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She’d had the chance to make it happen with Eric. But the timing hadn’t been right and, when faced with what it would cost her, she hadn’t been willing to make the sacrifice.
“You can’t ask me to choose.”
“And you can’t ask me to spend my life coming in second place in yours. If you love me, you’ll come with me … you’ll pick us.”
Levi’s wide hand wrapped over shoulder, drawing her back a step into the solid strength of his hold. His breath teased into her hair.
“What are you thinking about?”
What another man who’d been leaving had offered her. Something she’d been telling herself for the last year she didn’t want—didn’t have time for—but seemed to be thinking about more and more over the past two weeks regardless.
Pulling out of Levi’s grasp, she smoothed a smile into place and turned to face him. “Nothing. Doesn’t matter.”
Levi’s brow drew down, his mouth firming into a flat line as those deep blue eyes tried to probe the thoughts she didn’t want him to see.
A hoarse call of Levi’s name had his attention reluctantly shifting over her shoulder. Tightening the leash looped around his wrist, he stroked Bruno’s head with his free hand. “This is it, boy. Whole new life ahead of you.”
The exchange hadn’t taken long. It was clear from the minute Bruno and his new owner laid eyes on each other, they were going to hit it off just fine. A half-hour later Levi and Elise were walking back to her place alone.
She’d seemed withdrawn afterwards. Her arms wrapped tight around herself and Levi’d experienced the unpleasant sensation of Elise shutting him out. Though it drove him nuts that she didn’t want to talk to him, he understood how hard saying goodbye to Bruno had been. And unfortunately there was nothing he could do to fix it. Short of going out and buying her a new puppy, that was—which didn’t make a whole lot of sense considering the whole point had been to get rid of this one.
Regardless of the attachment they might have had to him, neither he nor Elise was ready to be a full-time dog owner.
Sure, he hadn’t exactly looked forward to giving Bruno up, but once he’d done it that same sort of freeing relief washed over him he experienced every time he signed the papers handing off one of his clubs or turned in the keys to the place he’d been living or put another state line behind him.
A weight lifting. A bind loosening.
Maybe one he hadn’t even registered … yet. Eventually he would have though. He always did. And then whatever comfort he’d been taking from whatever it was he’d been trying to hold on to would start to suffocate him like a blanket he couldn’t kick loose.
That was just the way he was.
Slanting a glance to Elise walking beside him, he knew it would be the same with her. Yeah, she’d affected him differently than the other women he’d known. Because she was different. In a million ways … so many he hadn’t even begun to figure them all out yet. And that had to be part of it. This crazy pull between them.
He hadn’t exhausted the challenge. Hadn’t unraveled the mystery.
Elise was constantly giving him something new to work out. Keeping him on his toes. And putting him on his knees.
But eventually the challenge or whatever it was that kept him coming back for more would fade, and he’d need to walk away from her—whether there was a convenient excuse like moving out of state to start the next job, or not.
Which was why, when it was time to leave, he’d go, packaging his goodbye within the neat confines of this temporary affair they were both prepared to have end.
Until then …
He reached for Elise, tucking her beneath his arm as they walked. Offering her whatever comfort she’d take from his just being with her.
CHAPTER TWELVE (#ulink_91657cb3-20aa-587b-9ed2-f944c73d789d)
BACK stiff and feet aching, Elise untied her black barista apron and tucked it under the pick-up counter. Sagging against the sink with a wan smile, she counted her tips. Thought again about finding a second job that paid better and then reminded herself that the flexibility was the primary reason she worked this one. And really, the tips weren’t that bad. They served food all day and the Dearborn Park patrons were a generous lot, with a good turnover. Besides, it was walking distance from her place. Which meant she wasn’t blowing coin on transportation to work there.
Definitely a benefit.
Normally the energy of the popular coffeehouse was enough to get her through a shift, even after working five to two at the athletic club, but today the cacophony of whistling steam, clanking ceramic, and shouted orders had grated from the moment she’d walked through the door.
The situation at home was deteriorating.
