Never Yours Again novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Fourteenth Floor

The ballroom cleared in ten minutes.

Rhett was gone by the side door, with his mother's hand on his sleeve.

Ellis told two men from the hotel's security desk that the files were his own notes, copied to his own laptop.

He promised to put that in writing.

They shook his hand and apologized.

My boss found me at the cable box and said, "Go home, Tannen. I mean it. Take the whole day."

I didn't go to Shawna's.

I went with Ellis, in his car, without either of us saying a word.

His apartment was on the fourteenth floor of an old brick building near the river.

It had bare walls and a lot of books, one lamp and a couch that looked like nobody had ever sat on it.

"I've lived here six years," he said, as he shut the door. "I keep meaning to buy a rug."

"It's nice."

"It's a lie. It's a storage unit with a view."

I laughed, and he smiled, and then neither of us was smiling.

I had worn the gray jacket that morning, because it was cold and because it was the only thing I owned that felt like armor.

I took it off and laid it over the arm of the couch.

"Lucy." He stood in the middle of the room with his hands at his sides. "You've had a day."

"I've had a week."

"You made a speech in front of two hundred people. You should sleep. I'll take the couch."

"Ellis."

"You said no one from his world, and I'm only a day out of it."

"You quit his world."

I crossed the floor.

"He told me I'd broken my rule, and I told him I'd broken it for a better man."

I looked up at him.

"Now I'd like to find out if I was right."

He closed his eyes.

"I'm trying to do this properly."

"I know." I took his hand and put it over my heart. "Do it properly later."

He opened his eyes.

Then he kissed me, hard and slow, with his hand spread over my ribs and his thumb under my breast.

Every thought I had went out of my head.

He walked me backward into the bedroom without breaking the kiss.

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