Page 3 of Charmed By You
Chapter 2
Elliot Cole needed some fresh air. It was stifling inside. It wasn’t so much the temperature in the grand ballroom. It wasn’t even the hundred or so people milling around in there. It was all of those gigantic fucking egos jammed into one space, voices rising as they vied to be the center of attention, and all of that mixed with the cloying perfume, fake smiles and utter dismissal he felt whenever he met the eyes of one of them made him want to scream.
He leaned up against the wall of the patio, breathing in the cool night air, and when the suit he was wearing restricted his movements he cursed and pulled at the tie and then the stupid cufflinks, jamming them in the pocket of his jacket before rolling the sleeves of the white dress shirt up to his elbows. He’d been given very strict orders not to loosen his tie or unbutton the chokehold top button and the same was true of the ridiculous cufflinks but he was past pretending to give a damn what these entitled elitists thought of him.
If they didn’t like his tattoos or his long hair or his piercings, well fuck them and their boring, judgmental friends.
Hell, he wasn’t even supposed to be here. Typically he wasn’t permitted to attend these kinds of high-profile functions but since half the staff had come down with a mysterious stomach bug, Lorna had been given no choice but to insist he fill in.
Neither of them had been happy about it.
His step-mom kept him all but locked away in the kitchen down at Cinders & Cole. She didn’t like him or his attitude. The fancy clientele she courted didn’t like him or his edgy appearance. But there was no denying he was a master in the kitchen, just like his dad had been, so he’d been relegated to the back room of the family business, out of sight and out of mind.
If it hadn’t been for his cooking skills, Elliot was certain his evil stepmother would have tossed him out on his ass before his dad’s body was even good and cold. As it was, she’d needed him to keep the restaurant and catering business running and to keep her in the expensive lifestyle she was accustomed to, the lifestyle that had driven his father to an early grave because he’d worked himself into a heart attack trying to keep her happy.
As if such a thing were possible.
Elliot wasn’t sure any of these people understood what happiness truly was. Not the way he did. Not the way his father had when he’d been alive… before he met Lorna. When it had been just the two of them against the world, they’d been happy.
He remembered the early mornings making messes in the kitchen, his father laughing as he fumbled with the whisk and spilled batter all over the place. He remembered the late nights at the restaurant, watching his father perfect a new dish and then being his guinea pig for that all important first taste. He remembered all of the bedtime stories and movie nights and trips to the park.
And he remembered the day his father had brought Lorna into their lives.
She’d been beautiful. Young and bright, wearing a shining smile that had fooled him into believing she would enjoy the role of playing stepmother to a young boy who had never had a mother. Then his father had walked out of the room and her smile had turned to a scowl, the light had gone out of her eyes and she’d hissed at him to keep his sticky hands off her and to never, ever call her Mom.
That had been the beginning of the end and he hadn’t even known it. He’d been too young then to see the darkness she brought into their house and their world. By the time she’d introduced him to the twins, herrealsons as she had no problem reminding him and anyone that asked, his father had already begun fading away.
Smiles had become rare and then nonexistent. Their time together had constantly been cut short by Lorna’s demands or his endless hours at the restaurant. And Elliot had shrunk himself down more and more every day, trying to become invisible, to stay out of the way, to not give his father anything else to worry about or Lorna and her sons any more of a target, until that fateful day he’d become an orphan.
His father’s death and Lorna’s subsequent takeover of everything that should have been his had woken him up. He’d stopped hiding. Not only that, he’d decided that the more Lorna tried to make him disappear, the more he would fight to stand out.
Hence the tattoos she despised and the piercings she’d threatened to jerk from his body. Elliot was old enough now that his sole mission in life wasn’t pissing his stepmother off anymore, but he couldn’t deny it was a nice perk of simply being who he was. After everything she’d put him through, it had taken him a long time to get comfortable in his own skin but now that he was, he had zero intentions of ever going back into the dark, or the closet as the case may be.
He knew that any sane person who had been tortured the way he had been by that woman would have run far, far away as soon as they came of age. But he hadn’t and he wouldn’t. He couldn’t leave his father’s restaurant to her. She’d destroy it in a quarter of the time it had taken to build it. He’d never be able to live with himself if he left his father’s legacy to rot so instead he stuck it out with the hopes that someday all the pennies and dimes he saved would be enough to buy the restaurant back from the witch.
Elliot leaned against the waist high wall that surrounded the luxurious outdoor patio and kept him from falling to his death. He was twenty some odd stories above Knights Port. From this vantage point he could see the harbor, the marina with its expensive yachts and sailboats and the big houses on the hill where most of the guests inside probably lived. He could also see the stars, shining bright against the pitch-black night, and for the first time in his life they felt close enough to touch.
Soon. He’d be able to buy the restaurant back soon. He just had to make a name for himself and tonight he’d done plenty of networking with the pompous assholes that loved his cooking even if they looked at him like a servant boy.
The door to the patio opened behind him and he sighed as his brief moment of respite and reflection was broken. He assumed it was one of two people. Either one of Lorna’s staff had seen him taking a break and come to usher him back into hell or one of the guests had seen him lazing about and come to usher him back to hell with a request for a refill on their drink.
Yet, when he turned around, fully prepared to scowl until the intruder walked away and left him in peace, he couldn’t quite believe his eyes.
It was as if one of those stars had fallen from the sky and landed right before him on the patio. The man standing just a few steps away shone. He literally shone as the moonlight glinted off his dark hair. Pale blue eyes sparkled like diamonds and when he smiled, revealing a pristine and perfect white row of teeth framed by deep-set dimples, Elliot’s entire tough guy persona faltered and he felt himself smile back in return.
Fuck, the man was gorgeous. All those television ads and billboards didn’t do him justice. In person, he was so beautiful it physically hurt to look directly at him.
Everything about Henry Lord was perfect. From his flawless designer suit to his shiny, leather shoes to the watch on his wrist that probably cost more than Elliot’s car. He looked like nothing would ruffle him, as if he was accustomed to always being in control.
Something Elliot couldn’t put a name to swirled in his veins, a need he couldn’t fathom burning through him.
He wanted to knock Mr. Perfect off his pedestal. He wanted to ruffle his feathers. He wanted to muss him up. He wanted to make him uncomfortable. More than anything, he wanted to see what this untouchable man would do if Elliot touched him.
Henry Lord was gay. It wasn’t a secret. Even if it had been, the heat in his eyes as he’d watched Elliot from afar all night would have given him away.
Fuck, was this guy for real?
Elliot licked his bottom lip, playing with the stud in his tongue for a moment, watching the way the other man’s pale blue eyes followed the movement. His own cock reacted to the tease he’d intended for it to be. He half expected the perfect male specimen to jerk himself out of whatever insanity he was clearing going through and walk away, but he didn’t and Elliot found himself stepping closer to him.