Ally had mentioned it the week before, but, being a bit of an alarmist, her street credit wasn’t what it could be. Elise figured her sister was making more of a missed call or off day than she should. But when Elise had dropped by with groceries the evening before, she’d been greeted at the front step with a tentative smile and news that it wasn’t a good day. That a visit would be too disrupting and they’d talk on the phone later.
Of course it wasn’t the first time a bad day had kept them from seeing each other. It was just that Ally had met with a similar response two days before. And when Elise had talked to her mom this morning, all of her questions had been shut down with the most minimal response and her mother had asked her not to come to the house for a few days.
An anxious knot tightened Elise’s stomach.
It wasn’t as though her mom weren’t entitled to her space or privacy. It was just that she’d been systematically shutting herself off from the world for nearly six years … and she needed a life. If she wouldn’t even let her daughters in—
“Elise?”
Jerking upright, she scanned the crowd of customers. Caught on the man in the twill shirt and khakis, cleaning his glasses on the end of his tie in front of her. Sandy hair, clipped neat. Handsome in a lanky sort of way.
Oh, God, not now.
“Eric?”
Her thumb moved to that touch point at the base of her fourth finger.
This was the last thing she needed today. He was the last person she wanted to see.
“I know. Surprise, surprise. I didn’t realize you’d started working here,” he said, taking in the coffee shop with a subtly disapproving stare that gave her the impression he was revisiting the conversation from a lifetime ago when he’d told her to quit working. That, married to him, she wouldn’t need a job.
What a mistake that would have been.
“Finally get over the whole yoga thing?”
She bristled at his easy dismissal of her dream, but then pushed it down, reminding herself that she was already on edge. And Eric hadn’t done anything to put her there. No doubt he was as uncomfortable seeing her as she was him, and was simply struggling for something to say.
Still, she hadn’t expected to see him.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, digging deep to find a smile that matched her civil tone.
At the cheeky toast of his whipped mocha, she nodded, smiling a bit. “In town, I mean.”
“I told you I’d be back,” he said, eyes trained steadily on hers as if to gauge her reaction. Her remorse maybe. “That it probably wouldn’t be more than a year and a half. Turns out it was less. The transfer went through last week.”
He must have worked himself to the bone—but he looked good for it.
“Congratulations, Eric. You earned it.” Finding she truly meant it, she added a sincere, “I’m happy for you.”
He waited a beat. Stepped closer. “You could have been happy with me, Elise.”
Then, shaking his head with a wry smile, he asked, “How have you been? How’s your dad—your family?”
She swallowed, taken aback by the bold statement and the questions in the warm brown eyes that had never truly held her. And she realized he was wrong. She wouldn’t have been happy with him. Not the way people committing to a life together were supposed to be. Their relationship had been nice. Pleasant. Convenient.
Tepid.
They’d gotten along.
Shared interests.
Enjoyed the other’s company.
But never had there been even a fraction of the intensity she experienced with Levi. This man had been her friend.
And the reason his forcing her to choose between moving for his career and staying near her family had been so crushing was that it had felt like a betrayal from someone who should have understood.
So they’d both made the right decision. Marriage would have been a terrible mistake.
“I’ve been good, Eric. Busy. I’m trying to open my own studio, so I’m working even more than before, if you can believe it.”
That chagrined expression said he could.
Skimming over the details of her parents, she filled Eric in on her family. Primarily, the adventures of Ally pregnant, and the joy of her new nephew Dexter. When she’d finished, she found Eric watching her with something that might have been pity in his eyes.
Something she didn’t like. Crossing her arms, she took a step back.
“Sounds like the life we’d always talked about. Only it’s someone else’s.”
Deflated, she shook her head. “I just want different things these days. A studio of my own. Working toward that goal has taken up most of my time.”
“Sounds lonely.”
Lately it hadn’t felt that way. But once Levi left …
Eric set his mug on the counter between them. “Just take care of yourself, Elise. I want you to be happy. I want you to have the life we couldn’t have together.”
Something was going on with Elise.
Levi’d seen it the second she stepped into his loft. Sensed the tension and noted the way her smile didn’t match her eyes. All kinds of alarms had started sounding in his head as he braced for something he wasn’t going to want to hear. Something he wasn’t going to let happen. But then she’d walked up to him and, without a word, gone to work on his belt.
