She’s still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen—and I want to hate her for that too.
Time seems to suspend itself the moment her eyes meet mine, like the room warps around me at lightning speed, and completely freezes at the exact same time. I suddenly can’t make sense of the floor or the ceiling, of where I am or what I’m doing.
It’s all her. It all revolves around her.
I don’t know how to make it stop—especially now, because I can see the panic in her eyes. That’s what has my feet stuck to the ground and words lodged in my throat. Her eyes are moving too quickly over my face, a type of desperation I’ve seen in her most fearful moments.
Everything settles then. I clock the trembling of her bottom lip and the slight tremor in her hands. There is a lazy smile on her face as she stares me down, but I see the unspoken expression there, because I know her better than anyone else on this fucking planet.
She’s terrified.
I glance at the guy next to her. He’s tall, lean, and covered in tattoos. Dark eyes, and what appears to be long, dark hair beneath his green beanie. I almost laugh. Guess she has a fucking type, then. He snakes a possessive arm around her waist, tugging her against him, and I don’t miss the way she flinches at the contact.
“Hey, man. Sorry, we thought you were open.”
He shuffles her sideways, and Elena opens her mouth like she wants to say something, but no sound escapes.
“Elena,” I say roughly, her name like acid on my tongue.
There is no way she’s been dating this guy for an extended period of time. Her brothers would’ve mentioned that, and based on the information they have shared, she hardly leaves the house.
It was only three months ago that Everett begged me for advice on how to get through to her. From what I heard, he’d asked Elena to help with Dahlia’s bakery and was turned down. After that, the updates from her family dwindled, almost as if nobody wanted me to know what was going on with her, but I’m fairly certain someone would’ve mentioned her having a boyfriend.
Both Elena and the man turn back to me, fear on her face and confusion on his. She tucks a stray strand behind her ear, eyes fluttering to the ground. “Yeah, hey,” she murmurs.
“You know him?” her date asks, glancing down at her.
“Well, I told you my brother owns the boardwalk, right? Augustus is a friend of his.”
Augustus.
A friend of her brother’s. As if I hadn’t known her first. Loved her first. Given her every fiber of my fucking being until there was nothing left of me at all.
“I didn’t realize you were closed,” she continues. “Elliot was just telling me how much he liked my arm piece, and I explained that I had it done here. Thought we’d pop in.”
She’s lying. Why the fuck is she lying? I painted her in violets in my parents’ garage, long before I owned this place.
She swallows, that lip trembling again, as Elliot—the fucking asshole—roughly spins her toward the door.
“It was good seeing you. Sorry to bother,” she offers quietly as Elliot pushes the door open.
I don’t know who the woman standing in front of me right now is, but I know it’s not the same one I spent my entire childhood loving. Elena would take one look at a man touching her without consent and snap his wrist in half. She’d never flinch beneath the weight of someone else’s presence, or lower her voice to a timid whisper as if she’s afraid of waking some sleeping beast.
I don’t know what happened, but she’s scared, and there is no fucking way I’m letting her walk out that door right now.
“Actually, while I have you,” I cut in, sighing in relief when they both stop at the threshold. “I’ve got some cash I owe Leo in my office and we’ve been working opposite schedules lately, so I’m not sure when I’ll see him next. Would you mind passing it along for me?”
I don’t know this Elliot guy, but the grip he has on Elena’s shoulder sure makes it easy to assume he’s a piece of shit. It’s enough that he’s taken the outspoken, fierce, spitfire of a woman I used to know and turned her into some kind of trembling doe, so I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume he’s not above stealing. If anything is going to make him pause and give me thirty secondsalone with Elena, it’s the potential to get some money in his pocket.
“Oh,” Elena breathes, her eyes closed with relief, tension dropping from her shoulders. “Yeah, sure. I can do that.”
“It’s in my office if you want to come grab it.” I nod my head toward the back.
Elliot stiffens, like he’s not willing to let her go, and I casually toss my hand in my pocket, gripping my phone, ready to call the police. Thankfully, he steps back inside the building and lets her slip out from under his arm.
“Be right back.” She smiles at him, offering a seductive flutter of her lashes like she’ll be rewarding him for the act of grace later.
My stomach hurts at the sight of it.
