“Oh, lawd, Ana. Don’teversay that again.”
Ana giggled loudly and poured herself a nice little addition to the lemonade. “Deal. So long as you do what I say and get moving. Now drink some lemonade and strip.”
It took three drinks and well over two hours to find just the right dress according to Ana. Spring had sprung with higher day temps but cool evenings, but what did temperature matter when it came to fashion?
They’d even managed to find a little black dress for Ana, whose shorter frame and body meant mid thigh came to her knees. The dress worked like a charm, though, if Cole’s appreciative gaze was any indication when he picked them up.
The piano bar was decorated to the nines and held large, oversized furniture and gilded picture frames. The singer tonight had a phenomenal set and a voice that belonged on a concert stage. The building was packed, but having been early due to the day’s birthday celebration, they’d scored one of the L-shaped tufted leather couches and were having a blast.
Quinley tapped her foot along with the music and let the cheeriness of the room and her flowing drinks take her worries away for as long as possible. Until Mia declared exhaustion not long after Alec showed up to escort his birthday girl home and then offered to take Allie and Sophia home as well.
She and Ana stayed a bit longer. Until Cole left his protective perch where he’d kept an eye on all of them while letting them have their girls’ night and retrieved the limo, texting Ana once he was parked outside.
Quinley led the tipsier Ana through the piano bar to the door and outside into the crisp night air. Cole smiled at his grinning fiancée, holding the door for Quinley while snagging Ana to him for a kiss.
Quinley smiled at Ana’s giggles and sigh, and tamped down the jealousy she felt as she climbed in, realizing onlyafterthe door shut behind her without Ana following her inside that the limo’s VIP section held a very surly-looking Elias.
Her breath stuttered in her chest as she watched his gaze rake up her body, taking in her ridiculously high heels and the sparkling straps wrapped multiple times around her ankles, and the short,shortbabydoll dress she’d picked up from a boutique in NYC when she and Ana had gone shopping for her bachelorette weekend. In this dress, she had legs for miles, something Elias seemed to notice.
The moment Ana had found the still-tagged dress in her closet, she’d deemed it perfect andthe onefor the evening. Now Quinley sensed she knew why. Her best friend had listened to her lament over men—one in particular—all the while not saying a word. The traitor! “What are you doing here? Did you…planthis?”
Elias ran a hand over his chin and lips, never lifting his gaze from her legs, and she faltered because he’d neverlookedat her like this. Elias didn’t bother to hide his thoughts, wasn’t hidinganythingfrom his expression at all.
No, Elias looked… He looked as if he wanted to devour her like a piece of forbidden birthday cake. Like he’d unleashed himself from whatever had held him in check all this time.
She suddenly found herself struggling to breathe, her chest rising and falling rapidly in the sparkly bodice.
“After tonight,” he said in a rumbling voice as his gaze raked over her, “you only wear that dress for me.”
A low thrumming heated her body in a full-blown blush. “Like you get a say in what I wear,” she said, her voice husky. “You ghosted me after you brought mesoupand took care of me. I haven’t heard from you or seen you until today— Where I might add, you didn’tspeakto me. If this is how you communicate? You suck at it, and I’m— I’mleaving.”
She made a move for the door handle, but all the tugging in the world didn’t make it open.
“Child locks? Are you serious right now?”
She turned to glare at him and forgot to breathe all together. This Elias wasn’t reserved or controlled but…predatory, stalking her every move with his gaze.
“Apparently kidnapping is something that’s worked for a few of my brothers when it comes to their wives so I thought I’d try it.”
“You thought you’d kidnap me?”
“Ana and Cole are up front. You’re hardly in danger. I wondered if you’d be willing to speak to me after I behaved so…rudely today. I wasn’t sure how to approach you, and when Cole said you’d joined the girls tonight, I thought we could talk on the way back to Carolina Cove.”
“By trapping me inside so I have to listen to you?”
“Like you said, communication is difficult for me. It’s one of my many flaws but one you’re going to have to get used to.”
She blinked at him. “Excuse me?”
Elias leaned forward in his seat, his hands clasped in front of him, eyes dark and hot and glittering in the low light of the interior.
“I’ve been struggling, Quinley. For a while, actually. With how I feel about you. When I brought the soup and put you to bed, felt how fevered and sick you were from just a cold, all I could think of was that if something happened to you…”
She sucked in a breath,finallyunderstanding and kicking herself because that realization hadn’t occurred to her before now. “Like you were when your mother…your parents.”
He nodded, and her heart squeezed at how utterly uncomfortable he looked, how broken.
“I’ve lived my life in fear of…caring for someone, loving them, because of possibly losing them.”
