Chapter 22 #2
I knew that I’d changed since meeting Elliot, at least logically. My hair, my clothes, my makeup, even my resting bitch face had relaxed somewhat. But never was the change so stark as when I stared at Jasper and saw the person I used to be—the person he expected me to be—staring back at me.
I hated her.
Hated Jasper for being here, soiling everything, reminding me of who I had been. Who I still was underneath it all.
“You’re allergic to shellfish,” I told him what he already knew. “But I’d be happy to serve you a lobster roll and watch you eat it.” Venom dripped from my words.
Jasper’s mouth didn’t so much as twitch, but his jaw softened with what I recognized as amusement. “So you haven’t had all of the bloodlust sucked out of you in Pleasantville.”
“I’ve still got plenty left for you,” I seethed, anger seizing my muscles. “I haven’t forgotten about the fire. Or the dead body. Though I guess you took my demand to never see you again as a request. Which it wasn’t. Leave.”
I spat the order at him, as if it were that easy to rid my life of Jasper. I knew it wasn’t. Had always known. We’d be in each other’s lives until the other’s heart stopped beating.
His brows lowered just a fraction, enough to show his displeasure with me. Not that I gave a fuck.
“I’m not here on a personal errand,” he replied without emotion. Yet I saw his eye twitch. “I’m here to relay a message. You’re expected back in New York. By month’s end. Not a request either.”
There it was. His protection, such as it was, was over. Whether his employer had truly reached the end of their patience or if Jasper was trying to punish me by tearing away my happiness was anyone’s guess.
I didn’t let any of my fear show. Nor did I let my satisfaction show either. I’d been expecting this. Had been working myself to the bone in order to find leverage juicy and powerful enough to buy my freedom and ensure I did not have to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life.
For a while there, I didn’t think such information existed.
Until last week.
Jasper didn’t need to know that. I wasn’t going to be using him as an emissary anymore. Not with the dynamics between us so vitally changed.
I didn’t trust him anymore.
“Message delivered,” I told him. “Now leave.”
Jasper ignored me, stepping forward. I held my breath as his body brushed mine, his scent mingling with the salty fragrance of the ocean, tarnishing it.
My skin roiled at his presence. But I didn’t drop eye contact.
“You’re not understanding,” he murmured. “There is no way out. You’ve had your fun, doing whatever this is. But there is no way out of the life you chose . There is no escaping the person you are, underneath it all.”
My breathing stayed even as he probed for weaknesses, trying to scare me with the might of his employer and his knowledge of me. My wants. Needs.
Except those weren’t the same anymore.
His finger trailed down the length of my bare arm, circling my wrist. The gesture wasn’t tender. It was threatening and made me nauseous. Although I wanted to bolt, I rooted myself in place, schooling my features.
“You had your fun. But you’ll never be satisfied with this. With him.” His disdain for Elliot was obvious in just the subtle inflection at the end of the sentence.
I leaned forward with a sneer, hoping to inject all of the shiny, new hatred I had for Jasper into my every word. “You have never known what it’s like to truly satisfy me.”
It wasn’t smart. Poking the proverbial bear. If I was calmer, then I likely would’ve led him on a little, made him think there was a chance with me. Reassured him that I was the Calliope he knew. It was the safest option.
But I couldn’t restrain my fury at him stepping foot in here. In Elliot’s family restaurant, full of happy memories, hallowed ground.
“Everything okay here?”
My gaze whipped to the source of the voice. The familiar voice, carrying an unfamiliar hint of menace.
Elliot was standing on the patio, eyes locked on Jasper. More accurately, on Jasper’s hand clasped to my wrist.
Jasper didn’t look at him right away, his lazy gaze possessively pinned on me.
I stepped back, Jasper’s hand tightening on my wrist to the point of pain. When I whipped my head to glare at him in warning, he held my gaze and my wrist for several seconds before letting it go.
I rubbed at it like I could rub away Jasper’s existence. I turned back to Elliot, who was staring at my wrist, jaw hard.
“Everything is fine,” I lied. The world I’d built was hastily falling apart around my ears.
Never in my worst nightmares had I wanted Elliot to be anywhere near Jasper. To know what he was, to know what I’d become in order to be involved with him.
