Page 8

How torturous can a day be?

A question I'd obviously asked myself before, but never had the answer been so painfully obvious as it was with every hour I spent in Ella’s presence.

For the past three days, we’d been together at least four hours at a stretch.

Four hours of breathing in her sweet scent, listening to her melodic voice, watching strands of her unruly blonde hair escape her haphazardly put up bun and brush against her long neck or the swell of her breasts; four hours of fighting a rising yearning in me and my cock that turned walking into a challenge.

Every passing minute with her made it clearer to me that I not only wanted her, I needed her.

A physical need, like breathing air. I had willfully cut her from my mind ten years ago.

The first year had been the hardest; the pain in my heart had rivaled the physical pain from surgeries and rehabilitation, but as that hurt had helped distract me, I’d almost welcomed it.

After that, I simply hadn’t allowed myself to think about her, or when I did, I’d told myself that she was happily married with a soccer team of kids running around.

But now?

Now that I knew none of the fairy tale scenarios my mind had concocted for her were true, I couldn't lie to myself any longer. I didn't care that Thorne still stubbornly refused to accept that she was our mate. I knew it, as sure as I knew the sun would come up in the morning.

"So what'cha gonna do about it?" Carol asked over the phone.

I’d called her, because… I needed a distraction.

Ella was inside the restaurant, putting paint samples on the walls.

She didn't know I was talking to Carol; I told her I had a business call to make.

I just had to get out of there, away from her tempting company.

If I had to watch her breasts strain against the tight material of her blouse one more time while she stretched to put color on the beams, I would have screamed.

Or grabbed her. Neither option was appropriate.

"I don't know." I brushed my free hand through my hair, staring through the window at Ella as she adoringly scrunched up her face to take in the different shades of beige—they all looked the same to me—she had decorated the walls with.

Angling her head this way and that, stepping back and forward, leaning to the side.

Damn it, my cock was hard as a rock. She bent over to pick up a tile sample, and her ass stretched the material of her skirt…

shit. Those hips. I remembered how they felt underneath my palms. They were a little wider now, more enticing then when she had been a teen, and oh, so fucking alluring.

"Just ask her out," Carol said, oblivious to where my mind was.

"Just?" My sarcastic chuckle sounded choked.

"Patrick," Carol sighed loudly, "you are a grown man. Ask. Her. Out."

"Fine. You're in a mood today."

"Yes. Yes, I am, and you want to know why?"

Since I had a suspicion that it had something to do with me, I tried to ward her off, "Not particularly."

"Fine, I’ll tell you."

Yeah, no such luck with Carol.

"I'm in a damn crappy mood because my two best friends are too stubborn to admit to themselves that they're still in love with each other. Always have been. Now, one of you is going to have to man up and make that happen. Are you a man, Patrick?"

She sounded exactly like my old football coach. "I take offense to that line of questioning."

"Quit stalling. Ask her out. And Patrick?"

I was almost afraid to utter a sound, "Yeah?"

"Grow the fuck up and grovel."

She hung up on me. I wasn't sure what exactly I had expected from her when I called, but it sure as hell wasn't to have my ass handed to me.

Grovel ? I stared at the phone like it had betrayed me.

Finally , Thorne growled from inside me. Someone said it .

I flinched. “Oh, great. You’re awake.”

Awake? I’ve been wide awake for three days while you’ve been walking around like a horny teenager in a lumberjack costume. Watching you trip over your own thoughts is physically painful. You almost knocked over a paint ladder yesterday because her sweater slipped off her shoulder .

“I did not.”

You absolutely did. And if I have to sit through one more hour of your inner monologue about her neck, I swear to the moon, I’m going feral and dragging you both into the nearest closet .

“You're not helping,” I muttered, glancing at Ella again through the window. She was frowning now—adorably, infuriatingly—at two nearly identical beige swatches, like the fate of the universe depended on her decision.

You're right. I'm not helping. You need professional help. Possibly sedation.

“Shut up.”

You shut up, he huffed . You’ve been walking around with a hard-on and a broken heart for three!

days. You’re one apology and a well-timed kiss away from fixing both, and instead, you called Carol.

Carol , Patrick. The woman who once threatened to burn your house down if you ever made Ella cry again .

“She was right to,” I muttered.

Of course, she was. And she’ll be right again when she rewrites this whole disaster into a romance novel called Chef’s Kiss of Death.

I dragged a hand down my face. “She told me to grovel.”

Good. Start groveling. And maybe take your shirt off while you’re at it. You look like you belong on a damn romance cover. Might as well weaponize it.

“You are not in charge of my love life.”

You clearly aren’t either .

I opened my mouth to argue, but then Ella stood up, brushed dust off her skirt, and smiled—softly, thoughtfully; she looked proud of what she'd done. Like she was at home in a place I’d built from the ground up. I felt something twist hard in my chest.

There it is again , Thorne murmured, quieter now. That thing you pretend isn’t real .

I swallowed.

“I’m going to screw this up,” I whispered.

Not if you start talking. Not if you stop hiding .

Inside the window, Ella turned, reaching for her coffee, completely unaware that I was standing there trying to breathe through the weight of ten years. I exhaled once, hard, like that might steady my hands. Then I shoved the phone into my pocket and walked back inside the restaurant.

The air smelled of dust and coffee and her perfume, and something about it hit me square in the chest. She was still standing by the wall, brush dangling from her fingers, deep in concentration.

I cleared my throat.

She looked over, startled. “That was fast.”

I nodded, stepping inside. “Yeah. It was… brief.”

Ella arched an eyebrow and turned back to the wall, lifting the brush again. "Everything okay?”

Now or never.

“Ella,” I said, voice lower than I meant it to be.

She paused but didn’t turn. “Mmhmm?”

I rubbed the back of my neck, swallowed, and went for it. “Do you want to go to dinner with me?”

The brush froze mid-stroke. She turned to look at me slowly, as if unsure she'd heard me correctly. Her face wasn’t confused, though—it was stricken. Pale. Her eyes were wide and stunned. She looked like I’d slapped her. Or stabbed her. She looked hurt.

My stomach dropped.

She didn’t speak right away. Just stared at me with that unreadable expression and something flickering behind her eyes that looked a lot like pain.

“I—” she began, then stopped. Her throat moved as she swallowed. “Why would you ask me that?”

I blinked. “Because I want to take you out.”

A pause.

“You want to take me out?” she echoed, voice quieter now. “After all this time? After everything ?”

I shifted, caught off guard by the sharp edge in her voice.

“Ella, I know it’s been a long time, and I know?—”

She cut me off, eyes flashing. “Ten years, Patrick. Ten years of nothing. And now you want to take me out like we’re picking up where we left off?”

Okay. This was going sideways.

Thorne winced inside me. Abort. Abort. Grovel harder, idiot.

“I’m not trying to pick up where we left off,” I said quickly. “I just… I want a chance to get to know you again.”

She stared at me, her lips parted slightly, and for a second, I thought I saw her crack. A flicker of something softer—hope, maybe—before the wall came right back up.

“I need to get back to work,” she said stiffly, and turned back to the wall.

Thorne groaned. This is what happens when you lead with dinner instead of an apology .

I stood there for a moment, stunned. My feet felt like concrete.

“I’ll be in the truck,” I muttered, and turned around.

As I walked out, Thorne’s voice followed me, bone dry and unimpressed. Good job, Romeo. You went in for dinner and walked out with emotional frostbite. What’s next? Gonna offer her a Groupon for closure ?