Читать книгу Mistresses: Just One Night - Yvonne Lindsay - Страница 20

BACK stiff and feet aching, Elise untied her black barista apron and tucked it under the pick-up counter. Sagging against the sink with a wan smile, she counted her tips. Thought again about finding a second job that paid better and then reminded herself that the flexibility was the primary reason she worked this one. And really, the tips weren’t that bad. They served food all day and the Dearborn Park patrons were a generous lot, with a good turnover. Besides, it was walking distance from her place. Which meant she wasn’t blowing coin on transportation to work there.

Definitely a benefit.

Normally the energy of the popular coffeehouse was enough to get her through a shift, even after working five to two at the athletic club, but today the cacophony of whistling steam, clanking ceramic, and shouted orders had grated from the moment she’d walked through the door.

The situation at home was deteriorating.

Ally had mentioned it the week before, but, being a bit of an alarmist, her street credit wasn’t what it could be. Elise figured her sister was making more of a missed call or off day than she should. But when Elise had dropped by with groceries the evening before, she’d been greeted at the front step with a tentative smile and news that it wasn’t a good day. That a visit would be too disrupting and they’d talk on the phone later.

Of course it wasn’t the first time a bad day had kept them from seeing each other. It was just that Ally had met with a similar response two days before. And when Elise had talked to her mom this morning, all of her questions had been shut down with the most minimal response and her mother had asked her not to come to the house for a few days.

An anxious knot tightened Elise’s stomach.

It wasn’t as though her mom weren’t entitled to her space or privacy. It was just that she’d been systematically shutting herself off from the world for nearly six years … and she needed a life. If she wouldn’t even let her daughters in—

“Elise?”

Jerking upright, she scanned the crowd of customers. Caught on the man in the twill shirt and khakis, cleaning his glasses on the end of his tie in front of her. Sandy hair, clipped neat. Handsome in a lanky sort of way.

Oh, God, not now.

“Eric?”

Her thumb moved to that touch point at the base of her fourth finger.

This was the last thing she needed today. He was the last person she wanted to see.

“I know. Surprise, surprise. I didn’t realize you’d started working here,” he said, taking in the coffee shop with a subtly disapproving stare that gave her the impression he was revisiting the conversation from a lifetime ago when he’d told her to quit working. That, married to him, she wouldn’t need a job.

What a mistake that would have been.

“Finally get over the whole yoga thing?”

She bristled at his easy dismissal of her dream, but then pushed it down, reminding herself that she was already on edge. And Eric hadn’t done anything to put her there. No doubt he was as uncomfortable seeing her as she was him, and was simply struggling for something to say.

Still, she hadn’t expected to see him.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, digging deep to find a smile that matched her civil tone.

At the cheeky toast of his whipped mocha, she nodded, smiling a bit. “In town, I mean.”

“I told you I’d be back,” he said, eyes trained steadily on hers as if to gauge her reaction. Her remorse maybe. “That it probably wouldn’t be more than a year and a half. Turns out it was less. The transfer went through last week.”

He must have worked himself to the bone—but he looked good for it.

“Congratulations, Eric. You earned it.” Finding she truly meant it, she added a sincere, “I’m happy for you.”

He waited a beat. Stepped closer. “You could have been happy with me, Elise.”

Then, shaking his head with a wry smile, he asked, “How have you been? How’s your dad—your family?”

She swallowed, taken aback by the bold statement and the questions in the warm brown eyes that had never truly held her. And she realized he was wrong. She wouldn’t have been happy with him. Not the way people committing to a life together were supposed to be. Their relationship had been nice. Pleasant. Convenient.

Tepid.

They’d gotten along.

Shared interests.

Enjoyed the other’s company.

But never had there been even a fraction of the intensity she experienced with Levi. This man had been her friend.

And the reason his forcing her to choose between moving for his career and staying near her family had been so crushing was that it had felt like a betrayal from someone who should have understood.

So they’d both made the right decision. Marriage would have been a terrible mistake.

“I’ve been good, Eric. Busy. I’m trying to open my own studio, so I’m working even more than before, if you can believe it.”

That chagrined expression said he could.

Skimming over the details of her parents, she filled Eric in on her family. Primarily, the adventures of Ally pregnant, and the joy of her new nephew Dexter. When she’d finished, she found Eric watching her with something that might have been pity in his eyes.

