Page 9 of Careless Whisper (Modern Vintage Romances #11)

Elias

W e were seated at a window table at Barolo Ristorante, just off Sixth Avenue.

With its moody lighting, leather-bound wine lists, the scent of truffle oil in the air, and a waiter who spoke with an authentic Italian accent—I always felt I was in Milan and not Seattle when I came here.

When Maren insisted we go out for dinner after she’d accused me of being rude to her the previous night when she came to see me, I booked Barolo. I enjoyed the food and ambiance, and I knew Maren would like it as well.

She looked good. She always did. Polished, composed, expensive .

“Have you thought about my offer?” Maren asked, tilting her wine glass and arching her eyebrow in a way that made her question sound rhetorical .

“I’m considering it.”

Maren wanted me to work with her on a clinical study. My father wanted me to be a co-author on the paper she’d write eventually.

I didn’t want to do either.

Her mouth curled into a faint smile. “About just the study or…?” She put her hand on mine and dropped her voice to a husky whisper, “We also talked about getting back together.”

Before I left for Seattle, Maren and I ended up in her bed. It hadn’t meant a damn thing except we had been drinking, and it was convenient.

The whole point of having friends with benefits was that we’d remain friends regardless of the benefits. But that night ended up with her yelling at me for only wanting her body, and since then, she’d been pressuring me to be more than a friend.

We used to date, then broke up. Since then, we’ve had sex on and off—except when one of us was seriously seeing someone.

I hadn’t slept with her when I was with Reggie, even though I’d not considered us to be dating seriously.

Could it be anything but casual if you were fucking each other in on-call rooms and closets?

Reggie and I hadn’t gone out on dates. Did eating at a taco truck after a shift count? She rarely stayed over at my place, which was closer to the hospital. I hadn’t even been to hers. And, yet, she’d carved a place in my heart, my soul.

If she hadn’t been an immature child who thought she needed to handle Maren, would we still be together?

“Maren, we’re friends.” I patted her with my free hand and pulled away from her touch. “I’d like for it to remain that way.”

Before she could take me to task for that, our server returned with our orders. She was having the lobster risotto while I’d gone for my tried and true gnocchi.

Once our wine glasses were refilled, Maren doubled her efforts. “Our parents would like to see us married, Elias. You know that.”

“I’m not interested in getting married, you know that.”

She groaned. “You’re so stubborn sometimes. Fine, no marriage, but let’s be in a serious relationship. I don’t just want us to have meaningless sex.”

Since we weren’t having sex, meaningless or otherwise, I couldn’t see her problem.

She’d tried since that mistake in Boston—hell, she’d tried last night when I’d told her I’d ordered her an Uber that would take her to her hotel.

She’d pouted and asked why I didn’t let her stay at my place when she visited.

I didn’t bring women home as a rule. If we were spending a night, it was either at her place or a hotel. I preferred the impersonal nature of a hotel.

But I’d brought Reggie home.

Maren had asked me then who I was seeing so seriously that I wouldn’t respond to her booty calls. I hadn’t told her. I’d wanted to keep Reggie a secret. Finally, when the shit hit the fan, I found out that Reggie had told Maren about us and threatened her to stay away from me.

It was hard for me to equate the woman I knew with the woman who’d gone after Maren and killed a patient in the process.

“Maren, I know you want to settle down, but I’m not your man.” Since Maren’s engagement with a venture capitalist broke off, she’d almost desperately wanted to be with me, though I think any eligible man would do.

“You are!” she exclaimed. “Elias, I love you.”

I chuckled. “And I love you, Maren, but?—”

“I’m in love with you, Elias,” she cut me off. “Madly in love. I alway have been. I’ve been…stupid. I thought I’d take what you gave me, but I want more.”

I gaped at her. Mouth open.

Say what?

I snapped my mouth closed.

She wiped tears that had filled her eyes with her napkin and looked at me, hurt radiating in waves from her. “I have always loved you. And you love me. Why can’t we have a go at it?”

“Maren, I always thought we were just friends who?—”

“Fucked?” she spat out. “We made love, Elias. At least I did, always . When I thought I couldn’t have you and Paul proposed…but I didn’t want him. ”

I set my fork down and picked up my wine glass. Good thing I didn’t drive because I needed fucking alcohol. I drank my wine like it was a shot.

She pushed her barely eaten risotto away from her. Like so many women I knew, she picked at her food but didn’t eat. She talked about calories and what was healthy and what was not… and did not eat.

