Chapter 27
Friday was my last official day of following Elliot around his private life like a lost puppy. So far, the time spent with him hadn’t particularly worked in my favor. All I’d found out was that he was a better person than I’d expected—and kissed exactly as good as I’d thought he would.
He’d also forgotten to mention that dinner at his family’s penthouse was always a “casual-fancy-clothes-thing,” and I didn’t have many Ashwood-appropriate pieces in my closet. None that I hadn’t worn in front of at least one of them already, anyway.
It took five minutes of silent staring before I ripped the dress I’d originally designed for Daphne off the back of my door. And, yes, maybe if I counted it as casual-fancy, it hadn’t been quite spectacular enough for the Ashwood Annual.
I would never admit that to Oliver, though.
Meanwhile, I could hear Elliot getting ready in the bathroom. Several groans and loud thuds from his elbow hitting the wall, shower, or cabinet sounded through the thin walls of our apartment. I wouldn’t be surprised if he came out black and blue—and let his family blame me for the bruises.
If the idea of meeting them wasn’t so intimidating, I might’ve been giddy with excitement.
In twenty years full of big dreams, I’d never imagined meeting the Ashwoods for dinner, even though I’d spent the past decade hoping to work for them.
No matter what came out of our little experiment, tonight would probably make it worth it.
For Mom, at least. Even if she wouldn’t approve of the way I was looking at Elliot (and the way, according to Rowen, he was looking at me), at least it had put me in a position where I might meet the entire family. And I could tell her about it the next time I visited her headstone back in Texas.
Mom, I met your favorite designer. Mom, I work for the fashion house you always admired most. Mom, I told the Ashwoods about you, and they wished they could’ve met you.
I do, too.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and shook those thoughts off when the bathroom door unlocked.
No need to cry in front of Elliot. His voice shot through the corridor just as I blinked away the tears stinging my eyes.
“There should be a minimum size required for a bathroom to be considered a bathroom,” he said, stretching his limbs in every possible direction.
He dusted himself off, tried his best to get the creases out of his shirt, failed, then—finally—looked at me. Opened his mouth, closed it again. Blinked.
“At least my banishment to the storage room with a shower, sink, and toilet seems to have been worth it.” He gestured to me in my dress, then added, “You look great. Oliver doesn’t know what he’s talking about. The dress is . . . perfect. I think.”
“Yeah?” I twirled in place to really sell it, and keep his eyes off my blushing face. I added, “You’ll take me to meet your family like this?”
“I’d take you in sweatpants and a shirt, Maeve.” He disappeared into his room and got back with a suit jacket hanging over his arm. “Remember, this is for my own amusement. Not yours.”
“You’re just excited to see me make a fool of myself.” Trying to reduce the likelihood of that, I came prepared. Googled which fork to use for which course, what wine pairs well with what meats, and looked at the stocks currently trading well. You never knew what topics might come up.
“No, I’m excited to see you admit that you were wrong. Just this one time.” About how easy his life was, and that I hadn’t known the half of it.
Sure, his social calendar was full, and the fundraiser probably wasn’t easy to pull off . . . I changed the topic. “So . . .” I slipped through the front door he’d opened. “Will I have to curtsy upon arrival?”
“You could.”
“Kiss your mother’s hand? Call everyone Mr. and Mrs. and use old-timey language?”
“Old-timey language?” he asked, descending the four flights of stairs behind me.
“’Tis so nice to meeteth thee. How art thou?” I went on. “I thank thee for thy hospitality.”
“We’re not vampires from the 1800s. You know that, right?” But I could hear the crack of a smile on his lips.
He skipped a few steps, passed me, and opened the door before I said, “You just have money like they did.” That earned me another one of those looks—where his head fell to one side, and his brows rose before he rolled his eyes with a huff, sometimes a laugh. I hurried onto the sidewalk.
“I don’t have any money right now,” he reminded. No Adeline Ashwood credit cards, no penthouse, no driver. “Which is why we’re about to take the subway.”
I couldn’t help grinning like a first grader. My cheeks were starting to hurt.
Elliot sat opposite me, crammed between a guy air drumming aggressively and an elderly woman complaining about said aggressive air drumming. The poor boy looked terrified.
My smile got bigger, somehow. “Is this your first time in one of these?”
He’d been intent on staring at the floor until our stop was announced, so when he spotted my amusement, it must’ve been his final straw. He shot out of his seat, crossed the few feet between us, and said, simply, “How could you tell?”
A laugh burst out of me. I wasn’t sure if it was the terror in his eyes, the confusion when he looked around and noticed no one paid much mind to his seatmates, or the way he gripped onto the handrail for dear life.
