Chapter 10
Someone was trying to get into my apartment.
Even if I wasn’t paying for it, I’d expect Ashwood to provide me with a safe intern accommodation. In a safe area, with a secure lock.
Eyes wide, breath shallow, I stared at the ceiling of my bedroom and considered my options. At twelve minutes past midnight, the lock had started rattling. Very faintly, I heard deep, gruff muttering through the walls separating me from the soon-to-be intruder.
I could hide, but I had nowhere near enough time to find a good spot without risking detection. Below the covers wasn’t going to cut it when my life was on the line.
I sat up, squinted into the darkness in hopes of finding a weapon lying around somewhere.
For the first time, I cursed myself for not being more .
. . messy, I suppose? If I had been, there might have been a rogue plate or butter knife on my bedside table.
Or, at the very least, just more weaponry to choose from.
“Fuck!” came through the walls. The lock rattled harder.
My eyes shot to the flowers on my dresser. The glass vase would break on impact to do some more damage in the process, and the sound of the front door creaking open made the choice for me; I jumped off my bed as silently as I could, heartbeat louder than my steps as I tiptoed toward my lifeline.
I dumped the flowers onto the dresser, the water into the nearest potted plant, and braced for whatever would await me behind that door.
There was no time to panic and lose my shit.
Fuck. Everyone knew New York wasn’t the safest city to live in, but I hadn’t expected an attempted (or, I guessed, successful?) break-in within a month of my move. My hands shook as I raised the vase above my head, slowly turning the doorknob, then glanced through the crack.
The only light came from the stairwell outside, so all I could see was a shadow of a man. In my apartment. Tall, broad shoulders, hoodie, back turned. Still muttering under his breath.
Not the most effective tactic for a burglar. Or serial killer.
But this was probably my only chance. While he was still distracted, unaware of the woman whose apartment he’d just broken into right behind him. I raised my weapon an inch higher, took a single step farther into my hallway . . .
The lights turned on. I panicked. Because now he could see me and easily overpower me, and whatever advantage I’d previously had, I lost. So, I ran. Toward him, vase high in the air, with some sort of battle cry making it out of my throat halfway there.
But the vase never made impact. Not with the back of his head, not with his forehead. Instead, he turned and his hand curled around my arm, and—
“Elliot?!” I wasn’t sure whether that was surprise or relief or more anger making its way to the surface. Whether my heart pounding was louder than my ragged breaths. But I lowered my weapon, and his hand around my wrist followed.
“What the fuck?” Blue eyes wider than normal—at least I’d been able to shock him out of his nonchalance for once. “Were you about to beat me with a . . . vase?”
“You’re breaking into my apartment!” I screeched, finally identifying that emotion from earlier: Anger. Red-hot fury. “I think that qualifies for some vase beating.”
“I sent you an email. I’m not breaking in.
” I went to wholeheartedly disagree with the statement—what else would he call entering an apartment without permission?
—but Elliot gave me a look that kept my mouth shut.
In a swift motion, he finally kicked the door behind him shut.
Still holding my wrist, as if he didn’t feel entirely safe from my vase beating yet, a key dangled from his other hand.
Around the same keychain I’d gotten, with the number eleven and an Ashwood bow on it.
I didn’t mean to laugh. A dry, humorless sound. “No, seriously. Is this some sort of . . . I don’t know, Ashwood initiation thing—?” A bit late for that, but . . . the corners of my mouth fell.
I spotted the suitcase. Standing right behind him, by the door. “Wait.”
Elliot leaned against the wall, head tilted, clearly amused.
“You certainly have a thing for unforgettable greetings.” His gaze swept down my frame, and I tried very hard to ignore that I was only wearing a lacy tank top and shorts, leaving little to the imagination.
He was trying to do the same thing, and neither of us was doing a good job at it.
His eyes darted back up to mine, then dropped down my body again.
Three times he looked, before finally saying, “First the coffee. Now . . . this.”
The attack, I told myself. Not my very revealing sleeping attire.
I shook my head. Denial, not conviction. “They told me I’d be living by myself.”
“Change of plans.” Elliot pushed himself off the wall, finally let go of my wrist—leaving a tingling spot behind—and rolled his suitcase past me into the living room.
“You just scored yourself the roommate of a lifetime.” Lights on, shoes off: He’d gotten comfortable on the couch before I’d even managed to follow him.
“Make sure you say thanks the next time you see Hunter.”
Oh my God.
