The Love Triangle (BWWM Romance) (11 page)

“Elijah, please,” I said. He looked at me and his eyes softened. He let go of the Justin’s sleeve and took a step back.

“I’ll see you on Monday,” he said to me. When he looked at Justin, his eyes went cold again. “You guys enjoy the rest of your afternoon.”

I blew out a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding when he walked back into the restaurant.

“I didn’t realize you know him,” I said.

“I don’t, but there’s only one Elijah in town, and I’m guessing that was him. He’s about as scary as the rumors say he is.”

“He’s not bad,” I said, defending him.

“I don’t think this is appropriate,” Justin mimicked Elijah’s words in a mocking tone. “Please, he thinks because he has money he can get whatever he wants. You work for him so he thinks he can just have you.”

I swallowed. I wasn’t going to tell Justin that in a way Elijah did have me. He was kind and sweet. This aggressive side only came out at the office. And today, apparently, which was very uncharacteristic. But I knew that he had a good side too.

***

I was upset that Shonda had found some excuse to ditch me and leave me alone with Elijah. I knew she’d planned it that way. She was dead sure that my uncertainty about him was just because I couldn’t remember what I’d decided.

As lunch progressed I was starting to think she was right. Elijah was the very definition of charm and grace. I remembered so much of him where he lost his temper or where he was verbally aggressive, but that was usually in the workplace. I had to keep reminding myself that the Elijah I knew at work wasn’t the same Elijah I knew at his home.

My home. I had to keep remembering that.

He helped me where I needed it, like he knew that I needed something even without me asking. And he was nice to me. Really nice. I felt flustered in the café. It felt like something really bad had happened and I couldn’t remember.

But he was soft and gentle and reassuring. When I put my head on his shoulder he didn’t try and put his arm around my shoulders, or kiss me, or anything that would make me feel uncomfortable. It was like he understood.

He just put his hand on my thigh and left it there, and picked up the square menu that lay on the table.

“I can’t believe the coffee prices have gone up that much in the past year,” he said, glancing at the top price. I smiled, because this was Elijah. This was what he always did.

“Will you tell me what I missed?” I asked. He looked at me and his eyes were unsure.

“In the past six months?” he asked. I nodded.

“I just feel like I’ve lost so much more than six months. Like something huge has happened that I just didn’t know about. But there was no election, nothing huge with the business, and all of my family is still alive and well. I checked.”

I felt like an idiot, but I kept talking. “It can’t be anything like that. So it has to be something else.”

“I don’t know, honey,” he said. “There are so many things that happen in a day, it’s hard to isolate the big things. I can tell you what’s going on in the sports world, and in the business world, but you don’t really want to know either of those now, do you?”

I chuckled. “No, I guess not.”

I hesitated. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I didn’t know what I’d lost, and that frustrated me. And I was scared to ask, because my decision during the time that I couldn’t remember had been quite drastic, and the opposite of what I’d been thinking to choose.

I mean, I’d left Justin. And I was scared to ask.

“Can I ask you something personal?” I asked.

Elijah nodded and the look on his face made me laugh.

“I don’t mean personal like that,” I said. “This isn’t high school or anything.” He laughed too, and it was a deep sound. Deep and full. A happy sound. A sound that I remembered made me happy.

“What is it?” he finally asked, his eyes still laughing with me.

I looked down at the napkin I was twirling through my fingers.

“What happened? With us? I know that I chose you. Everyone’s been telling me that. And I have no idea how that happened.”

I looked up at Elijah. The humor had drained out of his eyes until a hard look stayed behind. There was a tightness around his eyes that I hadn’t noticed before too. I wondered, was that because of the accident? Or did the extra stress happen during the six months I’d lost?

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to talk about it,” he finally said.

I nodded. “That’s what Justin said too,” I said, and then I realized I’d said just a little bit too much. It was more instinct than a fact in my mind. I looked up at Elijah, and there was heat in his eyes now. Something that I recognized straight away as rage even though I couldn’t think where I’d seen it before.

“And when did he say this to you?” Elijah asked and his voice was soft. Soft and restrained, like he was holding back. I swallowed. There was no point in lying about it now. I wanted to, but he knew who’d come to see me in the hospital and who hadn’t. He had enough tabs on the last few days so that I wouldn’t be able to get away with it.

So I told him the truth.

“Justin came to visit me in the hotel room. He wanted to check up on me.”

That was truth enough. I didn’t have to tell him the rest. I didn’t have to tell him that I’d ached for him, that I’d needed him to take me in his arms. That I wanted him to whisk me away to a life where everything was stable and it was just me and him.

And he definitely didn’t need to know that he’d kissed me. And that I’d wanted more. So much more.

Elijah looked angry. His hands were curled into fists on the table, and it was as if he didn’t realize it until I noticed it. He tucked them into his lap underneath the tablecloth, like that would erase the fact that it had happened at all. Like hiding his anger would mean that it wasn’t there.

“Don’t be mad at me,” I said. My voice didn’t sound as demanding as I’d meant for it to. It was thin, and in a way I sounded scared. “I just want to know what’s been going on. I want to know what’s happened so I don’t have to keep feeling like I walked in at the end of someone’s conversation. Someone’s got to tell me.”

“Why?” he asked, and his voice was louder. Harsher. Some of the people at the tables around us glanced up, and I squirmed in my seat. I hated it when he made a public scene.

