Chapter 13
It never occurred to me that Elliot would have his own team. Assistant, stylist, PR manager. That he needed an additional three people working on his hair to make it look as effortlessly good as it always did on camera, or that he preferred to wear makeup for public appearances.
I’d been searching for flaws in him for weeks, but he’d had years to find them, and he wasted no time covering them up.
I’d also never considered Elliot could be a pacer. The red retro clock above the door of his dressing room counted down from five minutes, and he was pacing the length of it like he’d been born to do it. I watched from the small couch.
Shaking his head, he fidgeted with his fingers and raised his hands to—
“Don’t!” It slipped out as I jumped toward him, trying my best to keep him from messing up his perfectly messy hair. All I saw was that hour of work they’d put into those luscious locks.
He lowered his hands, so I lowered mine. But it didn’t change anything about the fact that I was standing in front of him now. I’d averted a crisis, yes, but at what cost?
Awkward eye contact and the feel of his amused huff against my cheek.
“It’s that good, huh?” he muttered. “If I’d known you like my hair like this—”
I shook my head. “They just put a lot of time into it.”
“—I would’ve started wearing it this way much earlier.”
Something in my chest fluttered. My neck craned to look up at him. “Really?” I asked, teasing him to distract from every other reaction I’d had. “You would’ve ordered your stylists to your house every morning, robbing you of an hour of precious sleep? For what?”
His lips curled. “For you to look at me this way.”
“I’m not looking at you any particular way.”
“Are you sure about that?” Elliot tilted his head, and something in his gaze made it impossible to look anywhere else. “You’re standing here, after all,” he added.
“Because—”
“And you haven’t complained about my outfit either, which means you must like it.” Gray pants and a simple blue button-up that made his eyes look great. No need to admit that, though.
I shrugged, tried not to let his words affect me. “I’d close another button.”
Elliot’s smile bloomed, revealing dimples and a spark in his eyes. A glance at the clock behind him told me that we had another two minutes before he’d be on stage.
“Really?” His hands went to his buttons, playing with them as he raised a brow. “I was thinking of opening another one.”
And he did—only to annoy me.
“You can’t seriously mean that.” My eyes flicked from his to the silver bow on his necklace, more visible now. “That’s the sluttiest thing a man could do,” I deadpanned.
“Sex sells, Maeve Peterson.”
Another minute on the timer. Any second, there’d be a knock on the door and a production assistant ready to escort Elliot to the stage, where he’d sit for twenty minutes, smiling and apologizing for his mistakes.
But how was anyone supposed to take him seriously with the top four buttons of his shirt wide open?
The dreaded knock came, and I acted without thinking first.
My hands shot to his shirt. I fussed with its button and ignored what my knuckles brushing his skin did to me. My fingers were shaking just slightly.
“Mr. Ashwood?” came from outside.
Elliot was unconcerned with whatever was happening beyond those doors. One glance, and he was grinning down at me, watching as if my hands against his chest were normal. Appreciated, even. “Need any help with that?” he murmured when I struggled.
The mockery in his whispered words gave me that necessary push.
The button finally closed, and I immediately took two steps back so my body would stop humming his name, asking to take a step closer instead.
A second later, the door was hesitantly pushed open, and with forty seconds on the timer, Elliot was ushered away.
“Some tumultuous weeks for Elliot Ashwood, huh?”
Steven Stewart was one of Late Night’s greatest. He was known for no-bullshit questions and segmented interviews conducted in hot-air balloons or while skydiving.
Twenty years ago, he’d taken Felix Pressley ice bathing in Antarctica, and the entire female population had thanked him for those shirtless shots.
“You insult your family’s legacy, go on an apology tour, and disappear off the face of the earth. Next, we hear you’re a working man—an intern at the exact legacy company you insulted!” Steven gasped, giving the audience and cameras a look of disbelief. “And then Allegra Amato is back . . .”
