He moved closer to her, holding out a hand for her to take, and she only hesitated for a moment.
It was dark here. As they moved off the pier and into the sand, it became impossible to see what they were doing. The moonlight glinted off the water, but it didn’t illuminate their hands, and though Stephanie could feel his palm pressed against hers and his fingers curling around the back of her hand, the lack of seeing it made it seem less real, somehow.
It did feel very good. It would have been easy to imagine going on like this for a very long time, walking down the beach hand in hand. Forgetting about the rest of the world, forgetting about all the things that complicated their relationship.
Here in the darkness, Stephanie allowed herself to set aside the person who had gone behind Elijah’s back and made a deal with his father. The person who had (she could think the word now that she had stepped away from it) betrayed him.
Yes, she’d betrayed him. She went on betraying him every moment she didn’t tell him the truth about how and why the two of them had ended up here together.
But how could I possibly tell him? How could I tell him that now, when he’s already so upset about his father’s lack of faith in him? How would it make him feel to know that I’m nothing but another piece of evidence of that lack of faith? No, I can’t tell him. I would be doing it to satisfy my own conscience, not because knowing is what’s best for him.
Maybe. Maybe that was true. Then again, maybe she was using that as an excuse because she knew all too well that he wasn’tgoing to want anything to do with her once he had discovered the truth. He would push her away with both hands.
How bizarre it suddenly seemed that just days ago she had been anxious for tonight to come so that she would be able to stop seeing him! Suddenly, she didn’t want to stop at all.
Maybe it was because she had seen a new side of him tonight. It was impossible to hear those insecurities and not start to think of him as more human—and, as a consequence, to like him more.
Maybe it wasn’t that at all. Maybe it was just the fact that they were walking on the beach together, hand in hand, listening to the rush of the waves, looking up at the light of the moon. Maybe that was what was making Stephanie feel like Elijah was someone she had to hold on to.
He stopped walking and looked out over the water. “I’ve always loved the moon,” he said quietly. “When I was a kid, I wanted to become an astronaut.”
“Did you? What happened to that idea?”
He snorted. “My father told me astronauts had to get straight A’s,” he said. “And I used to get A’s and B’s. Not good enough. Of course, I was in the second grade at the time, so I probably could have brought those grades up by the time I was ready for astrophysics.” He shrugged. “I turned out to be six feet tall, so I don’t think I could have been an astronaut anyway.”
“But he didn’t have to discourage you,” Stephanie murmured.
“I don’t know.” Elijah was still staring out over the water. “That’s the thing I’ve never known. Is he discouraging me, or is he just being realistic? I can’t lie to you, Stephanie, I haven’t always been the most reliable person in the world. I haven’t been abeacon of good behavior. My father does have some reasons not to trust me. I think he gives too much weight to them, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”
“We all have our moments,” Stephanie told him. “We all have things we’ve done—things we wish we could have done differently, things that make it hard for people to trust us.”
That’s certainly true in my case.
She could only hope that Elijah would be able to find a way to go on trusting her once he found out what she had done. But the chances of that were slim and she knew it.
It was far more likely that she had set herself up for a disappointment here. And now Stephanie found herself wondering whether the promise of funding for SilkSoft was really worth all this trouble and heartache.
CHAPTER 12
ELIJAH
Stephanie fell quiet beside him.
Elijah wished he knew what to say. He couldn’t help feeling awkward about everything that had happened between the two of them tonight. He had opened up to her much more than he’d ever intended to. He had wanted to hide from her just how hurt he had been when his father had cut his speech from tonight’s proceedings, to play it off as a minor annoyance.
It was safe to say that hadn’t been successful. She’d seen right through him at this point. She knew exactly how much it had bothered him.
She had taken off her shoes and was walking barefoot in the sand. By the light of the moon, he could see the silhouette of her, the straps of the shoes dangling from her finger, the dress she had worn clinging to her figure.
If this had been another woman, another date, he would have taken her under the pier to make out. He would have taken advantage of the moment to allow himself to behave like a teenager.
And after the moment the two of them had shared on the Ferris wheel—he’d been so sure, for a heartbeat or two, that they were about to kiss—he thought she just might allow it if he tried.
But she was different. She wasn’t one of the women who clung to him because of who his father was, because she knew he had money and status. Stephanie, against all odds, just liked him for who he was. It was something he knew he had to honor.
He was glad he hadn’t managed to take her home yet, he decided. When that happened—if it did—it wouldn’t be on impulse the way he had originally planned it. It would be something intentional. It would be something special.
“Do you want to sit down?” he asked her, turning away from the pier and the enticing shadows where he knew that even now people would be hiding out with their trysts.