You know who liked food and ate it heartily? Yeah, Reggie.

“No, no, a good taco makes a mess, Eli,” she told me as we stood in front of a food truck close to the waterfront in Boston, freezing our assess off.

“Gigi, I’m going to get freaking sauce all over my coat,” I complained.

“And you can have it drycleaned,” She assured me, proceeding to eat her taco as it leaked juices.

She looked so goddamn happy that I dug in myself, feeling giddy from being with her.

“Say something,” Maren pleaded, yanking me back into the present.

I shook my head in quiet disbelief. “Maren, I…don’t know what to say.”

“You already said the most important thing. You love me.”

“Not like that . Not the way you want me to.”

“I’ll take whatever you give me.” She eased forward, elbows braced against the table. “I’ll…settle for anything as long as we can be together. ”

That reeked of desperation, and I didn’t like it, not one fucking bit.

My eyes lingered on her as my mind searched for the proper response. “Maren, I don’t want to settle.”

She sucked in a sharp breath. “Elias, you…that’s?—”

“I don’t want to lose you, Maren.” Though right then and there, I wasn’t sure if I’d mind it so much.

I didn’t like the way she just ambushed me.

We’d always been friends, and her saying these things was tantamount to a betrayal of who we had been to one another.

“ But ”— I sucked in a breath and let it out in frustration—"I can’t give you what you want, either.”

“You always were good at clarity,” she retorted bitterly and then picked up her glass. She sipped the wine slowly as if trying to regain her composure.

I sent her a flat, unimpressed stare. “And you always had a problem with hearing it.”

She regarded me with quiet consideration and, on an exhale, set her glass down. “Well, my parents and yours are going to be disappointed.”

“Is that why you’re here? To…” I couldn’t say the word proposition because it sounded crude.

“To ask you to be mine?” Her eyes filled with sadness. “Yes, Elias, that’s why I came. But I also have meetings. I…at least you’ll work on the paper with me, won’t you? Your collaboration will make it easier for the trial to get funding.”

Was it unsettling that she’d gone from professing undying love to casually discussing a clinical trial? Absolutely .

Was I relieved she’d dropped the whole love-confession nonsense as quickly as she’d brought it up? Also, yes.

“Let me look at your proposal more thoroughly,” I offered because that was all I could at this point.

She tossed up her shoulders in a careless shrug as if she didn’t care one bit about my rejection. “Oh, I heard that Reggie is at Harper Memorial, and you’re making her life a living hell.” She laughed as she said that last part.

My stomach tightened. People were gossiping about how I treated Reggie?

Fuck!

“I have friends at Harper.” She casually tapped her fingers against the table. “One of the attendings said she’s been taken off surgical cases. Word is you’re building a case to have her fired.”

“That’s not—” I stopped.

I didn’t even know what I was about to say because she wasn’t wrong, which made it all the worse.

She glanced at me, the corners of her mouth tugging up in smug contentment. “I’ve got to say, I’m impressed. Most people would’ve just ignored her. But not you. You take your time. Make it surgical.”

That irked me. “You’re talking like I planned this.”

“Didn’t you?” she asked. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know she was here when you took the job. ”

I rocked back slowly in my chair, not having the words to defend myself because I was guilty as hell. I had known she was at Harper, and I’d thought it didn’t matter.

If Reggie was incompetent, she’d be out.

But the second I saw her, I knew she had to go, or I’d lose my mind.

I had tried right away to get rid of her, but I failed, thanks to Cindy, and now it seemed so frivolous and petty to go after her. She was a good surgical nurse, well respected, far better than Delaney or, in fact, anyone else in the department.

“You were always good at protecting your own,” she continued, unable or unwilling to read my silence as a guilty conscience or a deeper struggle—a battle between my brain and my heart.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded.

“I mean, you even the scales even if it means burning someone else down.”

She said it like it was a compliment and then smiled at me. “Elias, I know you think of me as yours. You protected me in Boston, and you’re still protecting me.”

I huffed out a short breath. Fuck me sideways! Now, she was reading my misguided actions as an interest in her?

“People are taking bets as to how long she’ll last.” She giggled, obviously enjoying Reggie’s downfall. “You are a remarkable man, Elias. ”

Jesus!

No, I wasn’t remarkable. I was an asshole who was trying to get a competent and good nurse fired because I was holding a grudge against her for what happened five years ago. Maren thought that made me strong—a badass.