Chapter 20
ELI
TRACK: Adele, “Make You Feel My Love”
That shit with Neil, on top of my argument with Cass, puts me in a foul-ass mood that lasts straight through to Friday.
Plus, now it’s been two full days since I saw Reese, and I’m getting itchy with missing her.
But I know I’m not at my best, and I don’t want her to see me like this.
The truth is, I’ve been avoiding her, because I don’t know what the hell to do about the Neil situation.
I can’t hide anything from her. But Augusta more or less asked me not to share it.
I could ask her about telling Reese, but another issue occurred to me after leaving the kitchen the other night, this one worse than getting the show shut down—at least in my mind.
What if the Neil issue sets her back with how far she’s come?
Asshole guys are a trigger for her—a mimosa in the lap, plus what she told me earlier.
An asshole kept her from singing for years.
I know I have to deal with this somehow, but for right now, I’m stuck at work until this meeting with the renovation project manager happens.
The one good thing in all this is I enlisted help from Rufus the human, who’s been watching over Neil like a hawk.
That makes me feel a little better about leaving the situation the way I did.
I offered to pay him out of pocket to come in when filming starts every morning, just to observe, but he said he’d do it for nothing.
I know that has a lot to do with Sophie, who’s one of the only staff at the restaurant who has crossover with the film crew.
“He’s walking around with his tail between his legs,” he tells me when I call him. “But the minute that arsehole even looks at a woman the way he did he’s getting a frying pan to the balls and formal action besides.”
The conversation makes me smile at least for a few minutes.
I bury myself in work for the rest of the afternoon, until it’s time for me and Cass to resume our fight about the renovations, only this time with an audience.
All five of us siblings are in attendance: the three regular employees—Cassandra, me, and Jude, as well as Chelsea. Even Griffin’s going to join us by telephone in an hour. Cass’s husband Blake and Sarah Cooper round out the rest of the attendees.
But by four o’clock, an hour has passed, and we’re still stressed. Cass and I are both making points. Meanwhile Jude is tossing a tennis ball up in the air over and over again, driving me insane.
“Sarah,” I say, knowing I can’t let my head affect my actual job of keeping this business fiscally responsible.
“Maybe you should go over what these numbers on the ground mean again.” I have to bite my cheek from saying “so Cass can understand.” That would be untrue, for one, and also just a dickish thing to say.
Sarah looks slightly uncomfortable, and a wash of guilt goes over me for dragging her into this little spat between me and Cass.
“Thank you,” Cass says, sparing Sarah. “Eli, we know the numbers.” Then she turns it over to Blake, who doesn’t even work here, but still provides an outside professional opinion, which I normally appreciate.
Except of course he’s going to side with Cass.
He goes off on some of the things we could do to up revenue if we stretched the timeline out partway between what Cass and I want, which I realize is a compromise.
But I find myself zoning out, because honestly, as much as I should care about the business, right now I don’t.
I don’t want to be here. Where I want to be is with Reese.
Every waking moment I want to see Reese.
Not just because of what we did in her office—the hottest fucking moment I can recall in recent years.
No, ever. It’s because I meant what I said when I was with her.
I want everything. I want to tell her we don’t need to move fast. That for me, this thing we have isn’t time limited.
Then my foolish brain flashes me a memory of the feeling of my cock buried in her throat, and now all I want to do is imagine fucking her, every which way. Bending her over her desk in her office.
In mine.
“Eli!”
I blink, looking at Cass. She looks like she wants to toss her glass of water in my face.
Good, I need a cold shower.
“We boring you?”
“Yes?” I say.
She rolls her eyes, but at least I get a laugh out of Jude.
Griffin comes on the line finally.
And I didn’t think it was possible, but that’s when everything goes from bad to worse.
“Why the fuck is my face on a billboard in Taipei?” He doesn’t ask it. He growls it like a bear.
The obvious question would be “What the fuck are you doing in Taipei?” But we all gave up asking him that years ago. Besides, his question has me alarmed.
“Your face isn’t on any of the marketing material,” I say, rifling through my papers for the glossy package Kelly’s production company sent us last week.
Griff makes a grumbling noise, then my email dings, along with everyone else’s.
I open it on my laptop.
Griffin has just sent through a shot of an electronic billboard high above a busy intersection in downtown Taipei. The image is huge. CHEF’S APPRENTICE: SIZZLING SEASON SIX it says across the bottom. But the words are dwarfed by all the people.
Neil’s at the front, his arms folded. He’s wearing that Crocodile Dundee hat and holding a mic, and his body is angled slightly sideways, but that’s to accommodate Augusta, who’s mirroring his stance, only she’s holding a wooden spoon.
I feel ill at just that part.
Jacques is next to her, looking mid-yell, and the other contestants are standing behind them. Making up the rear is Cassandra and me, with Jude, and Chelsea, sized smaller next to us.
And Griffin, his bearded face surly.
“I haven’t seen that one,” Cassandra says, frowning. “Have you, Eli?”
“No,” I admit. Shit. Griff is small, but still visible. He’s been digitally added to the poster.
I groan. This isn’t good, and we all know it. Cass and I exchange a glance.
“How big a problem is this, Griffin?” I ask.
