Not His Bride Anymore novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Elliot Speaks

I went to get my cardigan.

That was what I told myself at nine o'clock that night, on the freight elevator, with the card in my bag.

I did not stop the elevator this time.

Elliot opened the door in a gray sweater.

His lip was split and swollen at the corner, and a bruise had started under his jaw.

"You came for your things," he said.

"I came for my cardigan."

"It's on the chair."

"And my toothbrush."

"In the glass."

He stepped back to let me in, and he didn't touch me.

I walked down the hall to the second bedroom and picked up the cardigan.

I stood there with it in my hands.

Then I went to the kitchen, took a bag of frozen peas from his freezer, wrapped it in a dish towel, and held it up.

"Sit."

"Ainsley."

"You let a man hit you in my library. Sit down."

He sat on a stool at the counter.

I stood between his knees and pressed the peas to his mouth.

He winced, and then he went still.

I was close enough to count his eyelashes.

He had gray eyes with a darker ring at the edge, and I had never looked at them this long without somebody else in the room.

"You didn't hit back," I said.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because it would have been for me." His voice was low. "He was swinging at you."

I moved the peas.

My thumb brushed the corner of his mouth, the one place that wasn't hurt, and I felt him stop breathing.

"I have a question," I said.

"Ask."

"The card says it's mine. The word. Why would you give it away?"

"Because you shouldn't have to say it to leave."

"You think I'd leave."

"I think you've spent seven years waiting to be picked, and I'm done being one more person who made you wait for me."

I put the peas down on the counter.

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