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“I really must work on not being such an open book,” Elliott grumbled, playing with the steak on his plate that he always bought at their weekly Thursday-night dinner.
“You haven’t said a word in five minutes.” Ana placed her elbows on the table, examining him with a long look. “What’s going on with you?”
Part of him didn’t want to get into this with his little sister, but he also was damn tired of being in his own head. “I met someone.”
Ana’s brows rose. “I take it from your mood that it hasn’t gone well.”
Elliott had never shared details of his lifestyle with his sister. It was a conversation between family that wasn’t appropriate. “Clearly not.” For once, he thought his submissive had finally come to him. That he had found the perfect someone for him that he would always protect, but Mary didn’t belong to him.
All that he’d witnessed was Mary’s love for another man. He saw what Charles had seen and what Charles had had in his life. What Elliott desired. He cursed fate for bringing him and Mary together. For showing him what he longed for, but keeping it out of his reach.
Ana cocked her head, her eyes searching his. “So then, if you are this unhappy alone, why are you sitting here with me over dinner and not with this magical woman who has wooed you?”
Elliott snorted. A very good question indeed. One he’d constantly asked himself over the last few days. He wanted to go to Mary, but he knew the reasons she’d shown him the emotional connection she had.
What he thought was real between them was anything but.
She remembered her love for Charles—her submission to him.
Elliott knew he deserved to be loved and for a woman to be honest with him. Mary couldn’t possibly give him that. He was well aware that he had exploded out of anger and, more so, out of hurt that she hadn’t denied his accusation. “You can’t conquer a woman who has a broken heart from the death of her husband.”
“Ah, yes, women are complicated beings,” his sister said with a small smile. “Yet we are also emotional creatures, too. Perhaps she is simply scared of a new relationship. Have you talked to her about that?”
Did I?
No, he’d lashed out in anger, he realized. He hadn’t asked Mary what she was going through, he only got angry that she didn’t see him, that she saw only Charles. “Perhaps I haven’t said as much as I should have.”
Ana sipped her wine, then gave a firm nod. “Talk to her. Do what you do, learn about what the trouble is and fix it.” She grinned, tipping her wineglass at him. “Then I can have my brother back, instead of this miserable man.”
His sister’s words instantly brushed across him. Ana had him pegged right down to the heart of it. In his professional life, he lived and breathed taking things that were broken and fixing them. His anger had made him see red. Now his thoughts cleared, and he was past that what Mary had done was insulting, it was quite possibly the best thing he’d ever seen.
He wondered now if their connection could be faked, or did she simply feel something she had before? Something undeniably sensational. But he also considered if maybe she hadn’t truly mourned the loss of her husband. Perhaps she was confused, and that’s why she couldn’t admit she had feelings for Elliott. He even speculated now that her loyalty to Charles—a submissive’s vow to her Dom—might have made it impossible for her to move on, even if it was what would make her happy.
Possibly it was exactly as Dmitri had said, “I think Mary has gotten so used to not thinking of herself, she forgets the way life used to be.”
Though Elliott had seen the Mary that Charles had known, maybe Mary couldn’t see herself that way anymore since Charles had passed away. With stunning clarity, he realized that he couldn’t possibly be angry over her loyalty to her past Dom; he actually loved this trait in her.
Elliott longed for Mary to show that type of loyalty to him.
He recognized, a little foolishly, that Mary simply needed to put Charles to rest, but she didn’t know how to make that happen. He stared down at his plate, knowing he was too consumed by his emotions to realize all of this was about her. She was conflicted between the woman in the past to the woman he could see now. And, as she’d done from the first time he touched her, she needed him to guide her.
Lifting his gaze to his sister, his lips parted to reply when a high voice cut in. “Hello, Elliott.”
He glanced up and controlled the frown fighting to be unleashed on his face. “Kate.” His ex-wife was scantily dressed in a skintight dress that showed off the cleavage that he had paid for.
Kate turned to Ana, giving a tight smile. “How are you, Ana? It’s been too long.”
“Not long enough,” his sister replied, with hatred dripping off her voice. “You don’t look like you’ve aged much, but I see that your face isn’t moving. Has my brother’s money paid for that Botox?”
Kate scowled.
Elliott chuckled, unable to hide it. His sister had never liked Kate, not from day one. After their divorce and Kate’s fight to get just about everything he owned from him, that loathing only worsened. Kate hadn’t been happy with a halfway split. She wanted everything he had. In the year after his divorce, since he became consumed with his work and had doubled his worth, Kate had attempted to get more.
She hadn’t succeeded in her fight of greed.
“Kate, our table is ready.”
His ex-wife turned to her boy toy, who had to be at least twenty years younger, and she wrapped her arm in his. “Wonderful.” She glanced at Elliott and stared daggers at him. “I wanted to say hello. Enjoy your dinner.”