Again I couldn’t think of once he’d done that.

“Because I want to know. Don’t you think it’s fair to tell me what’s been going on in my own life? These are things I witnessed, Elijah. Events I was present at. The least you can do is listen to me.”

“No, Grace,” he said, and I realized I really didn’t like him using my name. Not like that. He only used it when he was angry, and then it felt like he was reprimanding me, like he was disappointed in me. “The least I can do is move on from this the best I can. Do you think this is easy for me? Do you think it’s easy for any of us? You have made all these choices that you suddenly don’t remember, and I’m supposed to pick up the pieces?” His voice was rising. By the time he reached the end of his sentence he was all but yelling.

“This is bullshit!” he exclaimed and this time he really did shout.

“Please, Elijah,” I said and I put both my hands on his arm. They were rock hard, the muscle beneath the skin was solid. Anger ran like a thick cord down his neck and into his shoulders, and he refused to look at me.

“I’m sorry,” I finally said. I wasn’t sorry, but that was one way to defuse him. I knew it was. And it worked. He relaxed. I could feel him ease off underneath my fingertips.

“You’re not the only one that’s dealing with this,” he said. “For all you know we could be married, and you’re pining after someone else.”

A tight fist of panic grabbed a hold of my gut and twisted hard.

“We’re married?” I asked. Elijah sighed and shook his head.

“No, we’re not married.”

I let go of the breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding. “Why the hell would you say that, then?”

He looked at me and there was no light in his eyes, no affection. They were emotionless. Soulless. It was like staring at a blank wall. It scared me, so I looked away.

“I just want you to know that this isn’t easy. I want you to understand. I love you, and you keep calling for Justin. His name is on your lips. Even now, it’s easier for you to say.”

I didn’t have anything to say to that. It was true. Justin was the one I wanted. He was the one I ached for. He was the one I missed. But Elijah couldn’t blame me.

“It’s the last thing I remember,” I said. “Maybe in time I’ll remember, and then it won’t be so hard anymore. Then I’ll feel about you the way I did before.”

Elijah’s face changed. He went through emotions so quickly it was hard for me to keep up. He was suddenly soft and gentle, caring. He took my hand and raised it to his lips.

“I’m sorry, too,” he said. I couldn’t remember him ever apologizing. It made me suspicious, and the moment I questioned his trust I scolded myself for it. I had to find something to hold onto if I didn’t want to lose my mind. And Elijah was right in front of me, offering me what any girl would want.

“This is just hard for me too,” Elijah kept talking when he finally drew his lips away from my knuckles. “You just take your time. We’ll start from the beginning, and if you never remember we’ll make it work.” The corners of his mouth curled up in a small smile that made him look almost boyish. His eyes were light and smiling again, and he would look almost innocent if it wasn’t for that scar.

I still didn’t know what had happened, how he’d gotten it. He hadn’t ever told me that, not even during the time that I could actually remember.

“I wish I could just access all of it. It feels like it’s on the tip of my tongue, I’m just about to grasp it, and then it slips away again. It’s like trying to remember a dream.”

“You know what, maybe starting over is good,” he said. I nodded and the waitress brought our drinks. We watched her unload her tray in silence. It was nice of Elijah to be this understanding about it, but something didn’t make sense. Something kept gnawing at the back of my mind. I wrote it off as one of those things I just couldn’t remember.

After he got the bill, he laced his fingers through mine and we walked down the street. There were dark clouds hanging in the sky and the humidity pressed down on us, laying over Fort Atkinson like a blanket. It was like the heat was trying to hold onto itself no matter what, knowing that the rain would drive it away.

Elijah stopped after we’d walked a while and turned to look at me.

“I just want you to know that whatever happens from here on forward, we’ll make it work. I’ll do whatever it takes, okay?”

I nodded, and the first drops plopped down around us. They fell in oblong shapes on the pavement, and splashed on my cheeks and arms. Elijah stepped closer to me, and pressed his lips against mine. And it was familiar and warm, and it felt a little bit like home.

More like home than anything else had felt since I’d woken up. Well, anything else besides Justin. But I forced that thought out of my mind. I couldn’t keep running back to a man that I’d chosen not to see anymore.

The kiss was long and lingering, sweet. When he finally broke the kiss he smiled at me, and we turned and walked back to the car.

“I have to swing by the office and do chaos control on a meeting that’s gotten a little out of hand,” he said.

“You don’t want me to come with you?” I asked. “I have to go back at some point.” But he shook his head.

“I’m going to drop you at the house. You look like you’re exhausted.” And he was right. I felt like I was going to fall over. We drove home in silence, but it was a comfortable silence, unlike what it had been until now. I felt good. I felt like maybe I was going to figure it out after all.

It wasn’t until he’d driven away and his tail lights had disappeared through the gate that I grasped what had been floating around the back of my mind.

Elijah had said that maybe it was good if I never remembered. That meant that I wouldn’t remember I’d chosen him. That didn’t make sense to me. Why would he say that, if all I had left without my memories of the last six months was the love for another man?

Chapter 12 - Elijah

If there’s one thing I realized, it was that focusing on work when the drive of my existence was at home was hard. Since Grace had arrived at Magna Solutions, going to work had been something to look forward to. She made the office a lighter place, and everyone loved her. It was easy to love her. She got along with everyone, and it didn’t matter what went wrong, she could talk people into making it right again.