Not him.
Whatever it was. It wasn’t about him.
And that should have been enough—with any other woman it would have been. But this was Elise.
Stilling her hands at his belt, he lifted her face with a finger beneath her chin. “What’s going on?”
She blinked, as though surprised—frustrated that he’d noticed. Or frustrated that she’d let him notice.
“Talk to me. Maybe I can help.”
Levi waited for her to explain, but instead Elise stared down at the floor. “No. It’s been one of those days. At the coffee shop—no, before that …”
“Hey, come here.” He pulled her into his arms, drawing in the sweet scent of her shampoo, subtly overlaid with roasted grounds.
“I should have canceled … I just thought if I saw you tonight—”
She broke off with a weary shake of her head that made the center of his chest ache as if he’d taken a blow to it. “What did you think?”
“That you’d distract me. Do what you always do and make me forget about everything else.” With each word, her eyes darkened like a swollen rain cloud about to burst. “Just for a few hours.”
“That’s what you want? Me to make you forget?” He would have liked her to confide in him. To share her burden, but maybe the distance she kept was smarter than this playacting at intimacy he couldn’t seem to resist.
“It was stupid—”
Catching the soft curve of her cheek in his palm, Levi tipped her face to meet his. Gave in to a single second of wondering how this woman had the ability to affect him so completely differently than any woman he’d met before. And then pushed every ounce of his cocky arrogance to the fore as he intentionally crowded into her space.
“What, you don’t think I can do it?” Fingers trailing lightly up her hip, waist, and ribs to graze the outer swell of her breast, he lowered his voice to a slow, seductive taunt and spoke against the soft shell of her ear. “Guess I’ve got something to prove, then.”
“Come on. You need to eat.” Levi laid the boxes of pasta all’arrabbiata, fresh baked bread, and insalata caprese across the foot of the bed as Elise curled her legs beneath her at the center.
“I know. I just lose track when there are too many things on my mind.”
Forking up a spicy penne, Levi pulled a distraught frown. “Are you telling me I didn’t distract you enough?”
Hand up to him, she clutched the sheet to her chest, laughing. “I’m distracted! I swear.”
So distracted, it was a miracle she was sitting upright and not sleeping in a boneless heap of sated exhaustion.
“Yeah, well, just in case—” He rounded the bed, coming to sit behind her as he held the pasta to her mouth, waiting for her to bite.
Delicious.
“Let’s talk about your favorite subject. The studio. Do you want to tell me about the wood you think would be best in the studios or the quotes you got on the Pilates machines? I’m game, either way.”
A weight lifted as she drifted toward the comfort of her fantasies and plans—the productive escape she used to shut out all the things beyond her control.
Even Levi saw that she’d turned talk about the club into some kind of security blanket.
“I don’t know.” She shook her head, wondering again what she would do if the studio plans fell through. She’d put everything into this one, abstract idea.
Her breath came short. “Oh, God, what if the loan doesn’t go through?”
Fingertips trailed down her spine and then the flat of his heel rubbed low across her back. “It will. Don’t worry.”
“It’s just that I can’t even imagine what I’m going to do if it doesn’t.” Peering over her shoulder at Levi stretched across the bed, she confessed, “I haven’t got another plan. I mean, it’s not as though I won’t have work. But there’s no next step. No fallback plan. I’ve put everything into this studio and suddenly I feel like if it doesn’t go through, I’m going to be left with nothing.”
Suddenly nothing held a whole new meaning for her. When things had ended with Eric she’d been upset. She’d felt abandoned. But even just twelve months ago things had been different with her parents than they were now—she’d looked into her father’s eyes and, once in a while, she’d still seen him looking back. Today, even her mother was shutting her out.
And then there was Levi. She’d never shared a connection with anyone like this before. Whether it was one-sided or completely skewed the scales in balance didn’t matter. She finally knew what it was to have someone who made her feel whole. Someone who added colors to the world she’d never seen before. Losing that, she suspected, was going to be worse than if she’d never had it at all.
