Page 133 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet
“Elena,” Beau called from down the stairs. “Come on.”
He was in the kitchen assembling a tray when I appeared. My favorite Japanese teapot and little cups arranged with some dried flowers I recognized from my entryway.
He ushered us into the living room, put the tray on the coffee table and reached for me, wrapping his arms to pull me down on the couch at his side. He arranged us together the way he did models on set, deliberately fiddling with our limbs until we were twined together, forehead to forehead.
Before Dante, Beau and Cosima were the only people I ever let get close.
My eyes burned as I blinked at him.
“Talk to me,” he pleaded, stroking my damp hair. “What happened?”
“So much,” I whispered, my throat too swollen with sorrow to make any sound. “So much, I don’t even know how to think about it, let alone talk about it.”
“Try,” Beau coaxed. “Start with the most important things.”
“I love him.” Tears formed and broke free of my eyes like diamonds rolling down my cheeks. “I do. I love him. I don’t know how it happened…He just…he wouldn’t leave me alone.”
I laughed wetly, and Beau did too a little.
“He’s not anything I ever would have allowed myself to like or know. He’s myclient. Being with him risks my career. Being with him risks mylife,” I tried to explain, but the words just kept coming more and more panicked. “It makes no sense, Beau, but we are compatible. He’s a criminal, a hedonist, a sinner. But everyone likes him. You should see it. It’s impossible to dislike him because he has this smile and this charm…”
“He sounds like a complicated man,” Beau said gently. “Fitting for a complicated woman.”
I nodded, rolling my teeth under my lips to keep from sobbing. “He tells me to be brave.”
“And do you feel that way with him?”
Another nod, my lips wobbling.
“Then what happened? Why can’t you be with him?”
“He’s leaving,” I murmured. “He has to leave now because of me. He’s going, and I don’t know where or for how long, but I probably won’t ever see him again. AndI love him.”
The tears were burning up as my skin heated with something like anger, something with bite. Suddenly, I was furious at the world for doing this to me, for giving me this beautiful man in this wretched situation and then for making it impossible for me to be with him.
“I can’t explain what’s happened inside me,” I cried, clutching at my heart through my chest like I could pry it from between my ribs and show him how it had been altered. “But I’m not the same anymore. I used to think I knew who I was, but I never felt like this before.”
“Like what?”
“So alive I burn.”
Beau blinked at me as I leaned over him, panting with the force of the turmoil coursing through me. “Elena, why can’t you go with him?” he finally said.
“Because, because I just told you! I have no idea where he is going or for how long or with who. I have a job here and a life, and I can’t just leave that for…for a giant question mark.”
“You’re not leaving it for a giant question mark,” he reminded me gently. “You’re leaving it for him.”
“He didn’t ask me to go with him.” It burned in me, but it was the truth. He’d never asked. He’d only told me I couldn’t. That I had to stay.
“Are you so sure he didn’t ask because he didn’t want to ask you to give up your entire life for him?”
“No,” I admitted. “That’s basically what he said.”
“Then you have a choice, Elena, and I don’t envy it,” Beau said. “But I think you should consider it hard. I’ve never seen you like this.”
“A mess?” I said with a snotty laugh.
“So alive you burn,” he repeated my words back to me softly. “I’ll be right back, okay?”
