Not in love

“I feel you. Used to get in the most vicious fights on the ice and go back to the rink the next day—then I hit thirty, and now my back hurts before I even get out of bed.”

Sommers’s laugh was genuine. Conor Harkness was smooth and powerful, cutthroat in a sophisticated way that was clearly meant to appeal to Sommers’s rich side. Eli, on the other hand, was a man’s man. An outwardly simple, nice guy who used power tools and rescued kittens from burning houses and knew statistics about the NFL draft. Appealing for a whole other set of reasons.

I suspected they’d been perfecting the routine for years. In fact, I was ready to bet my patent on it.

“This is going to hurt,” Harkness said, suddenly serious, “but Eli played for St. Cloud.”

“Huskies.” Sommers shook his head. “I’m a Fighting Hawk myself.”

Eli nodded thoughtfully. “Sir, I think this conversation is over.”

Sommers laughed again, delighted. “Tell you what, son, hockey sticks and golf clubs ain’t that different. How about this Sunday I teach you a few moves?”

Eli’s tongue roamed the inside of his cheek as he pretended to consider it. “Can’t be seen walkin’ away from a fight with a Hawk, can I?”

“Damn well you can’t.”

It was the kind of easy interaction that had me feeling superfluous and out of place, like I’d accidentally wandered into the men’s locker room. Same old boys’ club, now in Technicolor. Beside me, Florence was forgotten. I’d never even existed.

“Conor, I need to introduce you to my wife. I told you we stayed at your father’s resort when we went to Ireland, right? We had di

“Oh, if she had two di

It didn’t sound like a joke to me, but Sommers chortled. Florence emanated gory, murderous energy. “Florence, you haven’t met my better half, either, have you?”

“Not yet, no,” she said sweetly. Ready to snap.

“Come on, then, or I’ll be in the doghouse. I was just telling her about Kline the other day . . .”

They drifted away while Sommers rambled on, unaware of the strife in his unlikely trio, and after an everlasting, stretching moment, it was just the two of us.

Eli and me. Alone in a room full of people.

The charcoal three-piece suit fit him aggressively well, and not just because of the tailoring. There was something about the straight line of his nose, the curl in his hair, the slant of his brow, that matched and enhanced this kind of attire. Somehow, he was as comfortable in this environment as he’d been in my lab.

I simply did not understand this man.

He stepped closer, eyes looking right into mine. “Well,” he said, in his deep, calm voice, and I didn’t reply, because—what was there to say?

Well.

Did you go to college on an athletic scholarship?

I wish I’d never messaged you on that damn app.

Dressed this way, you look different. Less like my Eli, and more like the kind of person who—

My Eli. What the hell was I thinking?

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

He sighed. A waiter stopped to offer us glasses of . . . something. Eli took one, held it out to me, and then drank it in a single swig when I shook my head. “Same thing you and your boss are doing.”

Schmoozing a Kline board member. Fantastic. “Did you know we’d be here?”

His mouth twitched. “Despite your impression of me, I don’t know everything.” His eyes slid down my body, following the shimmery flares in the green fabric. They seemed to remember themselves halfway through, and abruptly skittered back to my face.

We couldn’t just stay here, in the middle of a crowded room. Staring in silence. “Are you really going to play golf with him?” I asked.

“Probably. Unless the Virgin Mary appears to Florence in a fever dream and orders her to turn over the documents we need.”

“I believe she’s an atheist.”

“Golf it is, then. Or do you want to talk her into it?”

“Me?”

“Why not, if Kline has nothing to hide?”

I snorted softly. “Why would I?”

“To spare me from the dumbest fucking sport in the universe?”

I smiled. Then my amusement darkened. “He’s disgusting.”

“Who?”

“Sommers.”

“Yeah. Most men who are his age and wield his power are.”

“Doesn’t give him a pass.”

“No,” Eli agreed, with the tone of a choir who wasn’t sure why they were being preached at. “Believe me, I want to see them crash and burn just as much as you do.”

“Sure you’re not one of them?”

Emotions passed on his face, all too fast to decipher. Then he started, unhurried: “My mother had a beautiful silver ring, one of those priceless heirloom pieces passed down for more generations than I could count. All the women in my family, that kind of stuff. When Mom died, I took the ring and set it aside, thinking I’d give it to my sister when she was old enough. But then, a little while later, she really, really wanted to go on a trip with her friends, and

I—I just didn’t have the money to send her, you know? So I told myself, easy fix. I’ll pawn the ring, and then repay the loan on time.” His smile was mournful. I didn’t need him to spell out the ending for me. “A few months later, she brought the ring up. Asked me if I knew where it was. And I pretended to have no idea what she was referring to.”