Elliot’s eyes ping-ponged between Jasper and me, his gaze calculating.
I knew he was clocking the distance between me and Jasper—much too close to be mere acquaintances.
Elliot took in Jasper. He might not have run in the circles that Jasper did, he might not have been trained to spot killers, but Elliot was smart.
He knew how to read people. He could see what Jasper was, sense the danger. Anyone in his presence did.
Elliot was strong, not someone to be trifled with, but he wasn’t aggressive. Wasn’t a fighter. Yet he could perceive the intimacy between me and Jasper, recognizing what kind of man Jasper was as he stepped pointedly forward, grabbing me by the hip and pulling me into his body.
“Everything is fine. Now.” He pressed a kiss to the side of my neck.
The blatant show of ownership should’ve had me rolling my eyes, uttering some sharp retort, but I didn’t have the energy. I was too terrified.
Jasper was a loose cannon. He already knew Elliot and I were together, but that didn’t mean he accepted it. His reaction to Elliot touching me could be nothing or it could be shooting him between the eyes.
I forced myself in front of Elliot, knowing Jasper would never shoot me.
Elliot communicated his confusion at my doing that by looking at me with knotted brows. Thankfully, he didn’t try to reassert dominance by putting himself back in front of me.
“I’m Elliot,” he greeted Jasper. “Calliope’s man.”
His words were warm on the surface but not true to Elliot’s nature. There was skepticism between each syllable. And unspoken questions. Who the fuck are you? What are you doing touching my woman?
Jasper didn’t reply, he just stared at Elliot, the glimmer in his eyes telling me he was a tad amused, like a cat might be with a mouse.
“This is Jasper,” I told Elliot, hating that I even had to introduce them. “An old friend.”
Jasper’s head tilted at my description, but he remained silent.
“Well, any friend of Calliope’s is a friend of mine.” Elliot’s entire posture conveyed that he considered Jasper to be his worst enemy.
“Jasper was just leaving.” I kept my eyes locked on Jasper’s.
“Oh, what a shame.” Again, Elliot’s tone and body language proclaimed that he felt the exact opposite.
“Was I?” Jasper was taunting me. I knew he was asserting his own dominance, torturing me with the prospect of him staying, hurting Elliot. Or deciding to get chatty. Jasper was a man of few words, but he knew how to make words cut like a knife.
I gritted my teeth, willing to go toe-to-toe with him, willing to rip his fucking face off with my bare hands. “You were.”
His lips tipped upward in a slow, haunting smile, his eyes plastered on Elliot. “Nice to meet you,” he said pleasantly. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again.” My lungs constricted at the threat that was but kept my stare even.
“Calliope.” He leaned in to kiss me on the cheek, despite Elliot’s proximity and my body language screaming aggression.
I resisted the urge to reach into his suit jacket, take his gun from the holster and unload the clip into his torso. Barely.
Too many witnesses.
His lips were ice cold against my skin, sending icy pulses of disgust through me.
Elliot’s hand flexed against my hip. I could feel the aggression rolling off him, but he didn’t say anything, didn’t do anything. He was letting me take the lead.
“I’ll see you back at work,” Jasper promised in my ear.
He lingered too close for too long, enjoying my discomfort, my anger, all of it.
Then he stepped back, buttoned his jacket, nodded to Elliot and walked out of my vision.
My chest was heaving with my fury and fear, so it took me a handful of seconds to get my blood pressure under control. Elliot stood silently behind me.
I expected him to ask a slew of questions the second Jasper’s loafer left the deck of the restaurant. Elliot was more than entitled to them. And the entire interaction was much too bizarre and surreal to not acknowledge.
I struggled to process how I would explain it. How I’d explain Jasper. There was no way to do it. And now that Elliot was in his crosshairs, I couldn’t endanger him anymore. What I had been doing was stupid, selfish. Arrogant of me to have stayed with Elliot so long.
He’d ask. I’d tell him everything and force him to end things with me. That I could do. Even if it broke me.
But instead of a single question, Elliot brought me to his body, cradled my face and kissed me.
Slowly, patiently. It was all-encompassing.
I didn’t relax immediately, though. I was too wired, too afraid, too outside my own body.
