Page 22 of Willows and Waterlilies

“Come on, Ellie, you haven’t had sex in months, and you’ve just spent a long weekend in Paris,” he laughs, “you must have found some saucy, young waiter.”

“I did not find some saucy, young waiter!” I declare indignantly.

“A saucy,oldwaiter?”

I reply with a dramatic roll of my eyes as I begin powering up my laptop, praying I don’t have an email from Cameron already. With any luck, he won’t have noticed my late arrival. Alas, when I open the envelope icon, his name appears right at the top of my unopened list, along with a watch emoji. It’s not that he’ll give me a hard time like a boss hard time, it will be more like a big brother hard time. I’m going to be quizzed beyond belief and how can I deny him? After all, he did pay for the trip, and he has been looking after me ever since I can remember. I may not have always wanted his help, but he’s given it, nonetheless.

With nothing but a flick of my hand in Nate’s direction, I make my way over to the elevator, readying myself to receive the lecture of a lifetime. I know he won’t approve of the man who threw me under the bus with his sister, however, we didn’t truly know each other back then. He was looking out for his little sister while trying to placate his mom. Do I wish he would have warned me first? Hell, yes. Do I fully trust him yet? Honestly, no. Do I still want to spend every minute of the day with him? Stupidly, I do. The real question, however, is whether Elijah is different from all the others, or if he’s just another mistake to add to my growing list.

“I’m glad I wasn’t naked or anything,” Cam’s teasing tone of voice floats through my ears as I wander into his office absent-mindedly. I was too deep in thought to think of knocking before entering his fancy, top-floor office.

“Sorry,” I mumble, “do you want me to go back and knock?”

“What kind of pretentious asshole would that make me?” he laughs as he ambles over to kiss me on the cheek. “You’re lucky I wasn’t in a compromising position though.”

“Between business hours?” I ask before slumping down onto his couch that sits in front of his floor-to-ceiling windows. The city looks breathtaking this morning. Either that or my new relationship with Elijah is making me see everything through rose-tinted glasses.

“It’s been known,” he says with a shrug of his shoulders, “I am engaged, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah, magical fairy-tale and all that,” I giggle while he looks all gushy for a moment or two. It suits him; I’ve never seen him this happy before.

“So, Paris?” he says with a happy sigh. “I trust you had a good time?”

“It was…adequate, thank you,” I reply nonchalantly while perusing my nails.

“That’s it?”

“Why? What were you expecting?” I ask with suspicion in my voice.

“Oh, no reason,” he says, pretending to look at his computer screen while spinning back and forth in his pretentious office chair.

“I know that look,” I utter as I point at him with accusation, “you did something; you’ve done your whole white knight thing, haven’t you?”

“What?! No, of course not,” he cries out just as Nate waltzes in without a care in the world. “Does no one knock anymore? I’m only the boss around here.”

“You’re a big brother first,” I argue, “an interfering one at that!”

“I concur,” Nate says at the same time as he takes up the chair next to me. “What’s he been interfering with now?”

“Nothing!”

“You knew about him being there, didn’t you? You knew about Elijah turning up in Paris!”

“The asshole who messed Ellie about? Are you serious?!” Nate snaps angrily.

“Look, the guy came to me after what happened,” Cameron tries to explain, putting up his hands to try and calm us both down. “He explained what happened and told me how much he liked you. It took guts to come and face me after what happened, so I figured he must be genuine. You could do with someone sincere, Ellie. But if I got it wrong, I apologize. Did I get it wrong?”

All eyes turn on me and I feel my cheeks heat with embarrassment. But when I think of Elijah and the time we spent together this week, I cannot hold back my smile any longer. It doesn’t help when Cam grins with his teeth, looking oh, so proud of himself. Nate, on the other hand, looks murderous.

“Unbelievable!” he snaps as he gets to his feet in outrage. “Have you not learned anything from Helena? Do you wanna lose another sister to some asshole who doesn’t deserve her?”

“Don’t bring Helena into this,” Cam growls through his teeth. “Helena and Evan are completely different. Elijah Woods, although a bit of an idiot when he first met Ell, is a good guy. He even went to seek advice from Lucius Hastings. Now, that really does take guts!”

“Hastings?” Nate questions him, pausing in his outrage to think on this. “Jesus, he must like you.”

“I’ve never met this Lucius Hastings, but I must say, I’m dying to meet the guy,” I comment as I let the two brothers have one of their little arguments.

“No, you’re not, trust me,” Cam says as he settles back down at his desk.

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