The appointment went quickly. I looked around the waiting room as I left the doctor’s office and made sure no one paid attention to me. I was in luck. For once, it seemed like my presence hadn’t drawn attention. I went quickly to the back door, opened it, and headed outside, adrenaline pumping in my system.
My heart fluttered when I saw Elliott sitting in his car, the top rolled down and hands tight on the wheel. He scanned the street around him and stopped when his eyes landed on me. I grinned and ran toward him, pulling open the door and slipping into the seat next to him. He looked a little preoccupied, like there was something else on his mind, but he still greeted me with a kiss.
“God, it’s good to see you again,” I murmured, pausing, even though time was against us. I knew we should get moving, but I got lost in his grin.
“Damn right,” he agreed, pulling the car out of the alleyway onto the road before turning on the freeway toward Sand Dollar Beach.
I felt giddy with the wind whipping through my hair as we drove toward his beach house, my thoughts still for the first time since I’d seen him last.
I could finally relax now that we were together. We talked about nothing in particular, about the girl his friend Tucker had been seeing, about his trip down to LA, about the last night we’d spent together. I was so happy to be around him, I barely noticed how withdrawn he was until we arrived back at the beach house, and I didn’t have the roar of the engine to fill in the gaps on his end of the conversation.
We arrived at his beach house quickly, or at least, it felt like the trip took no time at all. Maybe time passed faster when I was with him. He led me inside, and I looked around the place. It felt so different without all those people crowding it. I inhaled deeply, turned to him, and smiled.
“All to ourselves,” I said happily.
I wrapped my arms around his neck. He placed his hands on my waist, but there was something wrong. It was clear his heart wasn’t in this, and I cocked my head at him curiously and furrowed my brow. “What’s going on?”
We didn’t have a lot of time. Claude would notice I was missing from my appointment before too long and set out looking for me. I didn’t want to be caught here when he turned up. I’d done an excellent job convincing both him and my dad I wasn’t hanging out with Elliott. If they caught me with him now, there would be hell to pay. I wanted to make the most of the time we had before I had to flee back to somewhere a little less conspicuous.
“I’m sorry.” Elliott shook his head and stepped away from me. “Shit, this is really hard.”
My stomach jumped up in my throat. He was ending things. It was the only explanation. I placed my hand on the back of a nearby chair, trying to keep myself upright, my head swimming and spinning as I tried to make sense of what was going on.
“What happened?” I asked. I didn’t want to have to spend all this time hanging out here if he was dumping me anyway.
“It’s my father,” he said finally, the words escaping his mouth as a sigh.
“What about him?” I asked, taking a step toward Elliott and taking his hand in mine. He squeezed my fingers tightly, and I realized he still had feelings for me. He didn’t want to let go of me, and I didn’t want to let go of him. But there was so much in our way, more than even I knew.
“He called me the other day,” he said, shaking his head. “The day we organized all this.”
“What did he say?” I prompted him again as Elliott fell silent, like speaking the words would somehow make them inescapable.
“He saw the pictures of us in some tabloid,” he said, a dark look staining his beautiful face. “You know, the ones the guy took of us on our first date?”
“I thought Claude broke his camera. How could the pictures have turned up in some tabloid?” I asked as a wave a nausea rolled over me.
“He must have left the memory card intact, and that asshole probably went back to get it. Or the images went straight to the cloud. You know how good technology is these days.”
“Oh, shit,” I muttered. Judging by my father’s reaction when he realized I was anywhere near someone from the Marshall family, this couldn’t be good news. And if Elliott’s dad had seen the pictures, how long would it be until my father saw them? Shit, shit, shit.
I pushed him for more intel. “And what did he say?” I needed to hear this.
“He told me as long as I was seeing you, I’m cut off from the family.” I could hear the pain in his voice. Getting the sentence out tore him apart. “He told me…fuck, he told me I couldn’t even stay here. He told me I wouldn’t be allowed near the family business any longer. And no money. He wouldn’t support me anymore.”
“Holy shit,” I muttered as I tried to process everything.
This was a game-changer for him. He relied on his family money to get by, the same way I had until I’d been able to pursue acting on my own. But I still recall the power my dad had over me. He helped manage my career and how much that freaked me out. I lived with the knowledge that he could rip it all out from underneath me and change everything with the snap of his fingers.
It was a terrifying thought, and the man I was falling for was being threatened with financial annihilation as long as he was still seeing me. If I were in his situation, I wouldn’t have a damn clue what to do.
“What are you going to do?” I asked, my voice soft and nervous.
He’d been looking at his feet, his face twisted in a grimace. I knew he was reliving the conversation with his father again in his head. But then, as soon as he heard my words, he looked up. He took a few steps forward to close the gap between us, and put his arms around me, drawing me close and tight against his body. I did the same, my eyes drifting closed. I breathed so deeply, I surrounded myself with his scent. Even now, the smell of him, the ocean air and his rich, deep aftershave, made me feel safe and calm.
He pulled me in closer, and my heart pounded in my chest as I tried to figure out what exactly he meant with his embrace. Was this the hug he gave me before he let me go for good? Or was he telling me nothing could drag him away from me? He pulled back, reached up and pushed a strand of hair out of my eyes. I teared up and quickly wiped them away with the back of my hand. I didn’t need that. I didn’t want him to feel like I was manipulating him into staying. I wanted the truth.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do about my father,” he admitted, speaking slowly. “But I know I want to stay with you, Aria.”
It was like someone had knocked the wind out of me. My body tensed and untensed as what he said sank in. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but, it also made perfect sense. I knew exactly how he felt because it was how I felt, too. I needed to be with him, a keening need, deep in my stomach, that wouldn’t quiet down, not in the face of any of this. Logically, we should have pulled away from each other, but there was no logic to be found when it came to my feelings for him.
I looked up at him, blinking away my tears, and he caught my chin between his thumb and forefinger and tilted it toward him. He smiled, slowly leaned down, pressed his lips against mine, and kissed me. But this was far different than the kiss we’d shared in the car.
Chapter Fifteen