Page 16

CHAPTER SEVEN
Ella watched her past walk into the room, and time froze. All of a sudden, she was just a college kid who could stare into those green eyes and feel safe. Too much time had passed, but in a breath of a second, she recalled what it had felt like to run her fingers along the scruff of his jaw. She remembered how he would rub her bare back, walking his fingers up and down her spine until she drifted to sleep in the pillow of his chest, their naked legs tangled.
They had history heavy enough to make a moonless night moan. Their baggage was deep and devastating. Pain had forced them apart. She had agonizingly ignored the tears in his words and in her heart until she never saw him again.
Her chest ached for one quick second as he leveled her with the same shocked stare. The glance hit so fast and so hard, slamming so deep and true, that she couldn’t breathe. Her mouth fell open, but words abandoned their purpose and wouldn’t form.
Bishop O’Kane stood large and broad. Life looked as though it had been as good to him as it had been hard. He’d roughened, hardened. But those eyes, the poignant greenness, were a well to his soul, counteracting the attitude that rolled off him.
He was the same type as the Titan men who’d swept into Tara’s office—machine-like,mountain-like, with muscles made of boulders, and a corded neck. Long ago, Ella had touched and kissed those same spots, never noticing even the tendons that demanded her attention now.
Everything was noticeable as he stood in front of her, stunned—the veins on his arms; the way he hulked.
“Eloise?” Boots planted on the bathroom floor, Bishop stood his ground, showing a flash of uncertainty as though he needed permission to be in the ladies’ room.
“Bishop.” Was he as confused about the situation as she was about him? Likely so. Because the last time he’d seen her, she’d simply been a kid.
She’d been a kid who hadn’t dealt with trauma and loss well, who had panicked,who had hurt him.Because when they’d ended—no, they’d never ended. They had simply stopped. Ella had walked away because she was too brokenhearted, unable to deal with life. She just couldn’t…
He snapped out of his trance before she did and stepped forward in a way that smacked of menace and anger. “Who the hell is Ella Leighton?”
At that moment, the disgusting jerky taste roared back, its ugly presence on her tongue. The revolting meat taste stirred up her gag reflex again. With the damp paper towel, she mopped at the side of her mouth. “That’s me. It’s like a pen name, except I used it online. It was supposed to help me with being anonymous, like a social safety net. But a lot of good that’s done.”
“El—” He stopped mid-word, mid-step, and rubbed his hand over his face as if he could erase his disbelief. When he dropped his arm, his palpable frustration had softened. “What happened back there?”
She shrugged.
“Eloise…”
She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t stand there, feeling so different than how she used to be, saddled with guilt and… curious about who he was and how he’d been. “You know, pretty much everybody calls me Ella. I just use it. It’s who I’ve become. Eco-Ella. You know my real last name. But Ella? That’s who I am. Call me Ella.” She offered an explanation that she knew he wouldn’t get. “And I’m a vegan; jerky’s disgusting.”
“You’re a vegan, and jerky is disgusting.” He repeated it as though her words had been gibberish.
She wanted to push him away. Wasn’t that what had worked last time? Inwardly, she cringed at her cowardly ways when everyone thought she was so strong. Outwardly, Ella lifted her chin and faked the strength. “I’m not who you think I am. So whoever you think you used to know, forget her. She’s gone.”
“Obviously.” His eyes searched her up and down, landing on her face. “That old girl’s forgotten. No worries.” His raw words somehow stung. “So,Eco-Ella. Shall we start over?”
“Please,” she whispered then cleared her throat. “Ella Leighton. I run Eco-Ella. I’m an environmentalist with a stalker problem.”
“Bishop O’Kane. I’m with the Titan Group, and I’m the guy who will keep your stalker problems at bay.”
***
At least Bishop’s offering of introductions seemed to take Ella’s edge down a notch. Because damn, that wasn’t just a wall. That was a solid fortress of fuck-you, all of which, he deserved.
And now Eloise was Ella.
Ohhh-kay. Weird, but doable.So long as Titan signed his paychecks, his ex-girlfriend could demand to be called a space cadet and have “celebrity” tattooed on her forehead, and he would be good with it—whatever it took for Bishop to keep his job with Titan.
Eloise… Ella… was afamousperson, not that he’d heard of Eco-Ella orUnder the Roofbefore. But she was famous to someone. Hell, he hadn’t heard the term “Internet celebrity” before today. Lots of people loved the woman he’d once loved, and that was odd. But not to know that she was well known at all? That put into perspective how off the grid he’d been for the past few years.
The military had been his world, the only thing he’d needed for what had been almost half his life. He’d gone deep—lived it and breathed it. Then it was time to be done. Re-acclimating to the United States and all of its viral, political, commercial-driven bullshit hadn’t been on his to-do list.
“Now that we’re acquainted,” he joked, not necessarily landing it by the way she tilted her head and smiled.Okay, tough crowd.Ella put the wet paper towel on her tongue. “Did you bite your tongue?”
She arched an eyebrow accusingly. “I accidentally licked your jerky.”
He laughed, and that bending eyebrow of hers almost jumped across the room and smacked him. He rolled his lips together to hide his humor—because honestly, she’d said that all wrong. Stifling his laugh didn’t work, so he cleared his throat. That was the stupidest, dirtiest, unintentionally hysterical thing he’d heard all day.