by TN King
The smile slid off of his face like melting butter, his head hanging with obvious guilt. At least it looked obvious, but then he’d made a lot of things look genuine when they turned out not to be, hadn’t he?
She huffed, an angry snort as her gaze flicked around the room, catching sight of all of the eyes on her.
Joanna and the regulars stared at her as if they couldn’t quite believe it.
She stared right back, daring anyone to interfere, and everyone save for Joanna dropped their gaze. Joanna grinned at her, giving her the thumbs up and her signature ‘give ‘em hell’ mouthing before she walked off.
“Hmph!” Ellie muttered, spinning away from Morgan entirely. He could take that crap right out of this diner and go try pedaling it at some bar. She wasn’t about to fall for that again. She certainly wasn’t about to let him just waltz right back in here and act like he hadn’t done a damned thing in the first place.
No sir… not this time.
“Ellie?” he called, trying to infuse some of that signature charm into his words.
No. She wasn’t having it. Oh no, she flat out refused to look at him at all, slamming the coffee mug on the counter in front of him and spinning away again, grabbing the pot of coffee with deliberation.
He placed his hands up when she turned back. “Not the face, Ellie!” he tried to joke, humor falling as flat as her expression. Yes, he meant she might throw the scaling coffee into his face.
Ohh! It is sooo not funny. Nothing about this situation is. No, she wasn’t going to throw hot coffee at him, even if she sure wanted to. She could control this whole thing, her emotions and impulses. She had to. Not only was she at work, but she wasn’t about to sink herself down a few levels just to feel better about something. When she knew damn well doing something so vengeful wasn’t going to make her feel better in the first place.
She’d gone too far, trusted him too deeply, and wound up more emotionally tangled than she’d been prepared for. He’d really done it this time, broken the heart that she had so freely given him… and now she needed to keep it together. For herself and to not give him the satisfaction of seeing how deeply that cut had gone. She poured him his cup of coffee calmly, refusing to meet his gaze the whole time. But the minute that it was done she put the coffee pot down and stomped away.
Screw him and his steamy, steely gaze.
Sue was just coming out of the back as she was heading for the room herself, the other woman stopping in her tracks and letting out a long, low whistle. “Oh, my god! It’s him. Oh wow, he is so sexy!” she exclaimed, her eyes wider than the saucers that they served their tea on.
Ellie couldn’t help but snort again, red racing behind her eyes. “Well you go and get him then! He likes to grab up waitresses and take them for a ride!” she snapped, loud enough to echo around the whole diner. She didn’t wait for a response, or look to see what attention it garnered this time. Her hurt heart and blazing temper were wreaking havoc on her soul, instead she stomped back to the locker room, slamming the door behind her.
She nearly fell into the chair near the lockers, sitting down and putting her head in her hands with a groan. She needed to get a hold of herself fast, and she was trying to, really—it was just that it was so hard. She’d just made a total fool out of herself out there, in front of everyone. Do not cry! She instructed herself. Why was he here though? God, it was just so much up and down. Up and down. Like a yo-yo. She didn’t feel like she could take much more of this. She couldn’t be a yo-yo, not even for Morgan Hunt… ugh, she’d been better off before, not knowing how wonderful he could be or how he could make her feel. It being stripped away like it had been… She thought of the apartment and college, her pride begging her to reject all of it. Throw it back in his face and…
“Ellie,” he spoke from somewhere close, his voice much more subdued than it had been in the diner earlier.
How did he get in here? She hadn’t even heard the door.
She tried rubbing the tears off of her face, trying to pretend that she hadn’t just been back here crying over him… again. “Why are you here Morgan?” she asked warily, tired and with all of the resentment that had welled up within her. Her eyes lifted with the question, narrowed and taking him in for the first time since he had really come in. Oh. He did look tired after all, dark black and purple rings under those steel eyes of his. Why should she care though? She didn’t feel so great herself either.
