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As much as I wanted to fuck her again and again, I would never lose sight of who she had always been to me. The sex would end when we went home, but she was Elliot’s sister, which meant I would protect and care for her always.
Our waitress stopped by with our drinks, and afterward, we both went quiet. I was going over the meetings I had the following day, and Elise took out her phone, most likely reading texts or emails.
A soft laugh burst out of her. Her eyes lifted to mine. I cocked my head in question.
“Nothing.” She shook her head. “My old coworker, Brandon, ran into Patrick at a bar last night.”
“And?”
My stomach tightened at the mention of her ex. One minute in his company, and it had been obvious he hadn’t been worthy of her. If I’d been a betting man, I would have put my money on Elise wising up and leaving him within a year. Since it had taken her four times that, I’d been lucky I wasn’t.
Her gaze flitted to her phone and back to me. “Brandon pretended not to speak English when Patrick asked him if he knew where I was. And Brandon’s boyfriend apparently got in on the act by translating what Brandon was saying.”
“What did he say?”
“Well, Brandon doesn’t actually speak another language, so Cliff had to make everything up. He told Patrick Brandon arrived from Croatia two weeks ago and had grown up in a monastery, never seeing a woman besides his mother.”
I blinked. “What did Patrick say to that?”
She shrugged. “He was angry and confused. I don’t really want to know what he said, which I told Brandon.”
“You’re never going to speak to him?”
“No. There’s nothing for us to say to each other.”
Something in my stomach soured. I couldn’t put a finger on why, though. “Really? You don’t even want to yell at him?”
“I’m not really a yeller, you know. And I don’t think he deserves a chance to try to explain away what he did to me. It might have been immature of me to cut out of there like a ghost in the night, but when I decided to go, it felt like I had to do it immediately or I wouldn’t survive.”
My brow lowered as I watched her. She didn’t like talking about this. This guy was still hurting her, whether she wanted to admit it or not.
“What about what you deserve?”
She tucked her hair behind her ear. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t you deserve closure?”
“Closure isn’t real. There’s no door between pain and happiness. No matter how many conversations I have or don’t have with Patrick, I still have to walk through the way he hurt me. If I deserve anything, it’s to not be hurt by the man I once loved.”
“Once loved? You don’t anymore?”
Her hand wrapped around her glass of iced tea. “When I loved him, it was without vital information. Once I found out who he truly was, that love became null and void. I know that sounds cold, and maybe it is, but it’s how I’m able to cope with life’s bullshit. And you know I’ve had more than my fair share.”
I pushed a long exhale out of my nose. She’d done something similar to me. One day, I was her second brother. The next, I barely existed. Maybe it was the memory of those long, icy years making me so uneasy now.
As much as I despised Patrick, I couldn’t help feeling for him. The arctic side of Elise Levy was an impossible place to be after years of living in her sunshine.
“You have. You and Elliot have been doled more unlucky hands than most people.” Reaching across the table, I took her free hand in mine, rubbing her knuckles with my thumb. “When I inevitably screw up, I ask that you give me a chance to make it right instead of giving me the ghost treatment. Can you promise me that?”
Her nose scrunched, but she curled her fingers into mine. “It depends on how deeply you screw up. If you push me off a cliff, I’m definitely ghosting you. Literally.” She grinned at me, growing more serious when I couldn’t find it in me to smile back. “I don’t want to go back to the years when I avoided you. For our sake, and Elliot’s. I can’t predict my reaction to a hypothetical screwup, but I can promise to try, okay?”
I huffed a dry laugh. “I know that’s all I’m going to get out of you, so I guess it’ll have to be okay.”
Dinner arrived. My huevos rancheros, Elise’s tomato soup and grilled cheese. She was inordinately pleased with her meal, which settled my twisted stomach. I liked seeing her pleased, any way it happened.
I held up a forkful of egg, pico de gallo, and fresh avocado. “Open.”
She leaned forward, parting her lips to accept the bite of my dinner. Her lips closed around my fork while her gaze stayed on mine. Slowly, I slipped the fork out, watching her taste my favorite dish. Pleasure suffused her cheeks with color.