“It’s a big fucking problem.”
Griffin wasn’t a huge fan of this show happening, but didn’t put up a stink about it when we all made it clear he wouldn’t be involved or even mentioned.
None of us really know what his work entails, but there are security concerns, we know that much.
None of our marketing materials include him.
He’s not even named in our business materials, though it’s not a secret he’s part owner.
But his face being plastered on big-screen billboards all over the world…
Anger bubbles up in my chest and I make a fist on the table. Kelly. “I was clear with Kelly that Griffin wasn’t to be featured or named anywhere.”
Cass knows what I’m thinking. “Didn’t they sign something?”
I grimace, my stomach sinking. “No.”
That’s on me. I was idiotic enough to assume I could trust Kelly. That and the fact that Griffin wasn’t at any of the photoshoots.
“Griff, I’m sorry.” I stand up, leaning on the desk. “I’m going to fix this.”
“I’m not sure how, unless you can go back in fucking time,” Griffin says.
I hang my head. It’s not the words that he says, but the tone he says them.
For all his tough and mysterious persona, I know Griffin.
He’s my baby brother, the one who came right after me and Cass.
I looked out for him, until he was old enough to look out for himself. He trusts me. And I let him down.
The line disconnects.
“Fuck,” I shout, swiping the pamphlets off the desk with an angry slap.
Then I look up at the rest of the group, all with various expressions of concern on their faces. I zero in on Cass. “If Sarah says she can accelerate the project, and it’s what you really want to do, then do it. I don’t fucking care, honestly.”
Then I leave the room before I quit on the spot.
As I storm out of the room, I grab my phone and call the one person I don’t want to.
Kelly.
“Eli,” she says, a little breathlessly.
I can’t remember the last time I called her.
“Why is Griffin on the show’s marketing material?”
I expect her to defend herself, or deny she knows. Or worse, to hang up. It’s Friday night; she’s probably with Neil, probably on a plane. They talked about going back to New York this weekend. But there’s silence on the other end of the line.
“Where are you?” she asks, finally.
“Does it matter? Answer the question.”
I’ve never talked to her like this. At least I haven’t since the worst days of our divorce, when I found out she’d started seeing that fucking guy at her channel only weeks after I moved out. I started seeing Reese after that.
God, what a fucking shit show.
Kelly sighs. “I’m sorry, Eli. It was too late when I found out. Some intern at the ad agency found the photo and the channel approved it before I saw.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me?”
I can’t help think of the irony of this situation. How I’m withholding something from Reese the same way.
“There might be people in danger because of this. My brother might be in danger.”
I don’t know if that’s true—I don’t think it is. Griffin would be more careful if that was the case. He’d have had everything destroyed. But it’s still a problem. And it still never should have happened. I should have never let it happen—this is my fault.
“Why don’t we meet to talk this out?” Kelly asks. “I can be down in the lobby in five. Neil’s gone for the weekend; I’m on my own.”
I freeze, halfway down the corridor.
“Or you could come up here. Just to talk?”
My stomach does a strange flip. A month ago, I would have been thrown for a fucking loop with that.
I would probably even have considered it, before reminding myself she’s my ex-wife, the woman who ripped my life in half.
Not to mention she’s married. No, I wouldn’t have gone along with it.
But I would have kicked my own ass for being so goddamned weak that my mind even went there.
Now, I don’t let another beat pass. I don’t want her to think I’m considering it.
“No. I’ll figure this out. Have a good night.”
Then I hang up the phone.
But I don’t put it in my pocket. Instead, I open my messages and tap on Griffin’s name.
ELI: I fucked up, Griffin. I’m sorry.
I’ve never been one for excuses. I pocket my phone and push out the next exit door, into the frosty night, where I’m surprised to see flakes of snow falling. It’s not even Thanksgiving yet.
I shiver. The walk to the staff apartments is only five minutes along a gravel path that winds through the trees between the hotel and the apartment building. But I’m not dressed for the unexpected cold snap.
I pull my suit jacket tight around me, trying not to think of how pathetic it is that I’m the only one who still lives in this building.
We grew up in the staff apartments, on the top floor, which back then had been converted into a family suite.
We all went our separate ways after high school, but after Mom died and we all came home, three of the five of us—me, Cass, and Chelsea—moved back here.
Now my sisters are both happily paired off. And me?
I’m a goddamned failure, obsessed with a woman I’m still technically just pretending to date. Who’s letting herself live a little while we’re doing it. When this show is over, who’s to say I won’t end up back at square one? Or worse, square zero, having had Reese again and lost her?
By the time I reach the door, I’m half frozen, a layer of snow on my shoulders and head. But I’m in such a mood I barely notice. I consider hopping in my truck and heading to O’Malley’s, but that thought only makes me think of Reese.
Fuck, Reese.
Before I know what I’m doing, my phone is in my hand.
ELI: Are you around? I had a shit day.
My phone buzzes a moment later.
REESE: Want me to come over? I can bring wine.
My chest feels like a fifty-pound weight has been lifted off of it. I stop, right where I am in the parking lot, and look up at the sky, at the spinning flakes of snow falling all around me. There’s nothing I want more. And I already knew that before I left the hotel.
ELI: Please.