He literally sighed in relief when our stop was announced, closed his eyes in a silent expression of gratitude, and pulled me out of my seat so fast, I stumbled out of the car.
My hand was still in his when we got out of the station, and Elliot took a deep breath like we’d been underground for years. His hand squeezed mine, as if to make sure I was still there, before letting go. My heart pulsed in answer.
“How often do you take the subway?” he asked.
“Whenever I go somewhere?” The office was within walking distance, so that wasn’t an issue.
But Paula lived somewhere in outer Brooklyn, so on the rare occurrence that we saw each other, it meant taking the subway.
Once a week, I took it out of Manhattan to run the way back, too. “It’s really not that bad—”
“You should stop.” The light turned green, and as if it was second nature, he grabbed my hand again, pulled me closer, away from the oncoming wave of people.
“Taking the subway?”
I barely noticed his curt nod, blond hair swaying with the motion as I tried to keep up with him. He was walking faster than usual through the Upper East Side’s evening crowd. His grip around me was tight, his hands clammy. “Yes.”
“You just want me to walk everywhere?” I grinned.
“Preferably, I’d like you to get cabs everywhere.
” We turned a corner, and I wasn’t surprised to see Central Park.
I was even less surprised when he pulled me into one of the luxury skyscrapers along its edge.
The one he’d tried to show me after our run on Monday, which felt like ages ago, not just four days.
Since then, our dynamic had shifted dramatically. When I looked at him, I wasn’t seeing schemes and deception, but the way his lips had been on mine, and how good they felt.
I wasn’t sure I liked that development.
The security guard greeted Elliot, and for the first time, he said nothing in response. I jumped in, thanked the man, then narrowed my eyes at the one beside me.
I would’ve liked to point out to him that between the two of us, there was only one billionaire. And even the billionaire in question could no longer take cabs everywhere. But he seemed off. “Hey. You alright?”
He stopped abruptly. We were still in the entrance hall, water cascading down the wall to one side, light panels behind the stone of it.
Immediately, the hustle and bustle of the city was forgotten, traded for the calm sound of water rushing down a stone wall.
A different world, just one door and a security guard away.
I couldn’t focus on the beauty of it—or the dystopia, really—because catching Elliot’s blue eyes for the first time since the subway, he didn’t look well. Not even with a forced smile and when he assured, “Yeah. Sorry.”
“What’s wrong?”
Elliot waved me off, and I couldn’t very well hold him back when he continued into the lobby. I was too busy figuring him out to marvel at the high ceiling, the shaped light panels on the wall, or the huge chandelier above the gray couches.
“Nothing.” He shot the concierge a smile, one that literally opened doors for him. They slid open in front of us without a word, revealing the elevators. And artwork on the wall that could pay off my student loans.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he repeated when the concern—or suspicion or confusion—on my face didn’t waver. “Remember? I don’t do well with crowds sometimes. Or the public. Or, I guess, air drummers on the subway.” He fidgeted with my hand in his.
Was this . . . Elliot Ashwood being vulnerable? Opening up?
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure what to do with that. With a version of him that wasn’t all cocky smiles and quick comebacks and unshakable confidence. One that wasn’t perfect, in every sense of the word.
One that, apparently, got anxious in crowds.
I’d seen glimpses of it before. When he’d told me about the paparazzi crowding him and his family after an innocent movie screening. When he’d ushered me into a backroom for a second of quiet.
I’m not particularly fond of paparazzi or the crowd of people they usually come with.
Wasn’t that what he’d said? Yup, weeks ago, right before I’d decided it was a good idea to call exactly those anxiety-inducing paparazzi to follow him to a club for exactly those scandalizing shots he hated.
Great work using a man’s anxiety against him, Maeve.
He waved me off once more. “Don’t worry about it. Really.”
He probably wouldn’t try to comfort me if he knew what I’d done. I probably wouldn’t have done it if I’d known how big a deal it was to him.
A single deep breath later, Anxious Elliot was gone. Like someone had snapped their fingers, his posture straightened, he stopped playing with the ring around my finger, and he gave me an easy smile. “We wouldn’t want to admit that anything about my life isn’t perfect, right?”
He winked at me, in sync with the elevator doors closing behind us.
“I never said your life is perfect.” I’d just thought it. A million times. “I said it’s easy.” And I wasn’t even entirely convinced of that anymore.
“Right.” He nodded. The usual amusement back on his face was as relieving as it was infuriating. “Welcome to easy, then.”