He rolled his eyes but nodded.
Ethan grinned bigger. “And the best part? He shows up the next morning at her door, spends his entire weekend working on her car because, and I quote, ‘I should’ve chosen a different incline for early development training.’”
Elijah muttered, “You’re such a dick,” but the twitch of his mouth betrayed him.
Ethan leaned closer to the camera. “So if he’s spoiling you and wrapping you up in cotton balls? Trust me, he’s always been this way. Overprotective. Overconfident. Convinced he can fix every collision he creates. And he’s the guy who stays behind to make good whatever’s gone down.”
My pulse stuttered.
Ethan winked. “And from the way he’s looking at ya, he’s already sprinting down the hill after you, Bonnie.”
Elijah plucked the phone and hung up on his brother, only to call him back from the sofa after extracting a promise for him to behave.
I didn’t need that. I liked Ethan. I liked Elijah better for the story from their childhood.
Our week was only endearing him to me more and more.
Not that it stopped us sparking off each other. Ethan had joked about him being overprotective, and it wasn’t a lie. I sliced the side of my hand on a cracked tile in the bathroom, and Elijah nearly lost his mind. I had to yell at him to stop him from calling the reception to yell at them. Which led to sex, of course.
Everything ended up with us having sex. On the sofa, the floor, the kitchen counter. I’d never been so well used, and worse, I was getting used to it. My need for him was insatiable. He liked it outside, too. I blew him on the rooftop, after Bob from Accounts was gone for the day, and he took me from behind while we gazed out over the city lights.
Enough people had to have heard my cries, because like the first time, I couldn’t hide them.
But the end of the week approached, and with it, a relaxing of the rules. We could spend up to four hours apart, which meant Elijah’s assistant had him down for a number of non-negotiable meetings.
The end of our own rule of not sharing work details came, too. I had the worst sense that somehow, the happy bubble we’d created was about to burst.
Chapter 16
Bonnie
Even a week with Elijah was nowhere near long enough to learn everything about him. For one thing, billionaires apparently hated wasting time.
I’d barely finished my coffee in the apartment’s kitchen when he said, “Are you good if we take a trip? Mitch is being a pain my ass about a meeting in London this afternoon.”
I stared at him across the counter. “You’re aware that London isn’t the next town over? It’s a six-hour drive.”
He lifted a shoulder. “Under an hour by air.”
I controlled the need to splutter. “That’s still a plane. Security. All of which take time.”
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Not today.”
He said it with the calm confidence of someone used to bending the world into convenient shapes, and he wasn’t wrong. An hour later, I sat in a white leather seat inside a sleek jet that smelled of cedar and expensive coffee, watching the ground crew move around outside the oval window.
My brain refused to process the situation.
“You have a plane,” I stated the obvious.
Elijah glanced up from the tablet in his lap. “Technically, I have access to several. I don’t see the point in owning one that sits around doing nothing most of the time, so I share a pool of them. It’s more environmentally friendly, at a pinch.”
“Stop pretending it’s normal.”
His lips twitched. “You’d rather take the train?”
I imagined the two of us crammed into a carriage with commuters and tourists. It wasn’t that he didn’t fit in that scene. It was just that I’d got used to being alone with him.
At whatever was on my face, he full-on grinned. “That’s what I thought.”
