Page 106 of Final Proposal

Motherfucker.

My chuckle is low and haunting. “That’s a low blow, Elle. But that’s what you were aiming for, right? To piss me off so I drop it and let it go? Because that’s way easier than you actually talking to me. Than actually having to face fucking facts about us—”

“The only thing to talk about is why you’re not on your way to the city to be on the morning shows with your brothers right now.”

Of course. I told her about the damn interviews last week and now she throws them in my face? Fuck that. Fuck this.

“You’re telling me to leave? Fine. You got it.” Fucking unbelievable. “You win. I’ll leave in the morning. I’ll go do the morning show circuit with my brothers while you stay here and be boss of everything but what matters.”

“Fine.”

“And then when that’s fixed, when I’ve been unselfish, you have to do the same. You’ll have to be unselfish and figure out what the fuck you want here, because I’m sick of not knowing. Deal?”

“Fine.”

“Say something else besides fucking fine,” I thunder, my voice reverberating through the room, my frustration at epic proportions.

She stares at me with that hollow, fearful look in her eyes that I wish I weren’t the cause of but know I am. Her nod is slight, but there as she opens her mouth and then closes it again. I know I may have pushed too far.

But don’t I deserve to know where I stand? Where we stand?

She blinks away tears and whispers, “Fine,” before walking out of the suite, the comforter still wrapped around her, and shutting the door at her back.

It takes everything I have not to go after her. Not to rush down the hall, press my lips to hers, and tell her that whatever it is, whatever is scaring her, we can figure it out. We can work through it.

But I don’t.

I stay where I am, staring at the closed door, and know it shouldn’t be this hard to love someone.

“Shit,” I mutter to an empty room.

If I was looking to push her into acknowledging we were something, that sure as shit just fucking backfired.

Ellery

My chest aches.

Deal?

From the words he didn’t say but that I could see in his eyes.

From the fight that I picked because I needed space and time to think. To make him realize I’m not that girl. That he can’t love me. That this can’t be any more than it already is.

From the tough love I had to dish out so he could see what he has when so many others would kill for it. What I would kill for.

From the truth behind his question: why don’t you read the epilogues, Ellery?

And it continues to ache all night as I sit in the empty rooftop bar, wrapped in the comforter, staring out at the moon, high over the ocean. I watch its reflection ripple with the swells as they ebb and flow. I listen to the muted sound of the waves crashing on the beach below. I sink further into my own thoughts as the new framing creaks and settles all around me.

You’ll have to be unselfish and figure out what the fuck you want here, because I’m sick of not knowing. Deal?

Is that why I ran away? Or rather ran to the bar, which sounds ridiculous in and of itself?

Because, God yes, he’s gotten too close. And when someone gets too close, I panic? Is it because I’m mad at him for having a family I could only dream of and not wanting to preserve it? Some of one, a little of the other.

Or is it because I’m afraid to believe that I could actually deserve that happily ever after? That he could be my happily ever after? And I’m terrified to hope, terrified to believe, that if he is, he won’t be ripped away from me too?

Or is it simply that I’m questioning everything about last night? His promise to partner up. His suggestion to tie my stepfather’s hands so that I have a stake in what is rightfully mine.