Page 78 of Kneeling for Them

“No problem,” Kevin says.“The rush is slowing, anyway.”

“This isslow?”I ask.

Ella ignores me and says to Kingston, “I’ll grab my stuff and come right back.”

As she walks away with a bratty sway in her steps, Kingston gives me a wry look.“I think she’s mad at you.”

“Ya think?”

I follow her through the swinging door that leads through the kitchen.Kevin looks like he wants to argue, but I move too fast and give him an apologetic, but firm look.

As soon as I catch up with Ella, she spins around to face me.The apples of her cheeks are pink with anger.“What are you doing back here?”

“I need to talk to you,” I say.“I’m so fucking sorry, okay?”

“No, it’s not okay.”She holds up a hand so I don’t rush to fill the pause.“But it’s not okay for a different reason than what you thought before.It’s not okay that you’ve been beating yourself up for however many years.It’s not okay that you don’t think I could handle knowing the truth.I’m stronger than that, Sebastian.”

One of the cooks gives us a look of avid interest.This obviously isn’t the place for a full-blown conversation about my torrid past, and Ella seems to realize it at the same time I do and she abruptly closes her mouth.

“We’ll go home to talk about this more,” I say.“But don’t ignore me, princess.I expect a better attitude when you come back out from getting your things.”

Her shoulders slump.“Okay, fine.Get out of here before you get me in trouble.”

I highly doubt anyone cares what she does here—Kevin or someone else might be the manager, but Ella clearly has full run of the place.Still, I go back to the bar.

King takes a sip of his beer.“Don’t tell me you ordered her to forgive you.”

“Close.”I shrug.“I just told her to watch the attitude.I’m still her daddy.”

Ella comes up to the bar, wearing her coat and holding her bag.She doesn’t ignore me this time, and walks right up to where I’m sitting.She gives me a sweet smile, but there’s sass in it, too.I get up so I can tug her into my arms.

“I missed you so much, princess,” I murmur into her hair.

She clings to me and says, “I missed you, too.Don’t ever run away like that again.”

“I won’t,” I promise.

“Are we going back to Kingston’s or yours to talk?”she asks.

“One stop, first,” I say.“Kingston wants to hear you sing.If you’re up for it.”

“Oh!”She blushes a little.“Yeah, sure.”

“Bash and I were thinking of the Kitty Cat lounge,” Kingston says.

Ella’s eyes widen and her lips purse very briefly before she smiles.“Yeah, let’s.”

Hmm.

She doesn’t really want to go, but she’s acting like she does.What the fuck does that mean?

Ella

Oof.The Kitty Cat?I haven’t had a chance to talk to the guys about what happened last night.My stomach squirms at the thought of having the conversation.There are other things we need to address, like Sebastian’s past, and the way he took off before we could talk about it, and, I don’t know,anythingwould be better than telling them about last night.I haven’t wanted to think about it, much less talk about it.

I figured we’d first talk about Sebastian leaving in the middle of an argument without any word to us on where he was going or when he’d return.I can fully understand getting out of a heated situation to give yourself time to think.But he just…left.No words.

“Are you sure it’s okay?”Kingston asks me.“You don’t have to sing if you don’t want to.”