Page 21 of Spellbound
I peered down into her face, the blotching as damning now as a short time earlier. “You were crying earlier. Not happy tears this time.” She could have said she didn’t know what I was talking about. She could have said I was imagining it.
“I got hold of Perry. Told him to stop messaging me, that he was the one who fired me.”
I waited for her to go on, but the tears only welled again. I stopped walking. Laid my hand on her arm to hold her back. “The fuck, Eegee. What did that asswipe say to you?”
Emma Grayce spurted out a laugh. “Oh, Eli.”
“Waiting.”
She blew out a breath. “I have a contract. I didn’t sign separation papers, so I’m essentially still in their employ. He ordered me back to work on the story.”
“Do you want to go back. The truth right now.” I held my breath, my future—our future—held in the balance.
She looked up at me, desperation in her cloudy eyes. “The relief I’ve felt since he kicked me out, that tells the tale. No, I don’t want to go back.” I smiled down at her and exhaled the trapped air from my lungs.
“Then you won’t. I’ll get you a lawyer if it comes to that, but he may only be bullying you. Making you believe something that’s not true.”
Emma Grayce slid her hand down my arm, past my wrist, and entwined our fingers. “You’re a good man, aren’t you? I think I’ve known that all along. What are we going to do when we go back home?”
“Until yesterday, how did we even talk about what we wanted from this . . .thingwe have?”
“I believe we called it a relationship.”
I nodded, mostly in affirmation. “I’d like for us to work toward that. Toward a relationship.” The words felt solid in my gut. “I love you too, Emma Grayce.” Still no churning aftereffect. “This is fast, really fast, and I have to admit the idea doesn’t scare me like I thought it might, but—”
“But we don’t know enough about each other to know if we would even like each other outside this insulated cocoon we’ve been in this weekend?”
“You do have a way with words. That’s exactly what I mean.”
“Neither of us set out to withhold information, but you have to admit, the way things were going, we were on a trajectory for disaster. How could we even talk aboutusas if we had a future when we didn’t know anything about each other?”
Emma Grayce halted under the canopy of an ancient shade tree. “You know all my secrets now. I come from Boston, too, which is a huge coincidence.” She sounded as Yankee as New England clam chowdah, with her mismashed vowels and convoluted r’s, and how had I never noticed that? Oh yeah, I was obsessed with the rest of her.
“I was a reporter in a job I hated. I would probably still be there for years if I hadn’t gotten fired, because I was too scared to quit. I guess I should thank you for getting in that mess with Priscilla and forcing me to take a stand.” She made to sit, then ran her hands down the front of the long burgundy bridesmaid dress and stopped. I didn’t much care about the rented tux I wore so I removed my jacket and laid it on the leaf-covered ground. I sat and tugged her down with me, and she shot me a grateful smile.
“It’s the shoes.”
One by one, I pulled her feet onto my lap and slid the heels from them so I could rub her arches. She let out a soft moan, then continued.
“I’m a good author. I make a fair amount of money at it but not enough to live in the city. Now I have a chance to change my life, to put all my time into doing what I love and make a better living at it. My mom’s going to have a meltdown.” She chuckled. “But I’m a grown woman and I don’t even live in her house. She’ll get over it.
“But Eli, I don’t know much about you, other than you play ball”—she reached for my hand and I threaded our fingers together—“And I’m not ready to give up on us.
I’d taken women home before, spent weekends in bed with them, sometimes after only knowing them for hours. Not a topic I’d announce to my grandmother, but cleat chasers were as much a part of the sport as running the sacks. I was done with that. But a serious relationship Emma Grayce? I wasn’t ready to give up on us, either.
“Come with me.” Her eyes narrowed, but it seemed to be curiosity more than skepticism. I hopped to my feet and paced, too excited to sit, or even stand, still. “It’s perfect! Pete set me up with a condo on the beach. We can hang out on the sand, grill fish for dinner, take walks under the palms, go snorkeling, whatever you want.”
“I don’t eat fish.” But she was smiling. “And I didn’t bring a swimsuit.”
I dropped back down beside her. “Babe, you read that article about me, right?”
“Yeah.” She lifted a shoulder.
I nodded. “The whole thing?”
She lowered her brow. “Sure.”
I took her hand again. Balanced it on my palm. Laid my other palm on top and trapped it. “Well, most of it was a figment of somebody’s imagination. But one part was true.”
