Heartless: Episode #2 (4 page)

7.

DANIEL

Elizabeth looked absolutely gorgeous. I couldn’t stop staring at her face, her eyes, her mouth, and her ass when she’d walked in front of me. Everything about this woman called to me. Hell, I’d already flown out to see her twice in as many days. I might need an intervention.

“So, Elizabeth,” I started, hoping she’d let me in on some of her mystery tonight.

“So, Daniel,” she countered before continuing, “are you going to make this sort of thing a habit?”

“What sort of thing?” I asked playfully.

Her head tilted to one side, allowing her long hair to spill down across her shoulder. With her bare neck revealed, I instantly hardened. I wanted to slide next to her and feast on her skin.
Fuck dinner. I had everything I needed sitting across from me.

“Flying out here to see me,” her voice said.

I blinked twice to regain focus. “I’m planning on it, yes. Is that going to be a problem?”
Please fucking say no.

She sighed, and I reached across the table for her hand.

“I don’t think so, but how can you afford to do that with your job?”

I stifled a laugh. “It’s only an hour flight, so it’s not like I’m losing much of my day when I’m in the air. Also, I can work from Southern California just as effectively as I can from my office up north.” Squeezing her hand for a moment, I added, “Well, almost as effectively. You’ve been a bit of a distraction lately.”

“Me? You’re the distraction, and I haven’t even had to leave my office. You bring the distraction to me.”

She half-smiled, and I wanted to kiss the edges of her mouth.

“Do you want me to stop?”

Her eyes skirted away from mine as she glanced at our hands. “No.”

“Good. I wouldn’t have listened anyway. To be honest, I think we have the perfect situation here.” My thumb lazily circled hers.

“How so?”

“Well, for starters, we don’t live anywhere near each other,” I practically shouted at her like an excited five-year-old.

“I think we’ve established that already. Why is that a good thing?”

“Well, contrary to what you think, I really do work hard and long hours. I get home late all the time, and I’m up early. I know you are, too. Neither of us has time for a demanding relationship, not that I think you’d ever be demanding. You’re too damn independent.” Her lips started to frown, and I quickly recovered. “That’s a good thing. I fucking love that about you.” I watched as her lips tilted up into a slight grin. “As I was saying, I think that us being long distance is the perfect way for you to take baby steps, which I’m assuming you need to do, before we go all in. And trust me, babe, we’re going all in.”

“Are you always this overly confident, bossy, and demanding?”

“Only when I know I’m right.” I smirked before bringing her hand to my lips. 

“So, all the time then,” she teased.

“See? You’re the perfect girlfriend already.” The word effortlessly slipped off my tongue. I hadn’t had a real girlfriend in years, but I wanted this. I wanted her.

Heather reappeared at that moment with our bottle of wine and two glasses, and all I wanted her to do was leave again. We placed our order, and I informed her we weren’t in a rush.

“Will you answer me something?” I asked with slight apprehension.

“Sure.”

She looked tentative, but I was determined to convince her that she could trust me.

“Why are you so hesitant when it comes to me?”

“It’s not just you.” She sipped her wine.

“Then, what is it?”

“I don’t really date anymore. I kind of swore off men awhile back.” Her eyes averted mine as she stared past me.

“So, you only date girls now?” I tried to break the tension.

She laughed. “Oh, yeah. I’m sure dating a chick would be far less dramatic.” Her expression shifted.

“Tell me what happened. Please.” I looked into her brown eyes and saw the hurt in them.

She was so reluctant about sharing anything personal with me, and it fucking killed me. I wanted her to trust me.

“Elizabeth, I know that someone hurt you, but that someone wasn’t me.”

And it never will be
, I promised myself.

“I know that. It’s so stupid.” She shrugged one shoulder. “I mean, it happened eight years ago.”

“But you’re still holding on to it?” I honestly wondered.

“Not in the way you’re thinking. It just affected the way I chose to live my life.”

“In what way?” Now, we were getting somewhere.

“When it came to work and men.”

Her eyes stared through me. They willed me to challenge her. She wanted to let this out. I could tell. I just had to push her to do it.

“This is like pulling teeth, Elizabeth. Just tell me what happened.”

“Fine.” Her tone was clipped. “My ex cheated on me with my roommate. He told me it was all my fault that he did it, and that’s the gist of it.”

My eyes narrowed in both confusion and anger. That couldn’t possibly be the whole story because it didn’t fucking add up.

What kind of asshole would cheat on her and tell her it was her fault?

A young one.

“How was him cheating on you your fault? I’d love to hear how he explained that one.”

She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, and my eyes zeroed in on it. The move momentarily stopped my brain from working and sent all my blood flowing south, but I forced myself to remain in my seat.

“He said that I was too focused on what I wanted for my future. I didn’t give him enough attention because my dreams were too big. And no guy would ever want someone like me because I wanted too much for myself.”

I couldn’t listen to another word without wanting to smash something. “What kind of insecure piece of shit doesn’t want his girlfriend to be successful?”

“That’s what I said!” Her voice became animated at this point. “But he said that guys wanted their women to take care of them and support their goals, not have goals of their own. He said that all guys thought that way, not just him. And he acted like he was doing me a favor by telling me, like he was clueing me in on some giant secret in the book of men.”

I shook my head back and forth so hard that I thought it might fall off my fucking shoulders. “I am so sorry that happened to you.” Anger pulsed through every inch of my body. I could feel it seething through my veins like blood.

Pushing out of my chair, I rose to my feet and sucked in three deep breaths before sliding into the bench seat next to her. Wrapping my arms around her, I pulled her against me and kissed her forehead. My heart pounded against my chest. It wasn’t because of the woman in my arms—although, that would have been enough. It was because my fucking adrenaline was pumping so hard. This guy had done a number on her, and I understood now why she had been so guarded.