Morgan let out a sigh, pent up frustration and apology held within it. “I messed up again,” he admitted lowly, his words stilted, like they had been taught to get out at all.
“Well, if you are here just because you are bored and want to play with my life again to get your kicks…you can just go find another project,” she spat, her eyes flashing even as she fought dissolving into tears again.
His eyes widened at this, eyebrows furrowing in obvious confusion and worry. “Project?” he voiced, a strange twist to the way he asked the one word.
Her gaze skittered from his, a well of disappointment filling her chest. Ellie just couldn’t trust herself to really look at him, to make that sort of eye contact with him for that long of a duration. She couldn’t trust herself with him. He was her weakness, even for how strong he made her in other aspects, when it came to where he was concerned… she fell hook line and sinker every time.
He hesitated, stepping closer, his palms lifted outwards to face her as if he was begging for her to reconsider, or perhaps just even begging for her to listen. “Has Chance been talking to you?” he asked carefully, clearly upset about the fact that he might have been.
Her head snapped up, gaze centering on him once more with absolute fury and disgust. Why would he ask that? Oh, my god! She had been a project! He and Chance getting off on—
“Ellie!” Morgan called, interrupting her inner monologue and forcing her thoughts to still her eyes staring at him like she’d never seen him before.
It was like looking at a different person, with that information in mind. Like she was seeing someone who was a complete, if familiar looking, stranger standing before her. “So, it’s true then?” she asked softly, unable to deny that she had been talking to Chance. How could she when he was admitting so much more thinking that she had been? It stung, even knowing what little she did, after all that they had been through with one another. After all that she had given him. All that he had talked her into trusting him with.
Morgan shook his head, his eyes pleading. He looked haggard, taking another step closer and his frame near bending to try and keep her gaze with his. “No, not this time.”
Her anger lifted even higher, body jettisoning up from where she’d been sitting to stand just in front of him…a tower of rage. “This time?” she demanded, the cool fury in her voice slicing through the air.
He shook his head again, as if by repeatedly doing so he could more strongly verify his argument or something. As if it made him look at all more believable. “You were never in that. Not ever,” he promised, staring into her eyes heavily.
“In what? In a game with you and him?” she asked, a laugh of near hysteria lingering behind her words. She didn’t want to meet his gaze any longer, didn’t want to fall under that hypnosis that only he seemed to possess, but she did so anyways. She stood tall and strong, refusing to back down.
His eyes widened, hands clenched into fists at his sides and anger taking its turn to course over his features as well. “Fuck! I am going to kill him,” he swore vehemently, his words cold and dark in a way that she had never heard.
“No!” Ellie cut in quickly. Blinking to remind herself that, no matter what game he and Morgan were playing, he had never done her any further harm past that. She lifted her chin, forcing herself to acknowledge the truth, forcing herself to acknowledge this new, stranger that was Morgan Hunt. “He never spoke to me, Morgan. I figured it out on my own,” she explained cooly, pushing back the depression in her chest.
The anger in his expression faded out to co
nfusion, staring at her as if he couldn’t quite piece together what she was saying. “Figured what out?”
She shrugged, finally dropping her gaze and refusing to look at him any longer. It felt like too long already, her heart strings tugging hard against her conscience. “That I was just a pet project. You were bored and once you found me, I was your entertainment, then you would improve me and…” she trailed off, the tears choking her up so hard that her voice didn’t want to be able to work past them.
“And what?” he asked his voice barely audible, just whispering the two words.
Disgusted, Ellie sighed again, shaking her head and letting go of all of the anger she’d been carrying. It wouldn’t actually serve her in the end, just like it wasn’t really serving her now. It was a placebo drug, in place of the real one that she should have been taking instead. She didn’t forgive him, but she would need to one day, and that meant working on it right now. “It’s okay. You didn’t even have to come and check on me. You don’t owe me anything. But I do owe you,” she admitted with a sigh, fishing into her pocket for her keys. Well, his keys, to the car and the apartment both. “You can have it all back. I’ll need a few days to move out, and to secure a new place. I’d like to keep my spot at the college, if possible, but I’ll pay it from here on out and apply for my own scholarships. I won’t be taking anything else from you,” she finished, holding out the keys to both stubbornly.