But Elliot endured, quietly coaxing me back, filling my extremities with warmth and strength.
Only when I’d completely melted into him, utterly gave myself over and felt my heart rate return to normal, did Elliot’s lips leave mine.
He still kept tight hold of me, forehead resting against mine. There was no anger in his eyes, only a twinge of concern he couldn’t hide.
“You wanna get back to work, Calliope Derrick?” he asked softly. “Any more of this and I’ll be forced to press you against this wall and fuck you. And that’ll probably be a lawsuit, considering the restaurant’s full of people within eyesight.”
He nodded to the bustling restaurant, which I had forgotten even existed for a moment.
The noises slowly filtered back into my ears, comforting me along with Elliot’s grip on me, grounding me.
I forced myself to smile. “I know some good lawyers, but let’s not risk it.” I tried to sound like myself, but who was that? Was that the stone-cold, depraved and possibly evil bitch Jasper knew? Or was it the new person I was with Elliot?
A wrinkle erupted between his eyes as Elliot heard the hitch in my voice. He kissed me gently again.
“Well, get back to work,” he ordered with a wink. “I heard the boss is a real hardass, and he already has plans for you for later.”
Despite the events of the night, I shivered in expectation, nodding. I let him walk me back to the dining area, the cozy restaurant that Jasper had just breached. He’d sullied it, and I knew in my heart that was the beginning of my end.
I went through the motions the rest of that night. I waited on tables, my smile pasted on as I spoke to people, my movements robotic until the last table was served.
I ate the lobster roll that Elliot wordlessly presented to me, with his unsaid order that I eat the whole thing.
I closed out my tables, weathered the withering glances from Betty—the blonde waitress—which had become routine by that point.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the young girl had tried to make a deal with the devil to get me out of her life.
I’d already done that and it was only a matter of time before my deal came due.
Beau came out from the kitchen to share a quick conversation with me and Elliot. The man was warming to me, as much as a man like Beau was capable of warming toward a woman who wasn’t his daughter.
I watched how he spoke to his poor nanny, all grunts and glowers. I didn’t know how she handled it. Luckily, she had Clara, who was a ray of sunshine and hopefully made her job worth it.
Beau said his goodbyes, eager to be back with his daughter who was now almost entirely ready to be in public without a mask, without all the precautions we’d been adhering to in order to ensure that she stayed healthy.
“I hope he pays his nanny well, considering all the emotional distress and toxic masculinity he exposes her to,” I said when he left.
Elliot chuckled. “I know for a fact he pays her well, but I agree, he could be a lot easier on her.” He paused, wiping down the bar top. “But I’m thinking it’s that old childhood, playground behavior. It’s always the ones who pick on the girls they like.”
I scowled. “First of all, that explanation was made to normalize men treating women badly. Fuck that bullshit. Don’t utter it again.” I wagged my finger at him. “Secondly, you really think that Beau likes Hannah?” I was categorically shocked.
I was also genuinely curious since I didn’t think Beau was capable of having feelings like that. And because I was desperate to get as far away from having to discuss Jasper as possible.
Elliot polished a glass, looking at the door his brother had exited before returning his attention back to me.
“I could be wrong. I tend to be, especially when normalizing toxic male behaviors from childhood,” he teased.
“But I know my brother. He’s rough around the edges, which have only gotten rougher with Clara being sick.
But the interactions between the two of them are harsh even for Beau.
And I don’t sign off on it. I’ve talked to him.
As has my dad. We’ve both gotten our proverbial throats ripped out, which means that he cares more than he should and is probably punishing himself for it.
Beau doesn’t let himself think he deserves good things.
So he tends to fight against them. Punishes himself for wanting them in the first place.
” His eyes seared into me with practiced intensity. “Not unlike someone else I know.”
I pursed my lips. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He watched me as he silently polished another glass, that intense gaze on his face as I waited for the questions. About Jasper. About my life in New York. There was no longer any space for us to ignore it.
Elliot let out a long breath. “Do you want to go home?”
My spine straightened. “Home?”
He nodded.
Home. He spoke of it like it was something we had. Something we shared. I knew I’d best correct him.
“Yeah, I’d like to go home,” I replied quietly.