Something she didn’t like. Crossing her arms, she took a step back.

“Sounds like the life we’d always talked about. Only it’s someone else’s.”

Deflated, she shook her head. “I just want different things these days. A studio of my own. Working toward that goal has taken up most of my time.”

“Sounds lonely.”

Lately it hadn’t felt that way. But once Levi left …

Eric set his mug on the counter between them. “Just take care of yourself, Elise. I want you to be happy. I want you to have the life we couldn’t have together.”

Something was going on with Elise.

Levi’d seen it the second she stepped into his loft. Sensed the tension and noted the way her smile didn’t match her eyes. All kinds of alarms had started sounding in his head as he braced for something he wasn’t going to want to hear. Something he wasn’t going to let happen. But then she’d walked up to him and, without a word, gone to work on his belt.

Not him.

Whatever it was. It wasn’t about him.

And that should have been enough—with any other woman it would have been. But this was Elise.

Stilling her hands at his belt, he lifted her face with a finger beneath her chin. “What’s going on?”

She blinked, as though surprised—frustrated that he’d noticed. Or frustrated that she’d let him notice.

“Talk to me. Maybe I can help.”

Levi waited for her to explain, but instead Elise stared down at the floor. “No. It’s been one of those days. At the coffee shop—no, before that …”

“Hey, come here.” He pulled her into his arms, drawing in the sweet scent of her shampoo, subtly overlaid with roasted grounds.

“I should have canceled … I just thought if I saw you tonight—”

She broke off with a weary shake of her head that made the center of his chest ache as if he’d taken a blow to it. “What did you think?”

“That you’d distract me. Do what you always do and make me forget about everything else.” With each word, her eyes darkened like a swollen rain cloud about to burst. “Just for a few hours.”

“That’s what you want? Me to make you forget?” He would have liked her to confide in him. To share her burden, but maybe the distance she kept was smarter than this playacting at intimacy he couldn’t seem to resist.

“It was stupid—”

Catching the soft curve of her cheek in his palm, Levi tipped her face to meet his. Gave in to a single second of wondering how this woman had the ability to affect him so completely differently than any woman he’d met before. And then pushed every ounce of his cocky arrogance to the fore as he intentionally crowded into her space.

“What, you don’t think I can do it?” Fingers trailing lightly up her hip, waist, and ribs to graze the outer swell of her breast, he lowered his voice to a slow, seductive taunt and spoke against the soft shell of her ear. “Guess I’ve got something to prove, then.”

“Come on. You need to eat.” Levi laid the boxes of pasta all’arrabbiata, fresh baked bread, and insalata caprese across the foot of the bed as Elise curled her legs beneath her at the center.

“I know. I just lose track when there are too many things on my mind.”

Forking up a spicy penne, Levi pulled a distraught frown. “Are you telling me I didn’t distract you enough?”

Hand up to him, she clutched the sheet to her chest, laughing. “I’m distracted! I swear.”

So distracted, it was a miracle she was sitting upright and not sleeping in a boneless heap of sated exhaustion.

“Yeah, well, just in case—” He rounded the bed, coming to sit behind her as he held the pasta to her mouth, waiting for her to bite.

Delicious.

“Let’s talk about your favorite subject. The studio. Do you want to tell me about the wood you think would be best in the studios or the quotes you got on the Pilates machines? I’m game, either way.”

A weight lifted as she drifted toward the comfort of her fantasies and plans—the productive escape she used to shut out all the things beyond her control.

Even Levi saw that she’d turned talk about the club into some kind of security blanket.

“I don’t know.” She shook her head, wondering again what she would do if the studio plans fell through. She’d put everything into this one, abstract idea.

Her breath came short. “Oh, God, what if the loan doesn’t go through?”

Fingertips trailed down her spine and then the flat of his heel rubbed low across her back. “It will. Don’t worry.”

“It’s just that I can’t even imagine what I’m going to do if it doesn’t.” Peering over her shoulder at Levi stretched across the bed, she confessed, “I haven’t got another plan. I mean, it’s not as though I won’t have work. But there’s no next step. No fallback plan. I’ve put everything into this studio and suddenly I feel like if it doesn’t go through, I’m going to be left with nothing.”

Suddenly nothing held a whole new meaning for her. When things had ended with Eric she’d been upset. She’d felt abandoned. But even just twelve months ago things had been different with her parents than they were now—she’d looked into her father’s eyes and, once in a while, she’d still seen him looking back. Today, even her mother was shutting her out.