A twelve-hour day at work, the Ashwood Annual news, meeting Daphne and Ryan . . . I’d gotten home so tired and exhausted, I’d barely managed to finish my skin-care regimen. I’d been lucky enough to make it into bed at all, so his meeting with Hunter Ashwood had been the last thing on my mind.
But of course. My sabotage. The gossip headlines. A photo of Elliot and Allegra fleeing a club hand in hand.
Elliot wouldn’t just voluntarily move into a two-bedroom in SoHo unless he had no other choice. Unless it wasn’t his choice at all.
“The meeting with your grandfather,” I guessed.
“Perceptive one, aren’t you?”
I ignored the approval in his tone and what it was doing to me. I couldn’t be sure this whole mess was my fault yet, so I had to ask, “What did you do?”
“Hey.” His hands shot up in defense, leaning back into the cushions. “Why are you assuming I did anything at all?”
The look I gave him was one big Do you really have to ask? But my eyes fell down his frame anyway, and seeing him in anything other than those perfectly tailored button-ups caught me more off guard than I would’ve expected.
I shouldn’t be witnessing him this way; as Elliot Ashwood instead of just Intern Elliot I’d gotten to know at work.
“Call it a lucky guess,” I mused.
“Alright, Lucky.” His eyes rolled with a laugh, and he—
He sounded just like he had in that leaked video, and I only realized it now. “You’re drunk.”
It wasn’t the missing formal wear or product in his hair that made him seem different. Not the low light of the floor lamp or the fact that he was in my apartment at all. He was drunk, his guard was down, and he was a completely new person.
Elliot shook his head more vigorously than needed.
“I’m not,” he said, then patted the spot beside him again, pairing the gesture with a look.
I think it was the blue eyes, the creased brow, and the Please?
in his gaze that made me comply. I placed the empty vase on the low table in front of us.
“Just tipsy,” he corrected. “Can’t survive an Ashwood dinner without at least a bottle of wine. Trust me.”
“What happened?”
“Long story short: I fucked up, so I’m being punished.” He rolled his eyes. “Like I’m six fucking years old. It’s incredible how he can make any grown man feel like a fucking child.”
“You swear more when you’re drunk—tipsy, sorry,” I corrected. I wasn’t sure why I voiced that observation out loud.
“Because I’m pissed.” He sank deeper into the couch, hands washing over his face.
“Because not only do I have to intern at my own fucking company now.” I didn’t point out that, technically, it’s not his just yet.
“Not only will I have to take the subway, but I’ve been kicked out of my home.
Living in a two-bedroom the size of Mom’s closet. ”
“With me,” I offered unhelpfully.
Elliot waved it off. “That’s not the issue here. Are you listening to me?”
I thought I was. But then he said that I wasn’t the problem, and everything he’d said before kind of . . . vanished. The way his gaze subtly swept over me again contributed, probably.
That he doubled down did, too. “The problem isn’t you. It’s this place. The fact I’m here at all.”
Of course, for someone used to three-thousand-square-foot penthouses, this apartment must’ve felt like a shoebox. The first time I’d stepped inside, it had felt like a castle to me.
I tried to stay on track. “So . . . you fucked up how?”
“Fucking Allegra—” he muttered, then cut himself off with another groan.
Not at all what I expected to hear. Not at all how I expected to react to hearing it, either. Something unfamiliar coiled in the pit of my stomach, viciously lashing out. “You got in trouble for”—I hated saying it—“fucking Allegra?”
Maybe for the first time in my presence, Elliot really, truly laughed. He smirked and grinned and snickered—a lot—yes, but he’d never genuinely laughed. Not like that. Boisterously, without holding back.
“God, no.” He shook his head, but his eyes never left me. If he noticed the color in my cheeks, he didn’t let on. “No. No,” he repeated after another second of consideration, like the thought in itself was appalling.
“It’s not that far-fetched. You clearly still like each other.” It was obvious.
He shook his head harder, sat straighter. Gaze still fixed on me. “Not like that. We broke up years ago.”
“Okay, my bad. She clearly still likes you. Like that,” I emphasized. It’s incomprehensible how he hadn’t picked up on the signs. I’d hung out with them once, and they were clear as day.
The way she’d immediately classified me as a friend, not a potential love interest, date, girlfriend. The way she’d laughed at his jokes, touched his shoulder, played with her hair. The way he’d suggested inviting some of their friends to the club, and she’d only reluctantly agreed.