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She looks up to where I'm standing next to her. There's defeat in her eyes. "Liam is trying to help me get a job. His brother is going to help me."
"Nick?" I tilt my head. "Nick writes crime novels. What could you possibly do for him?"
"No. I'm not talking about Nicholas." She pinches the bridge of her nose. "It's Liam's oldest brother. Sebastian. He's a detective. He works for the NYPD. He might be able to help me get a job."
Shit. She was having lunch with him because of his brother.
"You want to work for the police department?"
She nods, vigorously. "I do. I will. I just need a chance to get my foot in the door there."
I race through my mind trying to determine who I know who holds a high enough rank in the NYPD that they could pull the necessary strings to get Ellie a job. There's no one. It's one of the few organizations in this city that my family has no ties to.
"Liam will talk to his brother," she goes on, "I'll meet with Sebastian later this week."
I want that job for her, even if it means I won't see her every day. "I'm sorry I jumped to the wrong conclusion, Ellie. I thought there was something personal between you and Wolf."
"What if there was?" Her blue eyes flick up to mine. "We had sex, Nolan. We didn't promise each other anything last night."
She's right. No promises were made, at least not verbally. It's obvious that the actions that we've both taken since then say otherwise. "We can remedy that now."
Her gaze follows my every movement as I sit in the chair next to her. "Remedy it how?"
"Clearly I was concerned that your lunch with Liam was going to lead to something more."
"Clearly," she quips.
I smile. "It's just as clear that you had some questions about where I went last night after you left my place."
"I was curious when I saw you come out of the building we'd been in together." She carefully dances around defining the space as the place we fucked. "You said you had something to take care of. I just assumed that meant that you'd be in all night."
"I want to you to understand something, Ellie." I lean forward, resting my forearms on my knees. "I'm the first to admit that I can be an asshole. I don't play nice in business. I will cut a man off at the knees if he threatens anything that I hold dear, but I will never, ever be like the man who hurt you."
"What makes you think a man hurt me?" Her arms cross over her chest.
I want to throat punch the idiot who put her on the defensive like this. "I know a man hurt you. A fucked up bastard named Tad Darling had a ring on your finger when he took half of the women in Vegas to bed."
She blinks at me as if she's trying to absorb every single syllable of what I just said. She's processing it, just as I was earlier when Kristof gave me the rundown on Tad Fucking Darling and how he treated Ellie. That goddamn son of a bitch.
"Is there anything you don't know about me, Nolan?"
I don't know if you're the girl who I saved a decade ago. The beautiful girl with the red hair who didn't want anything from me, but gave me more than I ever deserved. The angel who was face down on the pavement in a pool of her own blood the last time I ever saw her.
I swallow back the urge to ask if she's Kip or if she recognizes that I'm Rigs. Instead, I say the only thing I can. "Many things, Ellie. There are many things I don't know about you, but I want to learn everything."
***
"I'd like to know things about you too, Nolan."
Her words aren't unexpected. How could they be? I just told her that I want to know everything about her. I want her to be curious about me. I want to be the only man she thinks about.
"My favorite color is blue. I hate spiders, and I tried to take piano lessons last year, for the eighth time, but I quit. I fucking quit because my piano teacher was a hard ass."
"You hate spiders?" She smiles at me. "Or you are afraid of spiders?"
"Don't rub it in, Ellie." I sigh. "I know you're not scared of anything. You probably wrestle alligators on your days off. I get that you're brave. I am too, but when there's a spider within twenty feet of me all bets are off."
My phone buzzes in my pocket again. I ignore it. If it's anything important, Eda will knock. She'll disturb me if need be.
