by Lily Zante
My eyes widen in surprise. “I’m… I’m not trying to mess up anything.” I don’t understand what he means. I don’t understand how that simple conversation with Nina could lead to this. And then an image of Eli as a toddler flashes through me. My heart softens and I want to put my arms around him.
Whatever his nightmares are made of, I want to make him feel better. I never meant to cause him more pain. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, and suddenly I don’t want him to let go of me. I want him to press all of his body further against mine. We barely touch, but it’s enough for me to want more, and I pray that he will grind his hips into mine.
Hussy that I am, that I become, when this man is around.
And then I feel it against my belly; subtle at first that I’m not sure, but it can only be one thing. His hardness. We become aware of this at the same time, because he pulls away. Random wicked thoughts swoop through my head and I stare at his lips. I’m well aware of his fingers around my wrists. “Eli,” I whisper, and lift my head towards him. “I don’t know what I’ve done, but I’m sorry.”
In answer he moves his head forward, as if he’s going to kiss me. “Keep away from my sister,” he warns, and then he leaves me.
I miss his touch.
I miss his fingers around my wrists.
He has his back to me, and I want to run up behind him and throw my arms around him. But it’s not to hug him. I want to touch him, and feel him all over.
And that’s a bad thought to have.
It’s not a thought I have about people I barely know. I’ve thrown up on him, and so, in that respect, we are not complete strangers.
“I’m sorry,” I say, because I don’t want to leave. I don’t even care about the story. I want to make it better for him. I want his sister to like me. He’s messing with my head and he doesn’t even know it.
“Get out,” he growls.
I’m stunned. “Bu—”
“Now!” He’s talking to me like I’m a nuisance, and it hits me then. I’m aroused. Being around him has done that to me, even though he sees me as a nuisance. This is not good.
I don’t wait to be told again.
Chapter Fifteen
ELI
* * *
Jake nods in acknowledgement as he walks out of the toilet stall. He’s holding his hands up. “I didn’t hear a thing. You good?”
I dismiss him with a nod but say nothing. I’m not good. I was. But I’m not good now. I don’t need that shit from my past in my head. I need to keep my head clear. I was lucky to get this fight. I might not get so lucky again, and if I’ve learned anything in my life, it’s that you’ve got to take a chance when you get it.
Some of us don’t have rich dads to help us when we’re in trouble.
I don’t know why Lou agreed to have a reporter here at all. He claims it’s for the publicity, but I’d rather do without that than have her snooping around and upsetting my sister. Our past is our past and we want to keep it there.
Harper’s messing things up. She’s messing with my head, and making me lose my focus.
* * *
HARPER
* * *
I go back to my desk, feeling wretched. I don’t know what happened just now. I don’t understand what Eli’s talking about. Nina didn’t look upset to me, and I feel bad if she is. I’ll apologize.
But Eli being mad at me like that? It’s humiliating and unfair. I’ve never been treated like that before by anyone.
Lou comes over to me. “What’s going on?”
“Eli wanted to talk to me about something. It’s nothing major.” I try to sound light and breezy because he looks concerned, then I flash him a smile and pretend that everything is okay. But it’s not.
It’s so not.
I don’t even know what I feel.
In there, in the locker room with Eli pushing me against the wall—I was a mixture of surprise, and anger, and shock. But he awakened something else in me. A longing for him. Elias evokes reactions in me which take me by surprise.
Things have changed. At first I saw him as someone untamed, a fighter with a body that’s hard to ignore; the type of guy who might catch my eye in the gym, but that’s all. The type of guy whose pecs and deltoids might make me drool over them, even though he’s not someone I would pay any more attention to.
But now my skin prickles when he’s near me, and I can tell when he’s around, even if he’s behind me, and out of sight. I can sense his presence without seeing him.
It is attraction, and it has crept up on me. It might be tied into the things I’m learning about his past, the things that horrify me, and fill my heart with compassion. Maybe this is what draws me to him. He’s a broken man, despite the tough-as-steel exterior.
I don’t understand it, but as I sit here pretending to look at my screen, at this piece I’m supposed to be writing on him, my body is still tingling from where his body touched mine.
And now I feel sorry for myself.
He told me to get out. He told me to stay away and mess up someone else’s life. I don’t understand. He also called me Princess, and the way he said it he made it sound like a derogatory term.
I wonder who else might have been in the locker room and would have heard that. My anger starts to build. What gives him the right to treat me like this? I was only doing my job, and I wasn’t being a complete sneak.
I’ll put my head down and work, but I need to talk to someone, to get this off my chest. I call Gerry, and ask him to meet me at The Weston, the same hotel where I met Eli that night I threw up on him. Gerry would never pass up the chance to get together.
A few hours later I meet him there. He’s waiting for me on one of the sofas in the lounge area outside the bar. We nod at one another, and I feel ridiculously grateful to see a friendly face. I rush towards him.
