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The words already hit me like a slap. But seeing her when she walks through that door is like a punch to the dick.
Fuck.
It’s not the first time I’ve seen Eloise since Knightsblood. That brutal moment came a few months ago at a gala event, right after she and fuckstick moved to New York.
But that was from a distance. As far as I know, she didn’t see me at all.
This time, we’re only ten feet apart, and my eyes are the first thing hers latch onto when she steps through the door.
At the very least, I can relish the fear in her eyes. The confusion. The way they fly wide, her heart-shaped lips pulling into an O.
But that momentary victory shatters once I drink in the rest of her.
Goddammit.
If fate or karma had any sense of fairness, Eloise LaBlanc would have walked back into my life three hundred pounds overweight or suffering from some disgusting skin ailment.
But that isn’t the case. Not. In. The. Slightest.
Ten years ago, Eloise was a pretty, fresh-faced…if mouthy…nineteen-year-old girl.
Today, she stands in front of me as quite possibly the most stunning woman I’ve ever seen. She’s still petite, but stands tall and proud, even as her eyes keep darting nervously to mine. Her long blonde hair is up in a sleek, professional bun, though the office appropriate stops there: her attire makes her look like she’s trying to score free drinks at the hottest club in Manhattan, as opposed to anything approaching an office dress code.
And it’s fucking green.
My eyes draw to slits.
Green, just like the night she taught me the lesson I’ve never forgotten. The night my walls went up and never came down again.
Slowly, she collects herself, and I see her expression transform back into the one I knew ten years ago.
Haughty.
Proud and vain.
Entitled.
For one second, when she first walked in, I felt a surge of something I didn’t quite understand and certainly didn’t want welling up inside of me. I felt a tidal wave of confusion, the sight of her so close again hitting me like an old addiction and reactivating neural synapses, memories, and cravings I shut down years ago.
But now, seeing that look on her face, so similar to the look the first time I met the snobby little French mafia princess, that momentary lapse in judgment shatters like frozen glass. And that green dress, rubbing my face in that memory, is just a big fuck-you icing on the cake.
The fury comes back. So does the hatred, and distrust, and disgust.
With a vengeance.
Gabriel pales. “Mr. Carveli?—”
“You’re all a bit older now, so I don’t know if you recognize each other. But you and Alistair actually went to school with my Eloise.”
My Eloise.
I takes a lot—more than I want to admit—to stop myself from putting my fist through the table in front of me.
Better yet, through Massimo’s fucking face.
“Anyway, this is who you’ll be hiring,” Massimo smiles, a glint in his eyes. “Oh, and before you stick her in the mail room or something, let me be clear about my conditions. She works here for real. No bullshit. No sending her on lunch runs. She starts at Associate level.”
My face is too tight to react. Not to mention I’m still burning holes through Eloise’s fucking head with my eyes. But I can see Taylor and Gabriel both barely contain their own outbursts as they glance quickly at each other.
