Page 35 of Not Your Girl
Cece glances at me then puts her hand on Amelia’s arm, serious expression crossing her face. “There are no two people I would rather have looking for my mom’s great love.”
Amelia clears her throat, emotion clouding her face. “We’ll find him.”
Cece nods. “I know you will.” She plucks a sleeping Killer from Amelia’s arms and carefully puts her back in the bag. Then she leans up and kisses Amelia’s cheek, whispering something I can’t hear but has the emotion on Amelia’s face deepening. “Bye, my darlings,” she says, hitching her bag up on her shoulder. “Happy hunting!” Then she’s gone, sweeping out of my office in a tornado of red chiffon.
Amelia stays where she is, staring at the door where Cece just disappeared. I stand from my desk, walking past her to close my door and then turn, standing right in front of her. I put my hand on her cheek, tipping her face up so I can look her in the eyes. Hers are swirling with feeling, stoking every protective instinct I have.
“Did she say something that made you sad?” I ask, stroking my thumb along her cheekbone.
Amelia shakes her head, leaning into my touch in a way that has my own emotions rising. “She didn’t. It’s just…it’s nice how you are together. The way you talk to each other. The way you both talk about the rest of your family. I just…sometimes I wish I had that.” Her voice drops to a whisper at the end, and I can’t shake the feeling that she is letting me in, just a little bit. Giving me a piece of herself she doesn’t give away easily. And if I wasn’t looking right at her, I would have missed the sheen of tears in her eyes.
Without another thought, I drop my hand from her cheek and wrap her in a hug. I snake an arm around her waist andtangle a hand in her hair, and when she wraps her arms around me, I let out a breath I feel like I’ve been holding for my entire life.
Amelia fits against me like she was made for me. With her body pressed against mine, I feel like I suddenly know the answer to every question I’ve ever had. And when she takes a deep, shuddering breath and settles even further into my hold, my brain empties except for one single word.
Home.
Amelia feels like home.
Somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain, I knew that she was going to be it for me, but with her wrapped up in my arms, right here in my office under the bright fluorescent lights, I surrender to the inevitability of us. Of doing whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, for us to have our end game.
I know it with more certainty than I’ve ever known anything in my life.
“Thank you,” she mumbles into my sweater. “I needed this.”
I turn my head and press a kiss to her temple. “Do you want to talk about it?’
Amelia unwinds herself from me, and I feel the loss of her immediately. She shakes her head, and I think she’s going to refuse until she starts talking. “It’s not really that complicated.” She walks over and drops down into one of the chairs in front of my desk, and I take the other one. “Orphaned girl misses her parents who died tragically and gets sad when she sees happy families. It’s a tale as old as time. I should probably be over it by now.”
I shake my head, taking one of her hands and lacing her fingers with mine. “I don’t think there’s any kind of timeline for grief. It’s sneaky and insidious and does whatever the fuck it wants.”
Amelia laughs a little but there’s no humor in it. “Isn’t that the truth. But in my case, grief comes with a heaping side of guilt. I have the absolute best brother in the world who dropped everything to raise me and my younger sister, Olivia, when my parents died, trying to give us a family even after we lost so much. Hell, he gave up the love of his life for us and only got her back a couple of years ago. She’s amazing too. He would do anything for us. And when I say anything, I mean literally anything in the entire world because he’s a famous billionaire and can have and do anything he wants. And he’s made it so my sister and I can have and do whatever we want too. But some days I miss my parents so much my chest literally aches, and I’m also lying my face off to Gabe every single day about what I’m doing with my life because I’m so desperate to make my own way and run away from his legacy. Fuck.” She blows out a breath and scrapes a hand through her hair, tugging more strands out of her bun. “I’m kind of a mess.”
I squeeze her hand and tip her chin up so she’s looking at me. “You are the farthest thing from a mess, Mystery Girl. How old were you when you lost your parents?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AMELIA
How old were you when you lost your parents?
Elliot’s question reverberates around the small room. If it were anyone else, I would just answer the question directly and move on, but something about this moment—the way Elliot is looking at me with the soft, understanding expression on his face and the way my hand feels engulfed in his—makes me want to say more. To give him pieces of myself I’ve never given anyone.
I could take a minute to consider how opening up to him will just draw us closer when I should be keeping my distance, especially after we were very nearly caught kissing on the dean’s back patio, but fuck, in this moment the last thing I want from him is distance.
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then I open my mouth to give him some of my truths. “Twelve. They died in a helicopter crash on vacation at the Grand Canyon.” I pause, taking another deep breath. “Sorry, I don’t talk about this, like, ever.”
Elliot squeezes my hand again and then puts his other hand on top of mine. I like the way his hands look. Big and masculine. Sexy and strong. “You don’t have to tell me anything. We can just sit here if you want. Or forget this conversation and I can show you the very romantic postcards a mystery guy sent to my great-grandmother more than a hundred years ago. I’m just happy to be here with you. Wherever you are is where I want to be, Mystery Girl.”
Oh, you sweet, sweet man.
Elliot strokes his thumb over the back of my hand, and my stomach swoops at the gesture. I very nearly untangle my hand from his to press it to my chest to make sure my heart is still present and accounted for. There’s a very real possibility my heart and I do not survive Elliot Wyles, and this is the moment I surrender to the fact that one way or another, somehow, someday, this man is going to be mine. I just hope I can avoid blowing up my life in the process.
“Twelve is a really weird age to lose your parents,” I start. “It’s old enough that I didn’t need the kind of parenting that my younger sister Liv did—she was eight. Gabe spent most of his time helping her through it. He sat with her while she cried herself to sleep for months and helped her with her homework, and he was there while she navigated third grade mean girls and long division. It was also old enough that I could see the strain Gabe was under, trying to keep us together as a family while he got his company off the ground and navigated his own grief and also losing the love of his life after my parents’ deaths broke them apart. Looking back, I can see that I was too young to be able to really understand and process my own grief. Instead, I channeled it into trying to need as little as possible so Gabe could focus on my sister and himself. I was always fine, even when I wasn’t. I tried so hard not to need anything from anyone.To be a good sister and a good student and to never be too much or too loud and to always take care of myself.”
Elliot brings my hand to his lips and presses a kiss across my knuckles, his eyes never leaving mine, and it gives me the courage to keep talking. “I’m old enough now to understand that it wasn’t exactly a healthy way to cope. The three of us are all close, but Gabe and Liv have this special relationship, and I’ve always felt a little like the odd one out. Then Gabe and Molly got back together and became this unshakable unit. Soulmates in every sense of the word. I guess I sometimes have a hard time figuring out where I fit into my own family. And when I saw you and your grandmother—how you are together, the ease between you—it made me miss my parents all over again. My parents were both only children, so we didn’t have anyone else. I’ve always kind of wished for a big, loud family like yours.” I shake my head, laughing a little. “It’s ridiculous, I know.”
“It’s not.” Elliot pauses, waiting until I’m looking at him again before he keeps talking, his eyes serious and locked on mine. “Nothing about this is ridiculous. This is as real as it gets. You were just a kid when your parents died, Amelia. Too young to have to experience that kind of grief. You coped in the best way you knew how at the time, but it’s okay to have some unresolved feelings about it. To miss your parents today just as much as you missed them then. I think…” Elliot breaks off, emotion clouding his eyes. “I’ve never lost anyone like you have, but I watched my brother after his fiancée died, and even now, and I think grief never fully goes away. We get better at handling it, and its sharper edges dull over time, but it never disappears.”