His eyes dropped to the keys, rounding as they took in the implication she was making. When his eyes lifted back to her face, they were nearly panicked in their obvious denial. “What?” he muttered dazedly, before hurriedly lifting his own hand to try and close her fingers back around the keys. “Oh, no, Ellie! Those are yours. You can’t—?”
“I can!” she screamed, cutting him off. She could and was. It didn’t matter how they tried to justify it now; she couldn’t, in good conscience accept those lavish gifts and move on from her life with him. It just wasn’t possible. “I’ll admit, I was dazzled by all of this,” she said in a much quieter tone, sadness leaching the color from her words. “By your wealth, by your offers of help, by—you, or at least who I thought you were Morgan…. But now? I’m going to do this on my own. I may not have a lavish apartment and a car to make things easier, but I’m still going to do it. I’ll go to college, and then get the car and the new apartment, with my own money. Because I do want a better chance at life. So thank you for that. For making me stronger, for making me move on.”
Her chest felt as if it had been ripped open, bare and desolate on the floor before them, a giant carcass of what had been instead of the promise of what could be that she’d been living in before the past few days. She hadn’t thought, earlier that evening, that she would be thanking him. But she did owe him that, she did owe her awakening to him, and she refused to tarnish herself by refusing to acknowledge it just because of a broken heart. A broken heart could heal, but a fractured spirit would remain fractured.
“Can I just explain? Please?” he pleaded, his tone dropped so far as for it to be hard to hear him properly.
She was having to strain to even do so. She turned back to face him more fully once more, her eyes narrowed at how he was making it out like he was the victim. Like she was somehow supposed to listen, again, to him prattle on some nonsense about work and being scared, when he had left her scared and alone again without explanation before. Was that how it was supposed to work? Her, at his beck and call whenever he was available and bored, only to be picked up again when he had the time and inclination? Did it even matter to him how that made her feel? “You disappeared, again!” she cried out, emotion falling off of the words and into the tense air around them. “You left me again,” she accused, hotly this time.
He nodded, matter-of-fact and yet still somehow shamefaced. “Yes, and for the same dumbass reason,” he told her solemnly.
She shook her head again, was that just supposed to excuse it? How was he honestly expecting her to take that?
“Just give me this last chance?” he pursued, enticing her with his gray gaze, dipping his head so it would be hard for her not to be looking directly into them. “I will explain it all. I…” His voice faded away, hand gesturing as if to continue with the words that he couldn’t actually utter.
No, Ellie do not look into his eyes, don’t do it! She took a deep breath, preparing to turn away from him again, but when she lifted her chin, his eyes were right there- hypnotic and alluring, forcing her to meet them—despite her best efforts not to do so.
He met her gaze head on, pain residing just behind those steely gray eyes. “I will come to your apartment so we can talk. I swear I’ll try everything and anything to convince you that I had a very good…” he trailed off, shaking his head as if dismissing the words before he even uttered them. “No, I won’t. There’s not a good enough reason to have hurt you again, especially in the same way,” he admitted, sighing as if defeat were already encroaching upon him. He hadn’t even finished his proposal, but he wasn’t looking at her as if he were actually expecting an answer one way or another now.
Ellie sucked in a long, shuddering breath. Was he really trying to give up now? Him? The deal maker? The king of charm? Why did he even come back here after all of that? She needed to know this at least, she had to know why he would even bother. She couldn’t move on until it was over, until they had discussed it and she could bury it.
Ellie already knew, before she so much as opened her mouth, that this was another bad idea. Another case of her jumping when she should have given it more thought. “Okay,” but she said it anyways, softly into the tension fraught air around them.
