Authors: Kimberly Dean
Nothing had been discussed, but their adventures in New York stopped.
They didn’t attend any more events. They didn’t even consider the invitations.
Alex had food delivered on nights when neither of them felt like cooking. They watched movies on the big screen and worked out in the gym. They even saw people. He invited programmers over from Wolfe Pack for a code jam one day and, when she needed to consult with someone on her dissertation, he sent James to pick up Dr Walters.
It was insular and protective, but it was driving Elena out of her mind.
At least at the manor they could go outside. She’d gone on long walks and had felt the air on her face. She’d smelled the flowers and had swept her fingers through the lake’s cold water. Even switching between the lake house and the manor had offered a change of scenery.
Here, she felt like Rapunzel in her ivory tower. Her knight in shining armour might be with her, but it wasn’t the fairytale that it seemed.
She tried begging, and she tried rationalising. Alex just wouldn’t hear of it.
‘The bankruptcy decision for Wolfe Financial is still too volatile,’ he told her. ‘The press is still looking into you.’
And they were. They just weren’t finding anything – much like when they’d tried to find anything a year and a half before.
Only Caroline Woodward wasn’t giving up. She’d taken some heat for her romantic relationships, but that had just made her more dogged in her determination. Alex had promised she wouldn’t be a problem any more, but not even his lawyers could fight the freedom of the press. The reporter was coming after them like a hyena after fresh meat.
Last night, she’d interviewed Candace. The talk had been full of supposition, lies and venom. It hadn’t been pretty, and Alex had been pacing around the room by the end. His lawyers probably didn’t get much sleep.
Elena’s patience was waning. The two of them couldn’t bury their heads in the sand. It wasn’t helping. It was only making the media wonder why they wouldn’t face them. Were they plotting something new? What were they trying to hide?
After nine days of it, she couldn’t take it any more.
She sat cross-legged in an easy chair in the office Alex had set up for her. A three-drawer desk with a reading lamp sat unused across the way. Her laptop was open on the table at her side, but she hadn’t touched it for nearly half an hour. Its screensaver was spinning random shapes.
She watched the blue oval turn into a yellow square. ‘I don’t what to do any more,’ she confessed into her phone. ‘I’m going stir-crazy, Mom.’
‘Can’t you just run down to the corner shop? Maybe grab a cappuccino?’
‘Caroline Woodward would be there within minutes asking her nasty questions.’
‘Don’t you have security people?’
‘We have lots of people. If I wanted a cappuccino, any of them would go get one for me. It defeats the purpose.’
‘Oh, honey.’ Her mother sighed. ‘I hate to say it, but –’
‘Please don’t say I told you so.’
‘I wasn’t going to.’ In the background, a beater whirred. ‘Hard as it may be to believe, I was about to say, “Maybe he’s right.”’
Elena cocked her head, certain she’d heard incorrectly. ‘What?’
‘I know. Listen, I wasn’t happy about you getting involved with him, but you had to go back to the city eventually to finish your degree. I can’t say I’m unhappy that he’s there, protecting you.
Especially
after what happened at the zoo. Honey, that was scary for everyone.’
‘But I feel smothered.’ Trapped. She was beginning to understand what he felt like when his claustrophobia kicked in. They had an entire floor to stroll around in, yet she craved her freedom. She wanted to buy a hotdog from a vendor on a street corner. She wanted to feel the chilly air whip down the streets as if they were wind tunnels.
Even the crummy drizzle outside today would be refreshing.
‘He cares about you, Elena. I can see it in the photographs in
People
and the stories on
Entertainment Tonight
.’
‘I know he does, but he’s afraid of what might be lurking around every corner. I just can’t say that to him.’ The big bad wolf wasn’t supposed to be afraid of anything. ‘I’m worried about him,’ she confessed. ‘He’s not meant to be held back like this.’ She watched the shapes spin and morph as they bounced off the corners of the laptop’s screen. They weren’t able to escape either; they just kept spinning round and round. ‘Neither am I.’
‘I understand,’ Yvonne said. ‘His intentions are good, but the results are not.’
‘He’s not doing well, either.’ Elena was quick to defend him. ‘I can see how it’s wearing on him, but he feels a responsibility to his company now that he’s returned. He’s as stuck as I am.’