Elliot exaggerated his sigh. “Quite the few weeks indeed, Steven. For my grandfather, I’d just like to clarify that I didn’t besmudge his legacy again. We’re talking about the last time—five years ago, by the way,” he said. Steven laughed, and so did the audience.
Watching him joke about his relationship with his grandfather—and how he couldn’t blame the poor man for it—from the front row, not only did I still see that earlier version of him in Central Park, asking me what a normal relationship with my grandparents felt like, but the greenroom version, anxiously pacing, then shamelessly . . . flirting? I think?
I shouldn’t read anything into it, and I wasn’t, but flashes of that conversation still jumped at me whenever he laughed or I noticed that he’d undone the button I’d closed just seconds before he’d been ushered away.
He fiddled with it, looked at the audience, and I hated that my stomach hollowed out when, for a second, I could’ve sworn he was looking right at me.
Just like any of the girls around me probably swore the same thing.
Somewhere between winks at the camera, bad jokes, and laughter the two shared on stage, Steven sobered. It seemed he was about to usher in the serious part of their conversation, ready to wrap things up. “And now you’re at Adeline Ashwood . . .” He trailed off, let his words linger.
Elliot swallowed thickly, nodded. “I am.”
“What’s that like?” His head tilted in pity before he’d even said anything. “I mean, we all know you were close to your grandmother. Gosh, that photo of you on her shoulders! Just adorable.”
It appeared on the screen behind them, but Elliot didn’t turn around. His blond hair was almost white, and his smile was bigger. More genuine, carefree. His little legs dangled from his grandmother’s shoulders, her hands securing him tightly at the ankles.
Adeline’s gray hair was styled in a bob, with large sunglasses covering her eyes. Her suit was probably an Adeline Ashwood Original, perfectly tailored to her measurements. She wasn’t smiling, but you could tell she was happy.
“Bless her soul,” Elliot said, his voice tinged with sadness. Worry coiled in the pit of my stomach, fluttered with nerves and . . . no. Was I starting to feel bad for him?
I tried to remember all the reasons why that shouldn’t be happening.
Billionaire. Privileged. Arrogant and cocky. Trying to steal the job that I’d worked years to get just because of a PR mishap.
It was hard, though, when right now he just looked like a boy who missed his grandmother, and maybe working at Adeline Ashwood made her feel a little closer.
“You were obviously very close,” Steven repeated, nodding understandingly, gesturing toward the photo. “And now you work in the business named after her.”
“It’s strange,” Elliot started. If he was acting, he might have to consider a career switch. The slow blink, the low, strained voice. The way his eyes anxiously flicked through the crowd until they definitely landed on me. Finally stilled.
This performance was giving Ryan Quinn a run for his money, and Elliot hadn’t said much yet. My heart had dropped into the pit of my stomach as soon as we’d made eye contact.
“She’s always . . . here, you know?” He tapped his chest, right above his heart.
“But at the office, she just feels closer. There. Like I might accidentally run into her rounding a corner too fast. The funny thing is, she was never at the atelier. Adeline preferred spending her time at country clubs or with her demonic grandsons.” A sad chuckle from the audience that Elliot matched with a strained smile.
“She watched people, she didn’t participate.
Just like she loved watching Hunter nurture that company. But she never worked there.”
Steven took a deep breath and let his guest’s words linger. “But now you do. What’s that like? What do you do?”
“Whatever I’m told. Which is weird.” Some of the gloomy mood lightened as Elliot comically raised his brows. “Usually, I do the telling.”
Steven winked at the camera. “Oh, I’m sure.”
In answer, Elliot rolled his eyes, as if he was in on the joke, then leaned forward excitedly. “But I get to work with incredibly talented people, so being told what to do is a small price to pay for that. We’re focusing on the Ashwood Annual looks at the moment.”
With incredibly talented people, he must’ve meant Oliver and Camila. And when he said we, he must’ve meant the company. There was no way Elliot Ashwood was complimenting me live on national television.