What girl wouldn’t be after experiencing that?

I looked down at her and reached for her chin, tilting it up with my fingertips, before pressing my lips against hers. If I had the power to kiss away all the bullshit she had been told in her life, I wished for it to work now.

My tongue swept across her bottom lip before begging for entry into her mouth. She parted her lips, and the taste of sweet wine was on her tongue. We kissed for a few seconds more before I slowly pulled away from her and planted a soft peck on her cheek.

8.

ELIZABETH 

Sweet baby Jesus.
If I’d known that telling Daniel that story would get me rewarded so sweetly, I might have shared it with him the night we first met.

No, I wouldn’t have
.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

I couldn’t pretend not to notice the way his chest was inflating and deflating quicker than normal and that his jaw had been clenched since he sat back down on his side of the table.

“Me? I’m fine. What about you? You’ve been living with that shit in your head for how many years?” His tone was angry as he reached for the bread that had arrived shortly after the wine.

“Eight. Are you mad at me?”

His eyes widened in surprise. “At you? Why would I be mad at you?” His teeth ripped through a piece of the bread. “I’m mad at the dickhead who said that to you, the guy who put that in your head and allowed you to believe it.”

“So, you don’t think it’s true? Guys don’t really want that?”

It would take a lot more than one conversation to erase eight years of being brainwashed.

His light eyes met mine as he spoke, “Some guys want that, yes, but not me.”

“Why not you?”

“Because I want you.”

I huffed out a quick laugh. “Be serious.”

“I am.”

“Then, tell me why.”

“It doesn’t appeal to me. Listen, Elizabeth, some guys want their wives to stay at home, take care of the kids, have dinner ready every night, and basically, provide for their families.”

I nodded my head, familiar with the wives of the executives at my office. Almost all of them were stay-at-home moms. That was a fact that had only fueled my belief that Ben was right.

“I’ve never wanted that,” he continued.

I felt almost blessed with the truths he was about to share with me.

“That’s why I think it’s been so hard for me to find someone. I don’t want the woman who has no ambitions of her own. I don’t mind taking care of and providing for my family, but there’s something innately attractive about a woman who makes shit happen.”

His eyes closed for a moment before reopening. “You know, maybe it was because my mom stayed home while my dad worked. Sure, she volunteered at my school, and she was on quite a few charitable committees, but none of that shit paid her any money. While she was content and felt accomplished for a bit, she eventually wanted more—something for herself, something she earned. You know what I mean?”

I hummed out a yes in understanding.

“But she was over forty by then, and I watched as she searched to find her place in a world that wasn’t made for a woman with no experience in the workforce. She eventually gave up her search and continued doing what she had always done, but I could tell she wasn’t really happy. So, I offered her a job.”

  A smile spread across my face. “You did? Doing what?”

I finished off my glass of wine, and he filled it up.

“I started her off as the receptionist in my first company, but that didn’t really work out well. To be honest, my mom is a bit of a snob. She answered all the phones, and she would get a lot of calls, way more than I’d ever realized, asking for charitable contributions. So, she convinced me that I needed someone to oversee the charities I donated to, and she helped me start up my own organization. It was the perfect fit.”

“That’s fantastic. I bet she loves handling that stuff for you.”

“She does. Plus, she likes feeling like she can still tell me what to do sometimes, and I humor her.”

Heather appeared with our food. It smelled amazing, but I wanted her to leave because this conversation was doing more for me personally than anything had in years. 

When our waitress disappeared, I started right where we’d left off. “You’re a good son.”

“Even if that didn’t happen with my mom, I don’t think I could be happy with someone who didn’t want to have her own thing.” He took a man-sized bite of pasta.

“Really?” I felt my expression soften as my heart started to lighten its load.

“Oh God, this is really good.” He stabbed at his plate with his fork before directing it toward me.

I leaned forward, taking the pasta in my mouth, and I moaned. “Holy smokes. Delicious.”

He raised his eyebrows in response and continued, “I respect ambition, Elizabeth—not that I don’t respect women who want to stay at home with their families because I do. That’s hard work, and I’m not trying to diminish that
at all
,” he emphasized. “But when it comes to me and the qualities that I’m attracted to, I look for that inner drive in a woman.”

His hand balled into a fist, and he placed it over his heart. “When I look at you, I see that fire. Maybe I respect it so much just because I can relate to it. I don’t know, but I do know that I want someone who gets what I’m going through every day. I want someone who knows how to build me up and make me a better man. Because that’s exactly what I want to do for her.”

My heart swelled inside my chest with his confession. I nodded my head so vigorously along with everything he said that I was certain I looked like a bobblehead doll. My eyes started to water.

“Oh, jeez, babe. Don’t cry.”

I waved him away. “I’m fine really. That’s just the most…” I paused as I wiped away the few tears that had escaped. “You’re amazing. I would never have thought that you would be like this.”

“Because you’re ambitious and judgy,” he teased.

“Only because you’re arrogant and annoying.”

“Touché,” he said with a cocky smirk. “I knew I’d have you, Elizabeth. I just didn’t know it would be so soon.”

I admitted, “Me either.”

“To which part?” He cocked his head to the side, and his hair moved slightly with it.

“I didn’t think you’d get to me this quickly.”

“But you knew I’d eventually get to you?”

“Of course I fucking knew.”

“No one hotter…no one has ever been hotter than you are right now.”

“I kind of want to climb over this table and have my way with you.” I toyed with him, taking our flirtation to the next level.

He looked all around him before yelling, “Check, please!”

“I was kidding!” I swatted at his arm.
I was so not kidding.