‘Have you told him how you feel?’
She sighed. She’d tried, and he did understand. He just wasn’t willing to compromise. ‘He’s stubborn.’
‘Have you tried getting him out?’
Elena toyed with the cuff of her slipper. ‘He won’t even go into the office. I know he’s comfortable there, and the whole company is wrapped up in some big project. He says he can do everything he needs to by teleconference.’
‘How about something fun?’ her mother suggested. ‘Is there any way you can lure him out for something like that?’
Elena grimaced. ‘I made the mistake of suggesting we go visit Siren and the pups the other day. It was a bad call.’
One she hadn’t thought the whole way through.
‘Oh, baby.’
‘I thought we could replace a bad memory with a good one.’ At the very least, they could apologise to Dr Hoff. The reception had been so delightful until they’d created such a commotion.
Well, they hadn’t created it. The reporter had. Clips from that ambush were still trending on YouTube.
‘He’s richer than God, Mom. He can get anything that he wants delivered.’ Anything. They’d even had dinner from restaurants that supposedly didn’t cater.
There was a long pause at the other end of the line. ‘OK, I’m with you now,’ Yvonne said. Her voice was calm but clipped. ‘But you’re not going to like what I have to say.’
Elena bit her lip. They both knew that was why she’d called.
She just needed to hear it aloud.
‘The behaviour you’re describing isn’t healthy. It’s controlling and it’s disturbing.’
‘He’s not –’
‘You have to look out for yourself, Elena. I know you care about him, and you’ve convinced me he wasn’t that involved with the Ponzi scheme, but you have to take care of number one.’
‘I’m trying to think about myself.’ It was why she’d called. ‘But I don’t want to hurt him.’
She’d tried adjusting, and she’d tried working with him. If they’d never met … If she hadn’t gone to the lake house, she’d probably be in exactly the same situation, only she’d be a hermit in a tiny studio apartment. Yet he
was
involved, and she’d become stronger than that.
She couldn’t stand to see him do this to himself.
He’d already been imprisoned once. The penthouse might be cushier and better equipped, but it had become a prison of his own making.
‘Sometimes you have to make tough decisions,’ Yvonne said quietly. ‘Even if they sting.’
Elena bit her lip. The screen saver had timed out and her laptop had gone black.
‘I was with a man with money once.’ Her mother’s voice became raspy. ‘I know how it can creep into the corners of your life and burst out the seams.’
‘Oh, Mom.’ They’d rarely talked about the divorce. She’d been so little, and then it had merely been a fact of life.
‘I loved your father, Lainie, but I had to do what was right for you and me.’
Elena swallowed hard. She had to do what was right for Alex and her, too. ‘I understand. Thanks, Mom.’
It was painful, but it was what she’d needed to hear. Sometimes a kick in the butt was necessary.
It was time. He’d protected her. It was time for her to do the right thing for him.
Terrible as it might be.
They said their goodbyes, and Elena picked up her laptop. She traced her fingers along the outer edge. It had been a gift from him, one of the many ways he’d rescued her. She tapped a key to bring it back to life and stuck a flash drive in the USB port.
She had it clenched in her hand as she walked into his office down the hallway.
She’d told her mother he could do anything here he needed, and his office was proof of that. It looked like a war room with two monitors on his desk, a work flow diagram spread out over two tables, and a big screen TV on the wall. Any technology he needed was at his beck and call.
Any but one.
‘Hi,’ she said softly.
He glanced up from his desk. He was scanning through another economics textbook. ‘Hey.’
That observant grey gaze ran over her, first to check if anything was wrong and then with more leisure.
She held up the flash drive. ‘I need to go to the printer.’
His pen clipped down on the desk, and he straightened. ‘Are you finished?’
‘With the paper.’ She inhaled deeply, but the sense of relief and accomplishment was muted inside her. She couldn’t summon up the excitement that was warranted.
He came around his desk and hugged her. ‘That’s fantastic, baby. I’m so happy for you.’
She was happy, too. It was an accomplishment, but this was just one milestone. She could take a day or two to refresh, but she needed to start preparing her presentation next. A committee of tenured professors was going to pepper her with questions, and she had to be ready to defend her findings.
