And he hadn’t liked it. Because he deemed her life too out of control? Too much for his control-centric sensibilities to handle? Too messy and complicated?
She inhaled and frowned because she had to admit her life was all those things. It was true. At least for the moment.
But that wouldn’t be the case forever. Sure, she had a few really tough weeks, maybe months, to get through. But there was light at the end of the tunnel. And until then, she needed to think of a way to approach him that wouldn’t send him off on another tangent. “Elias, we are…connected now. Through Ana and Cole, through me seeing you when I came running out of the hotel to jump into the limo with you. Through you letting me stay here and sort through all the stuff with Rhys. Like that old Chinese proverb about the red thread. One way or another, we were meant to meet. What’s amazing is that it hadn’t happened until now.”
He turned to stare at her then, eyeing her with such intensity, with such a look of suspicion that she laughed. Laughed! She couldn’t help it, and it felt good to laugh after so much drama andmonthsof stress with Rhys.
“I can seethatwent over well with you. You don’t believe that some things are fated to happen? Meant to?”
The moment the words emerged, she saw the flicker of unfathomable pain cross his face, and she knew instantly he thought of his parents. Of his loss. Of how their deaths had impacted him and his family. Howfatehad shoved him into adulthood at such a young age, and he’d struggled to heal himself so he wasn’t torn from his siblings.
Oh, Elias.“I just meant,” she said softly, “that we would have eventually met through Ana if nothing else. So I’d like to think we’d have wound up friends no matterhowwe met.”
That seemed to ease some of the pain she saw flickering behind his dark eyes, and the furrow between his eyebrows softened. She smiled at him, her brain working overtime to sort through her own emotions and his.
“If I promise not to climb you like a tree, will you sit down and watchGilmore Girlswith me? It’s a great show. Or we could discuss why you came to a cabin in the mountains for vacation with no plans to hook up and have some fun.”
“Is that so unusual?”
She blinked at him and then realized how…jaded she’d become. How the people—work colleagues (admittedly the majority male), Rhys’s cohorts with too much money and lack of morals, even a few friends, though not Ana—wouldn’t have dreamed up a vacationwithoutan intended hookup. Orups.
That had never been her style. She had long term relationships, usually lasting a year or longer before distance or work, morals or personality flaws, ended things.
Was Elias the same way? Did he date with intention rather than the mere casualness of random encounters? “Do you date?” she blurted suddenly.
“You sound like my brothers.”
“If you’ve been asked before, then you already know the answer,” she said smoothly. “So do you?”
“When the occasion warrants.”
“Oh, isn’tthatthe statement of a man who keeps his dates at arm’s length while enjoying the benefits.” She laughed softly. “Okay I get it.”
And sadly, she did. If she had to guess, he satisfied the urge when it became too much but kept his heart on lockdown because that’s what control freaks did.
His expression darkened to a glower that widened her forced grin. She liked poking the bear.
“What do you get?”
“Sogrowly,” she murmured, pretending to shiver and making him even more uncomfortable by giving him a bodacious wink, falling back on years of flirting practice that kicked in like second nature. “Igetthat you see the world as neat little boxes. You take one box out at a time, do what you need to do, and put it back so that it doesn’t have theaudacityto get all messy with the others.”
It took all of two seconds for her to realize she’d described his life in a nutshell. His slow blink, the slight tightening of his oh-so-kissable lips into a flat line and the barely perceptible jerk of his fingertips where they lay spanning his lean hips gave him away.
Yeah, she wasgoodat her job for a reason. She could totally read a room by body language. And his gave him away and then some. Helived and breathedhis mastery of himself, of his self-imposed control, and a real shiver raced down her spine when her thoughts flashed on where else he might demand control when it came to him and his…relationships.
Yeah, not the kind of thing you need to think about now, Quinnie.
“You should turn off the television and go to bed. You need rest, Quinley. I doubt you’ll be getting much of it when you return to Carolina Cove.”
Touched a nerve, had she? What would it be like to tease him unmercifully? Would he lose some of his precious control? Get angry? React and??—
Oh, yeah. The next few days were going to be interesting indeed. After all, she was a newly single woman. It wouldn’t hurt to practice her flirting skills, because why not? And she knew just the man to practice on, if for no other reason than to loosen him up a little. Or a lot. And shake up a few of his too-neat boxes.
“I could. Or you could come sit back down and we watch TV together.” She patted the cushion beside of her like she had that first time and blinked at him through her lashes.
A muscle flexed in Elias’s statuesque jawline before he shook his head and stomped toward his bedroom.
“Good night,” the beast growled.
