Chapter 33

“Aurora!”

The sound of soles slapping against pavement dogged after me as I retraced the steps I’d taken to get to the diner, frayed in every single aspect of the word and aware, for the first time since I’d left my apartment that afternoon, of the funny looks I was getting from New Yorkers going about their businesses.

Shoulder’s hunched over as I continued determinedly forward; I ignored Elijah’s call, knowing that in the end whether or not I heeded him would hardly mattered as he was bound to catch up anyway, and just as soon as I finished the thought a strong, familiar hand wrapped around my arm, stilling me in my tracks, though the momentum remained.

I didn’t hesitate, whirling around and letting my palm fly, so the slap which followed rang sharp and clear over the noise of engines igniting and trudging feet.

For a moment, it felt like we were the only ones in the world who existed, and I watched, the star of our very own silent movie, as Elijah’s eyes widened in stark shock. An outline of my palm bloomed in stark relief over his cheek on otherwise unblemished skin, and my mouth fell slightly open, thoroughly shocked by how quickly I’d given into the violent impulse.

His Adam’s apple bobbed and a charge I recognized all too well crept between the both of us as his stupor wore off, gaze suddenly turning heavy with meaning all while I watched.

“Were you telling the truth?”

It took several seconds before I realized what it was he was talking about, and as soon as it registered I pulled away from him—hurt, though I knew better than to be. This was a man who, after all, had sat by watching his fiancée sic the media on me without moving to lift a finger.

I should’ve known.

“It’s none of your business,” I intoned flatly, meeting his eyes even as it broke my heart to do so.

Elijah’s nostrils flared, and he took a few steps away from me, pausing to run a hand through his thick mane of hair.

“Goddammit,” he cursed quietly under his breath, then louder. “Goddammit Aurora! You know it’s every bit my business as it is yours if that child you carry belongs to me.”

When his words failed to elicit a reply from me, Elijah’s eyes flashed.

“Well?” he snapped in a voice I had never heard him use on anyone. “I know we didn’t use a condom once. Is it mine?”

I remained stubbornly mute, clear-eyed, and feeling as brittle as glass even as my heart broke to pieces inside me and those pieces broke into a million more when it dawned on me, with stark clarity, how much I loved the man in front of me.

It shouldn’t have felt like a revelation, but it did, and as soon as I acknowledged it this other things filtered through—how whether I admitted it or not, I’d spent the past month waiting in silent torture to hear from him as a small part of me had harbored the childish hope that he would come and hold my hand right before it all went dark, and I would be okay.

I loved Elijah with a depth that bordered on the immeasurable, I realized, felt for him in a way that’d turned a careless mistake into several deliberate ones, where usually I moved with utmost caution.

The tall, dark stranger that stories warned about had come into my life and swept me off my feet.

But this wasn’t a fairytale, and I wasn’t some stunningly gorgeous damsel in distress constantly in need of saving, so when he swept me off my feet, Elijah spun me round and round then discarded me when he finally got tired. Now I lay sprawled on the ground, head spinning as I tried to make sense of the wreckage that was a life I no longer recognized as my own.

He’d devastated me.

I may have walked into this with eyes wide open, but the unfairness of it all still managed to steal my breath away, because now I was left with nothing. I’d stacked my bets on this one play and lost, choosing what side of the con I wanted to be in on even knowing that he was to be married to another woman.

In retrospect, I’d been the author of my own demise, and a sudden burst of laughter escaped me that I didn’t even try to stifle. Elijah frowned.

“Do you even love me?” I blurted out when the laughter subsided, and a perplexed look settled over his face at the sudden change in topic.

Several moments passed in which he said nothing, then: “I don’t understand the question.”

I giggled—a reaction completely at odds with the maelstrom of violent emotions that coursed through me as he confirmed my suspicions.

That he had never really loved me. That I’d been a pastime he enjoyed enough to spend an obscene amount of money on, but that was all.

It hurt, but the confirmation came as a weight I hadn’t known existed slid off my shoulders in slow increments until I felt lighter than I could remember feeling recently. Now I could let him go and continue on with my life.

I’d head back home, crawl on my knees and beg if I had to for my old job back—get back with David, or better yet: Put aside some time for myself and figure out what steps I wanted to take next.

I wanted nothing to tie me to Elijah anymore, not even the child that bound us inexplicably together, because as he’d made clear several times he owed me nothing, and I was done expecting even the bare minimum from him.

“Okay,” I said in reply to his confession, letting out a shaky sigh and a slight crease appeared on the skin of his forehead as Elijah’s eyes narrowed.

“I don’t see how it relates to the matter at hand,” he admitted when it became clear that I’d said all I wanted to and would not speak until he prompted me.

“I-I wish I could—I just—I don’t know…” I let my words trail off hopelessly. “Forget it. This is stupid.”

He opened his mouth to say something, before giving a slight shake of his head as his mouth took on a determined set.

“Are you pregnant with—?”

“No,” I cut him off, and when Elijah blinked in stunned disbelief I repeated: “No, it’s David’s. I’m pregnant with David’s child.”

He grimaced, and I recalled once that I’d let slip a few less than stellar details of my time with David during one of our many pillow talk sessions in Paris. Elijah knew enough to paint a picture of how things between us had ended.

“Does he know?” he asked, and I gave him a sharp nod.

“Yes,” I said. “And he’s over the moon about it too.”

An expression like he had swallowed something bitter settled on his face, and before he could recover, I made a show of taking a glance down my wrist to look at the time and startled when I saw the time. I’d spent too much time with him—much more than I’d bargained for.

I glanced up to find Elijah’s eyes boring into me, suddenly calculative, and cleared my throat.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a dinner to get to,” I said, and when he made no move to stop me I took a step back, then another.

Not even a muscle twitched, and I saw this as permission to be on my way and didn’t hesitate to take it, but the further away from him I got, the more I feared that he’d accepted my hasty retreat for two reasons—that he hadn’t believed me, and worst of all: Elijah Wilder had an ace tucked up his sleeve.