And then there was Levi. She’d never shared a connection with anyone like this before. Whether it was one-sided or completely skewed the scales in balance didn’t matter. She finally knew what it was to have someone who made her feel whole. Someone who added colors to the world she’d never seen before. Losing that, she suspected, was going to be worse than if she’d never had it at all.

And without the studio to distract her—

“No,” Levi said, cutting into her spiraling thoughts. “If it doesn’t go through you modify your plan and try something else.”

“There you go again. Always with the straightforward simple solution.” Her eyes heavied as the slow rub of his hands over her muscles calmed the tension within her. “What am I going to do when you’re gone?”

The words drifted past her lips without thought, riding on a soft sigh that ended as abruptly as the calming strokes that spurred them. It was the first time she’d said anything like that. The first time she’d acknowledged that she’d begun to rely on him. And she’d done it aloud.

Strong hands wrapped around her hips and towed her across the mattress and into Levi’s lap. Two shifts and she was laid back, held in the crook of one strong arm, while the other braced on the bed across her torso—the position somehow making her feel both protected and vulnerable all at once.

“So maybe you need a backup plan. Let’s start one.” Thick hanks of hair hung over Levi’s brow, darkening his eyes as they bored into hers. “What if you came with me?”

The words seemed to eat up all the air between them, making her “What?” come out in a wheeze that sounded far more desperate than it should have.

“If the loan doesn’t go through, why not come up to Seattle with me for a while? We’ll work on a new business plan together.” The corner of his mouth eased into that cocky grin. “As it happens, I have a knack for that sort of thing. I’m familiar with the neighborhoods you’ve been looking at around here. We could fly back a couple of times to work out the details. Meanwhile, you could see SoundWave coming together. The grand opening will knock your socks off.”

She had no doubt. Especially considering she was stunned to the point of being blown over already.

He wasn’t supposed to ask her to go.

Granted, what he was talking about was temporary. Nothing more than an extension to their affair with the added bonus of access to his business savvy. Only she still couldn’t get enough air in her lungs and started to shimmy out of his hold. “A new business plan?”

Levi followed her out of the bed. “It’d be a few months. We’re having fun, so why not?”

Why not? Why not? Why not?

It was like a cruel joke without a punch line.

A million reasons. All flashing through her mind in the faces she loved too much to abandon.

“I can’t. My family is here.” And even if she wasn’t leaving for good, a few months was too long to risk being gone. Too much could happen in that time and what if they needed her? This week with her mom alone demonstrated just how quickly things could change. No. She couldn’t leave.

“Besides—” she pushed all the confidence she could muster into her voice “—the loan’s going to go through, right?”

“Right.” That cocky smile closed in on her and then Levi pressed a quick, hard kiss to her lips before striding from the room.

She’d blown him off, thank God.

Heart slamming in his chest, fists locked around the edges of the porcelain sink, Levi stared hard into the bathroom mirror.

What in the hell had he been doing, suggesting Elise come to Seattle? It made no sense. Her life was here. Firmly and solidly rooted in all the things she’d never give up. And he was a rolling stone. Practiced in kicking off the moss that amounted to a superficial collection of employees, acquaintances, and belongings accumulated during the development of each club.

It was what he did.

He moved on. Alone.

So what was he doing asking Elise to come with him?

Sure, it wasn’t as if he’d been proposing. He’d basically invited her to a two-month, off-site tutorial on how to set up a new business—and only if her current plans fell through. He cared about her, of course. She was a sweet girl with ambitions he could respect and a struggle he could relate to. So he’d offered some help, figuring it would give them both time to get their fill of whatever it was between them.

He hadn’t been trying to keep her.

Never expected her to agree.

Truth be told, the fact that Elise turned him down flat made her all the more appealing. He hadn’t thought it possible, but she wanted even less from this relationship than he did.

Perfect.

Man, he was a head case.

Pushing back from the too intense guy in the mirror, Levi shook off the tension from his close call. Ignored the nagging tug at his gut and the faintly bitter taste of something he couldn’t quite swallow in his throat.

Maybe tomorrow he’d ease back some with Elise. Only as he swung open the door and caught sight of the bare length of skin exposed as she leaned over the pasta—the tentative smile that seemed to stretch wider with his own—he forgot about any plan he had beyond being with her.