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CHAPTER28
Corinne. Friday.
My sister thinksyou’re cute.
That wasthe text that I sent to Ben, attached to a picture of Leanna, to which I added,I’m supposed to find out if you’re single. She told me to make sure you know she works out.
A seriesof laughing emojis came back from Ben with an answer,Tell your sister hi from me & I’m single.A further message added,You have my number.
Thanks,Ben!I texted back. I then took a screenshot of the conversation and forwarded it to Leanna, writing,Just call me matchmaker.
My sister responded promptly.You really didn’t have to tell him that I said to tell him I work out! God, it’s like we’re kids again sending each other to tell things to Mom. Little sisters can be so embarrassing!
I texted her back,But, I have his number and he says I should give it to you, so you’d better be nice to me!“Little sister” I may have been, but I still knew how to get the upper hand.
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That night,I mentally swatted away the butterflies in my stomach and opened the door for Elijah. I hadn’t laid eyes on that beautifully-masculine face sincethatnight. It almost made me ache to see him again. He had a kind of mellow expression about him. I welcomed him in and shut the door.
We just lookedat each other and sighed at first, neither one of us really knowing what to say. Elijah and I had gone from boss and employee, to friends, to being as intimate as two people can possibly get, in so short a time. Just saying “hello” felt like a very small and inadequate thing.
At last,I was the one to end the impasse. “You, um, wanted to talk? After you were the one to break it off when it had just started?”
I didn’t wantto flash on Elijah’s idea of going up to a hotel suite after dinner and what he had suggested for the rest of the night, or how much I’d looked forward to letting him do anything and everything he wanted all night long. My mind just went there and I couldn’t stop it, which wasn’t making things any easier for me now.
Elijah opened his mouth,wanting to say something, but what I got from him as an answer was the greatest surprise I’d had since I came to Cincinnati. From one of his eyes rolled a tear.
A tear.On the face of the guy who had gone from running with scoundrels and street trash and getting into trouble that I didn’t evenwantto try to imagine, to coming home and building a billion-dollar empire.A tearon the face of the guy who had fought hand-to-hand with a drug-crazed lunatic in his apartment lobby, and decked him for the police to haul away. It was more than I could believe.
So,I was the one who spoke next. “Do you want to sit down?”
We wentto the couch where it all began. The couch where my virginal hand first touched his cock, and that cock entered my virginal pussy and took my virginity away. This was going to be a very different kind of moment from what we’d shared here the last time.
There wasanother tear on his face. Even after that break-up talk, it broke my heart to see him this way. I needed to comfort him somehow. I reached over and touched him, just on the leg. He returned the gesture and let me feel the warmth of his hand on my own thigh. So many things could come just from a simple touch.
Finally,he said, “Corinne…maybe we moved too fast. It was beautiful every time, here and at my place. But, maybe it happened too soon. You probably should have known more about me, known better about who I am, before I asked you to let me fuck you. But, I couldn’t help myself. You’re just too beautiful, and too soft, and too gentle, and my feelings got the better of me. You should have had a better idea about who you were letting it happen with.”
I feltas if I had him at a disadvantage. Elijah didn’t know who it was he was fucking when he did it to me here. He still didn’t know. But, I let him go on.
“Kane isa part of my past. My dirty, low-down, seriously messed-up past, where I didn’t have any respect for anyone or anything. And, that really includes myself. And, my past coming anywhere near you…
“It scaredme because the life I used to have is not a place where someone like you belongs. Not you. You’re too good for that. Nothing like the way I used to live should ever touch anyone like you. And you see, that’s exactly what was threatening to happen. My old life had come right to my door and wanted totouchyou. To put its hands and its mouth and its body all over you, and do things to you that…” He trailed off, and I could see how much the thought was hurting him.
“Thingsthat I thought onlyIshould ever do. And when it was over, after it scared you so badly, I came around to thinking maybe I had no business doing those things to you either. I thought by sending you out of my life, maybe I could protect you from who I once was.”
It wasthe most honest moment I’d ever had with anyone in my entire life, and it made me speechless. Which was just as well because Elijah had more.
“There wassomething I wanted to tell you the day I took you to that coffee shop, the day that Kane first came up to us. Remember that other cafe that you went to, after we went to Ben’s gym? The woman you talked to at the counter is the owner. And…she’s my ex-girlfriend. Her name is Kathleen.”
It wasa twist that I wasn’t prepared for. I jerked my head back as if we were riding in a car and he’d suddenly put on the brakes. There should have been the sound of screeching tires in the room.
“I madethe same mistake with Kathleen that I made with you. I didn’t tell her about my past. I just let her assume I was this guy, this successful guy, with the business and the money and everything. I just got her into bed, and we were happy that way, until it started to turn to something more than that.
“When things startedto get really serious, that’s when I finally told her. And that just killed it. Suddenly, she didn’t see me as the same man she’d been sleeping with all along. When Kathleen knew where and what I’d really come from, the whole relationship imploded. Nothing I said and nothing I did could fix it. There wasn’t enough money in the world to clean me up enough for her. We were done.”
My mind conjured her up,and I saw her reacting to Elijah’s past. I saw my shock and disgust on Kathleen’s face, and it was no prettier on her than it must have been on me. He’d had to face that reaction from two women in a row.
He lookedat me as if he were looking at the greatest mystery in the world. “Corinne, you shouldn’t want to be with someone like me. I wasn’t who you thought I was. And now that you know, you can see I’m not what you should want at all, am I?”