She turned the flash drive over in her fingers. ‘I need to print out copies and have them bound.’
‘Send it over to Wolfe Pack. They can handle that for you.’
She scowled. Not that she didn’t trust his people, but she was going to do this herself. After all the blood, sweat and tears she’d put into it, she was going to make sure it was done right. There weren’t going to be any missing pages, smudges or crooked printouts.
‘I’d like to get everything over to the committee by the end of the day.’
‘Not a problem.’ He picked up the phone. ‘We’ll get a courier.’
She shook her head and covered the keypad before he could dial. ‘No. Alex, this is something I want to do myself.’
‘I know it’s important to you, baby.’ He rested his hips against the desk. ‘How about this? We’ll have James run them by here so you can check everything before he delivers them. Does that work for you?’
She sent him a sad look. No, it didn’t.
He saw the less than excited expression on her face. Catching her chin, he brushed his thumb along her jawline. ‘Let’s order Grimaldi’s tonight to celebrate.’
Her eyes started to sting, and she clenched the flash drive in her fist. She didn’t feel much like celebrating. ‘I’m not very hungry.’
She was frustrated and discouraged, but determination gelled inside her chest.
She turned and left the room. She grabbed her laptop, then headed past the living room and bar to their bedroom. Carefully, she tucked the computer into its bag. Her hand was shaking as she zipped the flash drive into a pocket of her purse.
Moving almost mechanically, she took the time to change out of her yoga clothes. A pair of jeans and a knit top made her feel more like her old self. Her throat was thick as she tugged on her boots.
She stared at the dresser for ever. The dresser with her drawer … which had become two. When she felt herself wavering, she turned towards the closet instead.
It was time to get to work.
She was halfway through the hangers when Alex poked his head into the bedroom. Elena lifted her chin. She hadn’t tried to be quiet, and the rustling couldn’t be helped.
His gaze immediately latched on to her suitcase. It was open on the bed and full of clothes. His eyes turned flinty, and his lips flattened. ‘What’s this?’
His stoic phase had come and gone long ago. He couldn’t hide his feelings from her any more.
She folded her black suit carefully and tucked it in the bag. ‘I’m going away for a while.’
He was leaning in the doorway, braced against the doorjamb. His posture didn’t change, but everything else about him did. His body stiffened and the air snapped. ‘Why?’
‘Because I can’t breathe here.’
She forced herself to face the dresser. Rummaging through her drawer, she found the black lace lingerie. She hesitated for a moment, her breath shaky, and chose something simpler.
His voice took on a measured patience. ‘Elena, I’ve told you. It has to be this way, at least for a while.’
‘And I don’t agree.’ She packed her toiletry bag. She was about to zip up the suitcase when she thought of something. It made her chest ache, but she couldn’t leave it behind.
‘We could have a picnic lunch on the roof.’ His words were coming more quickly. ‘It’s supposed to clear up later on.’
She looked at him sadly as she returned to the closet.
‘A walk around the block.’ He dragged a hand through his hair. ‘Smith and Hanson will have to accompany us.’
Her resolve strengthened. ‘I’ve lived in hiding, Alex, and I’m done. It can’t be us against the world any more. We need to find a way to coexist.’
‘Elena.’
She took a hanger off the rod. He paled when he saw the hoodie. It impelled him out of the doorway and he stood over her, hands on his hips. For once, the all-powerful Ax looked helpless, as if he didn’t know what to say to keep her.
She folded the hoodie with the utmost care. More than anything, she wanted to put it on, but in comforting herself she would hurt him. She was already doing enough of that.
The air was raw with emotion.
‘I know you think you’re protecting me, Alex, but the world needs us out there in it. Things are difficult right now, but you need to get back to work. Go back to Wolfe Pack. Do good things.’
‘I’m trying,’ he ground out.
She zipped up the bag and pulled it to the floor. He reached to help her, but then stopped himself.
Elena hooked the computer bag over her shoulder. Gathering the rest of her things, she walked past him. The walk down the hallway to the penthouse’s front door was the longest she’d ever taken. Her eyes were damp, and her breaths were pummelling her lungs. She didn’t want to do this, but she had to. The roller case clattered along after her, the wheels sounding loud in the quiet apartment. It couldn’t compete with the roaring in her head.