Joey’s blanket at the table, I wouldn’t have gone back to fetch it after I’d finished in the restroom. Then, I wouldn’t have seen the side exit door that was much easier to leave through rather than weaving between tables to get to the front door.
If I hadn’t left through the patio, I never would have heard Weston call me a mother in crisis. If I’d been able to move my feet and open my mouth, I could have announced my presence and wouldn’t have heard Elliot’s friends question why in the world he would be with me if not to save me from the same fate his mother suffered.
If only…
I’d heard everything, and even though I’d tried to play it cool by rushing back inside and exiting out of the front door instead, I couldn’t pretend well enough for Elliot not to figure out something was off.
As soon as Joey was in bed for the evening, he took me by the shoulders and led me into the study. Then he parked me in his lap and held me tight.
“Talk to me,” he demanded gently.
As much as I wanted to, there was no getting around this. This conversation had to happen. Taking a deep breath, I blurted it out.
“I’m a mother in crisis.”
He knew immediately what I was talking about. It was like he caved in, his breath exploding, body curling around mine.
“You heard?”
I nodded. “I used the patio exit and did the thing I always accuse you of doing.”
“You eavesdropped.”
I nodded.
He grimaced like he was in pain, then buried his nose in my hair and stroked his fingers up and down my arm. He was comforting me, but I sensed he was reassuring himself too.
“Catherine, my mother was mentally ill. Until my father died when I was a teenager, I hadn’t understood just how hard he’d worked to keep her together. One of the last things he’d said to me was it was now my job to take care of my mother. But I’d been a kid, and Elise had been even younger. We’d been grieving, we’d needed to be taken care of, but our mother had spiraled without my dad to anchor her.”
I could barely breathe, hanging on to each of Elliot’s broken words.
“My mother—her name was Elaine—had forgotten she was our mom. She fell into this deep, dark pit and never tried to climb out. Now, I understand my father had always been the one to pull her out. He’d taken her to therapy, made her take her meds, kept our home calm and our household running. Without him? Chaos.”
I took his hand in mine, weaving our fingers together. He sounded exhausted, and I thought maybe I wasn’t the only one who’d been ruminating on all that had been said after brunch. It was weighing on him too.
“I shouldn’t have gone away to college, not when our mother was barely functioning, but Elise insisted I leave. To be honest, I was relieved to be out of that house. Away from my desperately sad, self-destructive mother and memories of my dad. It was selfish, and I’m not proud of it, especially because Elise was there on her own, but it’s the truth.”
I kissed his shoulder, waiting for the rest, my stomach in snarling knots. He was still carrying this. The guilt, the weight of losing his parents, of not being there for his sister.
“She died in a car accident at the start of my third year at Stanford. That was the official ruling anyway, but it wasn’t an accident. She’d given up on life, on her kids, and ended it, but not before she’d spent nearly every penny our father had left us and taken out a second mortgage on our home. I came back for Elise and stayed. I put her life back in order and built my own from the disaster our mother left behind.”
He took my face in his hands. “She was in crisis. I didn’t stay when I should have, and it took me a long time to forgive myself. There are days, hours, minutes when I absolutely don’t. I ask myself ‘what if’ all the time and think I’ll always bear some amount of guilt for not doing more. Weston and Luca know that. They saw what a wreck I was back then and helped carry me through it. Now, I need you to hear me, Catherine.”
I nodded as much as I could, with him holding me. I was listening. I couldn’t stop if I tried.
“You are nothing like my mother.” He drew each word out with his eyes locked on mine, almost angrily. Like he was incensed I would have believed the opposite. “Since my father died and our orderly world fell apart, I made a conscious decision to keep my personal space and those I let in it as chaos-free as possible. The control I keep over myself and my life has always been nonnegotiable, which Weston and Luca are well aware of.”
“I am too,” I whispered.
His mouth hitched. “Yes, you are. More aware than most.” He dragged his finger along my nose and dropped to hold my chin. “I’m certain my friends heard your story and decided I’d let chaos into my life as a form of self-sacrifice, but that isn’t true at all, and I need you to understand that. Since I brought the two of you here, I’ve never felt more at home. I look forward to being in this house with you. Having you as mine has calmed the storm I was unaware had been left behind by my past.”
I closed my eyes, letting his bare and honest admission settle over me. I wanted to believe it. To take it in and know it was true. But I couldn’t shake what Luca and Weston had said. It had settled over me just as much.
“Thank you for telling me about your mom, Elliot, and I’m terribly sorry you went through that.” I sucked in a breath. “Your friends weren’t completely wrong, though. Not about me.” I curled my fingers around his, lowering his hands to my lap. “I was in crisis when you brought me here. I still would be if you hadn’t stepped in.”