“Hey,” he says, staring at me as if he’s assessing me. “Why the SOS?”
“What SOS?” I exclaim as I plant myself down in the comfy single-seater adjacent to him. Its softness is a salve for my tired body and emotionally bruised ego, and I allow myself to sink into it even more.
“You don’t call me to meet unless you need something.”
That stinging comment snaps me to attention. “That can’t be true,” I say out loud, while thinking over the past few times when I’ve called him to meet. It’s never ever been about a personal matter, and it’s always been work-related. Like the time I was freaking out because of a deadline I didn’t think I was going to be able to meet and I feared that Merv would skin me alive, metaphorically, if I turned in the assignment late. Or the time when I was late with an article that was going to press, and Gerry helped me out.
“I’m offended,” I reply, feeling a little sore at the remark.
He laughs. “Hey, I don’t mind being used in this way. Tell me what’s wrong?” And that’s what I like about Gerry.
He’s kind and gentle and always willing to help, and he often takes my side when Merv has something to say about an article I’ve written. He’s like the gay friend most women love to have, only he’s not gay, but he’s safe, in that he’d never hit on anyone.
He’s recently divorced. His wife left him after seven years of marriage. No children. I have a sneaky feeling that he’s still in love with her and he’s finding it hard to adjust to single life. That’s what I gauge from the small pieces of information he’s given me. I feel sorry for him because he’s a good guy.
“I wanted to meet you for a drink. Can’t I do that?” I ask.
“You know you can. I’m glad you called. Merv’s in a mood.”
I groan. “What is it now?”
He tells me about some minor headaches in the office. “I’m glad I escaped,” he says, “Tell me about the boxing gym. What’s the latest with your boxer?”
“He’s not my boxer,” I retort, glancing around at the bar. I don’t really want to talk about Eli. That would put a sour mood on the evening. This sofa is so comfortable that I’m incline
d to want to kick my sneakers off and stick my legs up. And yet a dry white wine is exactly the tonic I need after a day like this, and I can’t be sitting on a comfy sofa having one of those.
“Shall we sit there?” I say, pointing to an empty table in the bar.
“Whatever you want.”
We move over to the bar. Warm orange sconces are spaced around the walls and rich red glass domes hang along the bar area. It’s cozy, and discreet, and the chatter of people in the background is a comforting hum.
“You were going to tell me about Elias,” Gerry prompts.
“Was I?” I peruse the drink menu even though I already know what I want. “I can’t get anything out of that guy.”
“That guy,” says Gerry. “That doesn’t sound too good.”
“I can’t get any rapport with him.”
“I’m surprised a woman like you can’t get him to open up.”
I frown in response, because that sounds sexist, and I don’t expect that from Gerry.
“You’d probably have better luck,” I reply. I really do believe he would. Eli would respond better to a guy. He’s so changeable, and I don’t know how to handle him. We seemed to be getting along fine the other evening, until I messed things up by throwing up, and just as I thought we had reached some sort of happy medium, I’ve managed to upset his sister and now I’ve angered him beyond belief. How am I supposed to get information when our personalities clash the way they do?
“You have to make him trust you, Harper. Boxers aren’t known for being open and easygoing. They can’t be because of what they do. You have to remember this guy is a nobody and he’s going up against a seasoned pro. He’s going to get his ass kicked in the first few rounds. It must take serious guts for Cardoza to step into a ring where the odds are stacked against him, but this is what he’s going to do. He’s not going to willingly offer up information to you because he couldn’t care less about what you need. You have to work at it.”
I consider his advice. Gerry’s right, as usual. Any other journalist would know she’d pressed a hot button, that she’d touched on pain buried so deep beneath his soul that the pain was still so evident in his face. Eli’s hurting and I sense there’s stuff I need to delve deeper into. My ego is hurt and bruised from the way he spoke to me. It’s odd that I don’t mind so much the way he handled me—shameless hussy that I am—and that I’m more put out by the tone he used and the way he spoke to me.
I don’t tell Gerry any of this, or of the vomiting episode. That would only make me look unprofessional in his eyes.
We order our drinks, which arrive surprisingly quickly. A lemonade for Gerry and a cocktail for me. I need something to pick me up after what happened today.
“Merv is sending me to the fight in New York,” he says. I feel fine about that. I’ve never been to a boxing match before, and I don’t watch these things on TV either, so I’m more than happy for him to go.
“You’ll appreciate it,” I tell him.
“Don’t you want to see it? You’ve been shadowing this guy, don’t you want to see it through?”
I make a face. “Not really.” When I first started this assignment, the fight seemed so far away but it seems to be creeping closer all the time. I hadn’t even thought about watching it live. I’m not entirely sure that Merv would want me to go, especially if Gerry’s going. I can run with the story up until then and leave Gerry to report on the fight.
Win or lose, Eli will be a great story.
“Think about it,” he offers, “and if you want to—I personally think you should go—I’ll have a word with Merv.”
