine’s face crumbles. For a moment, just a moment, she looks genuinely broken.
“Please,” she whispers. “I have nowhere to go. My parents won’t speak to me. My friends have all sided with Charles. I don’t have any money, any job, anything. Just... please. Have some mercy.”
I feel Cassie hesitate beside me. Feel the moment when her natural compassion wars with her justified anger.
“No,” she says finally. “You made your choices. Now you get to live with them.”
“But-”
“And if you come back here again, I’m calling the police. If you try to contact either of us again, I’m calling the police. If I see your face anywhere near my home or my workplace or anywhere else I might be, I’m getting a restraining order.” Cassie’s voice is steel. “Do you understand?”
Celine stares at her. Then, slowly, her expression changes. The desperation fades, replaced by something colder. Harder. Something that looks almost like calculation.
“Fine,” she says. “You want to play it that way? Fine.” She steps back from the gate. “But don’t think this is over, Cassie. Don’t think for one second that I’m just going to disappear.”
“Threats now?” I step forward. “Careful, Celine. I’ve already told you what I’ll do if you cause problems.”
“You can’t do anything to me that hasn’t already been done.” Her smile is bitter. “I’ve lost everything. My husband, my home, my reputation. What else can you possibly take?”
“Your freedom,” Cassie says calmly. “Harassment charges. Stalking charges. Keep this up, and the only place you’ll be living is a jail cell.”
For a moment, Celine doesn’t respond. She just stands there, staring at us through the bars, her face a mask of barely contained fury.
Then she turns and walks away.
I watch until she’s out of sight, my arm tight around Cassie’s waist.
“That was impressive,” I say. “You didn’t give her an inch.”
“She doesn’t deserve an inch.” Cassie lets out a breath. “But Elliot, she’s not going to stop. You saw her face at the end. She’s planning something.”
“Then we’ll be ready for whatever she plans.” I cup her face in my hands. “I meant what I said. Whatever happens, we get through it side by side.”
“Together,” she echoes. “I like the sound of that.”
I kiss her, right there in the driveway where anyone could see. Let them see. Let the whole world know that Cassie Wallace is mine, and I’m not letting her go.
When we break apart, she’s smiling.
“Take me inside,” she says. “I believe we were in the middle of something before we were so rudely interrupted.”
“The kitchen?”
“The kitchen.” Her eyes are dark with promise. “And then maybe the shower. And then maybe that office you keep mentioning.”
I grin. “Whatever you want.”
“I want you.” She takes my hand. “Always you.”
I let her lead me back inside, and the door clicks shut on the whole rotten mess outside it.
She doesn’t say anything. She just turns in the doorway and presses her forehead to my chest, and I feel the fight go out of her shoulders for the first time all morning. I wrap my arms around her and hold on.
“You okay?” I ask into her hair.
“I will be.” Her voice is muffled against my shirt. “I just needed a second where it’s only us.”
Only us. I’ve spent my whole life keeping people at arm’s length, and this woman walked in and rearranged everything without asking permission.
I don’t tell her that. I just tighten my hold and let her feel it instead, the way she taught me.
Whatever Celine is planning, whatever comes for us next, she isn’t going to face it alone.
Neither of us is. And for a man who spent years certain he’d always be alone, that’s a terrifying, extraordinary thing to be sure of.
Whatever Celine is planning, whatever chaos she tries to bring into our lives, I will protect this woman with everything I have.
She’s mine.
And I keep what’s mine.