His chin seemed to jerk, head lifting in surprise. As if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing for fact, his gaze searching her face deliberately as if for any indication that he could have misheard her. “Okay?” he questioned again, verifying it again.
She threw her hands up in defeat, shaking her head, knowing still that she should have told him no… and completely unable to do so. “You can come over tonight while I’m packing,” she informed him with irritation, sighing around the words. She would need to be packing too, to steady herself and otherwise, occupy her mind while he pulled out all of his tricks and charm.
His face didn’t instantly clear, there was no victorious smile either, but some of the lines of tension did seem to ease. His gaze swung around the area, as if searching for an exit before she changed her mind, before coming to rest back on her with lifted brows. “About ten then? When do you get off? Has your schedule changed?” he worried, searching his pockets for what she assumed was his phone.
She paused, actually deliberating on that one. Did she really want him there right when she got off of work? Did she want to tell him her hours again and risk him hijacking her ride home as well and demanding more time to ‘explain’ things? No. No, she was going to be smart about it this time. “Yes, ten would be okay.” she answered, refusing to give him even an inch on his other questions.
Again, there was obvious relief in the man’s face, his long legs bringing him a step forward as if he intended to embrace her—or god forbid kiss her like he had a tendency of doing. The look on her face seemed to stop him though, his feet coming to an abrupt halt and his eyes again searching her features. “Okay,” he agreed slowly, taking a step back away from her. “I will be there then.” He continued walking backwards as if he couldn’t bear to take his eyes off of her. “And Ellie? Thank you… for agreeing to hear me out,” he finished, turning abruptly and swinging around in order to disappear through the employee room door.
Oh God. Oh, fuck. What in heaven’s name are you thinking here Ellie! The small voice in her head lectured, sounding just as loud and worried as Ellie’s emotions. She swiped decisively at her left-over tears, exhaling hard at the click of the door shutting behind him. I was thinking that if he finally tells me all of the truth then maybe I can move on. Or maybe he’ll- oh shit! She stomped her foot in frustration, her hands w
iping belatedly further at her face with now jerkier movements. Obviously, I don’t know what I’m thinking! I never do when it comes to Morgan Hunt!
She sniffled, trying to pull herself back together and failing. No matter what, she still had a shift to get through, and with her going to be needing the more hours again, especially to pay for college, she needed to show Joanna that she was still dependable. Ellie wiped at her face some more, putting her chin up, and preparing to slay all of her dragons at once.
Or at least—one at a time.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Morgan
He felt like a piece of meat that had already been put for the meat grinder, and put back through it again after the first time. Raw, unfiltered emotion teaming within his chest in a way that was both foreign, uncomfortable, and actually painful. He should be feeling that way though, he should be embracing it after this second stunt he had pulled.
The day he had written the text to Ellie it had been true enough. He’d been called away unexpectedly, and he hadn’t wanted to call her while she was sleeping, or risk waking her earlier than she would have on her own… so he’d texted her from the tarmac. The tarmac that wasn’t taking him back to Philly, like he would have been traveling with her. He’d been called away on urgent business to Japan of all places. The Yamato-Hitori group had hit a snag, and it was one that apparently, only he could solve. It was a 100 million dollar contract after all. Chance and the board were both imploring him to go quickly before the contract began to dissolve.
That in itself had only taken him a day though. Just enough time to get there, dissolve the rising tensions that were apparently just a language barrier, and get back on a plane that same evening to come home. He’d spent the entire ride back home thinking about all of the things he was going to do to her, and all of the ones he hadn’t done despite wanting to when she’d been wearing those blue, silk panties in front of him so willingly. Of course, it’d been when he had landed and gotten into his own car that he realized that no, that wasn’t quite true. He’d been distracted the entire time over Ellie White again. So distracted that he had managed to miss that it was an interpretation problem straight off the bat, like he should have been able.