I make a face because I can imagine Merv’s reaction to that request. “Merv already thinks I have a ticket into this job, he’s not going to send me off on a trip to New York.”
“We’ll see what he says.”
“He hates me, doesn’t he?”
Gerry’s lips pinch together and when he doesn’t reply, I ask, “What does he hate more, that my dad helped me get this job, or that he couldn’t give it to his nephew?”
“The former led to the latter.”
“I wish my dad would butt out sometimes,” I say. I can sense that others in the team don’t exactly warm to me, and that Gerry’s the only one who makes an effort with me. It sucks to be me sometimes.
“Stay for one more?” Gerry asks when I finish my cocktail. He strikes me as being lonely. But even though I feel sorry for him, I want to go home and have an early night. Plus I have notes to write up, yet I feel obligated to stay and keep him company.
“I don’t want to hog your evening.”
“You’re not hogging me,” he replies, looking happier. “It’s good to have some company. I can only spend so many hours working late nights.”
I smile in return.
It seems as if we’ve both had a bad day.
I’ve also decided to stay away from the gym for a few days and return to the office. Right now, putting up with Merv at the office doesn’t seems as bad as facing Eli in the gym.
Chapter Sixteen
ELI
* * *
“Elias!” My sister’s eyebrows shoot upwards, and her eyes widen. “What did you have to go and do that for?”
“She was snooping around you.” I knew she would be pissed when I told her that I’d had words with Harper. I don’t tell her that I might have been a little rough with her, I only told her that I had said some words. She doesn’t need to know the exact details.
Though I don’t know why I told her. Maybe it’s because Harper hasn’t been in at the gym for the past three days and I feel guilty.
“She wasn’t snooping around me,” Nina counters.
“That’s not what you said the other day.”
Nina looks confused for a moment, and I feel like a traitor. “No, I didn’t. I said she’d been asking questions, that’s all.”
I bite my tongue. I tried to find out from Lou earlier today, in a roundabout way, when I asked where the journalist was. He told me to focus on the boxing and quit worrying about everything else. Then I asked Ernesto, and he immediately asked me what I’d done to her. He thinks he was joking, but he has no idea how close he got to the truth.
“She’ll be back.”
“Back?” Nina looks horrified. “What do you mean she’ll be back? I hope you didn’t get her fired.”
“Relax,” I say. “I’m not that thoughtless. She hasn’t been at the gym for a few days, that’s all.”
“Since you spoke to her?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you say?” Nina asks.
I wince. “I might have gotten a little angry.”
“Elias!” my sister cries. “That temper of yours is going to get you in trouble one of these days.”
“Too late for that,” I reply. My temper is the thing that got me in trouble; always has, probably always will. It wasn’t enough that Nina and I were born to parents who should never have had children, but we were then passed onto my aunt who changed boyfriends the way most people change their wallpaper. My anger spilled out into the streets as I grew older, and school became impossible. When my aunt could no longer take care of us, we were sent to Grampton House before being passed around from foster home to foster home.
No one really wanted us, not both of us together, not me. I was a troubled child. But the state didn’t want to separate us, so we went through lots of different foster homes.
We would never have parted.
Ever.
We told one another we’d rather have gone homeless than be split up, and later on we almost did. As soon as she could, when she was out of the foster care system, Nina got a job and managed to get a room. A year later, I followed, and we got a small place in a dangerous neighborhood. She worked all the time, and when she was in danger of not being able to make the rent, I started fighting in the underground fight clubs to help make money to pay the rent.
Then Lou found me.
Now she’s mad at me because I to
ld a nosy journalist to quit hassling her. “You’re not making things easy for her.”
“Don’t waste your time worrying about her,” I shoot back.
“I like her. She was nice.”
“That’s not what you said the other day.”
“What did I say?” Nina asks, planting her hands on her hips as if she’s getting ready to fight me.
I say nothing.
“You always jump to the wrong conclusions, Elias. What did you say to her?”
I don’t tell her everything. “I told her to quit poking around.”
My sister’s frown makes me reconsider. I might have been a little harsh. A princess like that isn’t used to being handled or spoken to like that, the way I did. It was a shock to her system, I can tell.
Maybe Nina has a point. I have anger issues but my anger is what makes me lethal. It’s my fire, and my fuel. Take that away and you might as well castrate me.
“You should apologize.”
“How can I when she’s not around?”
“This is work, and she’ll be back, so make sure you do when she does come back.”
Chapter Seventeen
HARPER
* * *
“Are you still here?” Merv asks. I’ve been at the office for a few days and I’m starting to wonder if he gave me this assignment purely because I’d be based in another location.
“I’m writing up my assignment, and fact-checking a few things.”
“Let me take a look at what you’ve got so far.”
It needs more, much more than I’ve currently got. “I will, when it’s ready for your eyes.”
“Gerry’s going to the fight,” he tells me, and of course, I already know this, but I’m not about to tell him that Gerry suggests I come along.
