Page 50

“No.” Abagail set her mug down and started to dive into her eggs benedict. “Katelyn was fun for a few weeks, but I don’t think I’ll invite her on another trip. Don’t think that your distraction went unnoticed. What was that look all about?”

Cursing under her breath, Elia picked up her fork and stabbed some of the home fries on her plate. “I’ve gotten closer with Kamryn while you were gone.”

“While I was gone?” Abagail raised an eyebrow in Elia’s direction. “I was only gone two weeks.”

“Well, before then…and after.” Elia tried her best not to mumble the last few words, but she definitely failed on that front. She wasn’t going to get out of talking about this, so she might as well just embrace the fact that Abagail was her best friend and she’d find out eventually. There was no reason to keep anything a secret from her. Besides, Abagail could provide good advice. “We…had a night.”

“Elia! You dog! Are you serious?” The interest in Abagail’s face was intoxicating.

Elia was so used to trying to hide every part of her relationships from the world that it was a struggle to be more open about it. “Yes, it’s been amazing, honestly. Something about Kam is so different from anyone else I’ve been with.”

“Do you perhaps trust her?” Abagail raised an eyebrow at Elia.

“Maybe.” Elia still wasn’t sure how deep that trust ran, but they were working on building it up, weren’t they? “Trust isn’t built in one night.”

“Neither was Rome.” Abagail winked. “But I think this is a good thing for you. Even if she is your boss.”

Elia’s stomach twisted at that thought. “Yeah, that’s a complication that I hadn’t thought through.”

“You need to.” Abagail shoved the fork between her lips, a small dash of the hollandaise sauce lingering on her lip before she licked it up. “It could be disastrous for both of you, and because of what happened—”

“We don’t need to talk about that,” Elia interrupted. It was the last thing she wanted to talk about, especially when she was feeling so good lately. She didn’t want to think about it either, even if it was a huge part of the reason why she’d finally made the move with Kamryn. The silence at the table was stilted, and Elia knew she’d hit some sort of sore point with Abagail.

Abagail cocked her head and pursed her lips, holding her fork and knife like she was going to attack Elia next instead of her food. “We have to talk about it.”

“No, we don’t.” Elia dove into her own breakfast, needing the physical distraction now since the verbal one wasn’t going to work.

“Fine, we don’t have to talk specifics, but what you went through last time was in part because you didn’t disclose who you were with. And you don’t want to be running headlong into that same mistake twice, do you?”

“It wasn’t like Kam and I were planning on being in a relationship.”

“Are you?” Abagail gave her a very pointed look, but it wasn’t filled with the excitement and joy that Elia had hoped her best friend would have for her. Surely Abagail should be excited for her to actually be in a relationship with someone instead ofpining away over something she thought she’d never have again. “Are you in a relationship, Elia?”

“I… I don’t know. We haven’t really discussed…”

“Elia.” Abagail set her silverware down and put her full attention on Elia. “You and Kam need to have a serious discussion about what it is you’re wanting from each other. And you really need to tell the board what’s going on. You can’t keep this hidden like last time, especially because Kam is your immediate supervisor.”

“It’s not like that. She wouldn’t…”

“She might not,” Abigail interrupted. “But it wasn’t Yara either, remember?”

The scolding had the desired effect. The elation that Elia had felt from the start of her relationship with Kamryn dissipated quickly.

“Kam was your former student, right?”

“Yes,” Elia whispered, already knowing exactly where this conversation was going, and she really, really didn’t want it to go there. She’d made that clear as day already, and yet she knew without a doubt that Abagail was going to take it that direction. “But nothing happened back then.”

“I trust your word on that, but I also know you.” Abagail picked her knife and fork back up and cut rather harshly into her food. She wasn’t saying it. Elia knew that. But it did need to be said. More than that, Elia needed to take to heart the accusations that were likely to fly.

“But you think someone else will accuse me of that.”

“Would you? If you weren’t at the center of this situation, wouldn’t you have questions?”

Abagail was right. Elia hated it, but she was. And once it came out that she and Kamryn were in some sort of relationship, even if it just remained sexual and just one night, it was going to be brought up that she was sleeping with a student of hers—evenif it was twenty years later. There would be questions. There would be accusations. There would be pain and heartache, and fuck, she really didn’t want to think about or talk about this.

She just wanted to live into the happiness for a little longer, maybe even get her feet under her if this was going to develop into something more. Because if Elia allowed herself to dream and have hope, which she had the last few days, she could actually see a future for them.

Or at least she wanted to see if that was a possibility.