“You were put in that position.”
“I allowed it to happen.”
“That’s bullshit. I’m not going to let you disparage yourself. As the only person here who knows both you and the woman you were falsely compared to, I can say with authority you aren’t my mother. I don’t see her when I look at you.”
I rubbed my lips together, the weight in my chest no less light. “Can you honestly say there’s not a small part of you that’s with me to make up for the past?”
His eyes narrowed. “You think so little of me? Of yourself?”
I tried to drop my shame-filled gaze, but Elliot just tilted my head back to recapture it. A gust of breath rushed from my lips.
“Sometimes. Not of you, but myself. The thing is, I’ve done nothing to improve my situation, and you’ve done everything. Hearing the way West and Luca were talking about us…I guess I saw where they were coming from.”
He jerked me hard against him and shoved his fingers deep into my hair. “Shut up, Catherine. You just had a baby all on your own and are the best mother I have ever known. I was attracted to you from the second I saw you, but watching your tender confidence with Josephine has deepened my feelings for you to a level I didn’t know I was capable of. Weston and Luca have never seen me this way, which I’m choosing to believe is another explanation for their doubt. It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me.”
I took in what he was saying and wrapped it around my fragile heart like a dryer-warmed blanket. I wasn’t a surrogate mother to save. Elliot was with me because of who I was.
And that made me want to be better. For him, for me, for Joey-Girl.
“Okay,” I whispered. “I hear you, Elliot.”
He drew my mouth to his and kissed me roughly, his teeth digging into my bottom lip hard enough to elicit a whimper.
“I never want to hear you disrespecting yourself that way again. You and I are together because we want to be with each other. Isn’t that true?” His tone was demanding, but behind it was this sliver of vulnerability, a need to be reassured he wasn’t alone in what he felt.
“Yeah, it’s true.” I trailed my fingers along his nape and into the bottom of his hair. “I’ve never been this deep with anyone else either, and I really like it.”
“I really like you.” His eyes raked over me as he held me a little too tight. “Give me your mouth, sweetheart.”
I pressed my mouth to his, and his sigh filled my chest. Curling my arms around him, I kissed him with the care I sensed he needed, showing him I was here, that I’d heard him and we were solid with each other no matter what went on around us.
We kissed until we were breathless and lay together on the couch. Wedged between Elliot and the cushions, I was so secure and snug I could have stayed there kissing him for hours.
We kissed in between removing our clothes.
Bare, we wrapped ourselves around one another and kissed as our skin melded.
Kissed and kissed and kissed while he slowly slid into me.
Our mouths finally broke apart so he could look down at me. His elbows were braced on either side of my head, and we were inches apart. His hips rolled against mine in smooth strokes. I held his face, his shoulders, his arms.
My heart thudded, rattling my ribs. I was falling so hard for this man, and I wanted to be a woman he’d be proud to have on his arm—that no one would question why he would want to be with me. I couldn’t lose this. His warmth, care, devotion. He was so important to me. Becoming vital.
Our panting breaths mingled, and our eyes stayed locked as we rode wave after wave of pleasure. He stretched me wide, split me open, found parts of me I hadn’t known were lost.
I dug into his shoulders, muscles rippling under my fingertips.
He caressed my breasts until they were tingling and dripping, then tore away from my eyes to dip his head and lick my wet skin.
Still, he went slow but not gentle. He was far too big, too powerful, to ever call the way he took me “gentle.”. But he was careful, methodical, drawing it out as long as he could.
“Elliot,” I breathed.
“Mmm.” He lifted his head and pressed his lips to mine, sweet with my milk and his own taste. “I’ve got you, my good girl.”
“You do. You do have me,” I told him because it was true. I was his now. Couldn’t imagine ever being anyone else’s after this.
I’d make sure there was no “after this.”
Eventually, his hips snapped against mine, and our cries grew more frantic. Skin warmed, misted with sweat and milk, my inner walls fluttered and swelled, and my outer walls crumbled. My body welcomed his to my hidden depths, and he dragged me along with him to the precipice.
There, we kissed again. Lips, tongues, teeth.
Clawing, grasping, panting, needing. We were wrapped in each other, arms and legs like bands, tied up, so we stayed tethered as we shook. So close, there was no air except what we exchanged in gasps and pants. No light except what was in his eyes when he opened them and focused on me. Even when they were closed, his focus was on me. Always on me.
I was his.
Me.
Imperfect and floundering, he wanted me anyway.
I wanted him too. God, did I want him.
I laid my head on his chest and sighed. He lifted my hair off my shoulder and ran it between his fingers.
“Do you understand, Catherine? So deep.”
I nodded. “The deepest.”
And I would do my part to keep us right here because I never wanted to be anywhere else.