I looked at his open, unflinching eyes, and wished I could ask, How old were you? and How did your mother die? and Why do you keep doing this, baring the worst, most vulnerable and squishy parts of yourself to me? Instead, what I did was bare something of mine. Something dreadful. “When I was eleven, I stole thirty-four dollars and fifty cents from a drawer in my best friend’s house.” I forced myself to hold Eli’s gaze through the shame of it, just like he’d held mine. “They never locked anything when I was around, because they trusted me. They treated me as their own. And I stole from them.”

He nodded, and I nodded, a tacit agreement that we were both terrible people. Telling terrible stories. We’d let our masks slip enough times that they now lay shattered on the floor, but it was okay.

We were okay.

Then the band began playing, and the understanding between us snapped. Eli returned to his amiable default setting as the notes purred softly, shaped into something soothing and smooth that perfectly matched the blandness of the gathering. Several couples began swaying.

“We should dance,” Eli offered. There were no tells that he was joking.

“Should we? Why?”

He shrugged, and abruptly he seemed lost, as uneven as I always felt in his company. “Because I like your dress,” he said, non-sensically. It occurred to me, for the first time since our meeting three nights ago, that maybe he didn’t want this, either. Maybe he, too, was desperately fighting off this inexplicable attraction between us. Maybe his success was just as abysmal as mine. “Because I like you. As a person.” His eyes were teasing all of a sudden. Warm. “Even if you don’t like me.”

“You don’t know me,” I pointed out.

“No.” He offered his hand. I want to touch you, though, that outstretched arm seemed to say. When our fingers met, the electricity thrumming between us felt like free fall and relief.

“Okay, then.”

He didn’t plaster my body to his, and I was glad, not sure whether I’d have been able to take that much contact. My dress was long sleeved and high backed, offering few points of possible skin-on-skin contact. But his hand enfolded mine, and when his big palm ran down my spine, our breaths hitched at the same time.

“I can’t remember the last time I danced,” I murmured, mostly to myself. Not like this, for sure. It was barely related to the music, just an excuse for people to stand closer than appropriate.

“You don’t spend your Friday nights on di

“Do you?”

He tut-tutted. “You know where I spend my Friday nights, Rue.”

We fit well. Because of our heights, likely. I could smell the skin of his neck, clean and spice and something a little dark. “Do you really meet a different woman every Friday night?” It was an unexpectedly dismaying idea. What did I care if—

“Excuse me,” someone interrupted us, and we instantly took small steps back from each other, recovering the distance that had drifted closer. It was a middle-aged woman, pointing at the camera she was carrying. “May I take a picture of you two? It’s for Mr. Sommers’s retirement album.”

The idea of being in any part of Eric Sommers’s life repelled me on a visceral level. Eli, too, apparently. “You don’t want our picture,” he said amicably. “We both met Mr. Sommers ten minutes ago. It’d be a waste of space.”

“Oh.” The photographer frowned, then picked herself back up. “You’re just such a beautiful couple.” She left for more receptive pastures, and Eli gathered me close once again.

“She’s right,” he murmured softly.

“About what?”

“You do look beautiful.” He didn’t sound happy about it.

“It’s the dress. And the makeup.”

“No. It’s not.” His eyes lingered on me, then shifted away. I couldn’t bear the silence.

“Maybe we have displeased the jester god of hookups, and he won’t stop throwing us together until we sacrifice a quail at his altar.”

“I don’t think that’s what he wants from us,” Eli muttered under his breath. “And why is the jester god of hookups a dude?”

“I’m not sure, actually.”

We exchanged an amused look. A beat too long, and it was my turn to glance away and change the topic. “You’re trying to turn the board against Florence, then?”

“Nope.”

“You already admitted to that.”

When he shrugged, the ropes of his deltoids shifted under my fingers. Backache, my ass. “What do you think the purpose of a board is?”

I’d asked Nyota the very same question that very morning, and received an only mildly disdainful response. Or maybe Nyota just came across as nicer via email. “They oversee. Make strategic decisions.”

“You’ve been reading. Nice.”

“Quite patronizing of you.”

“No, I . . .” He gave me a surprised look. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t my intention. But I did have the impression that you don’t concern yourself with anything admin related.” I didn’t like how correctly he had me pegged. I was in the industry for the science, and the games of thrones were beyond my pay grade. “Regardless of what you think of Harkness,” he continued softly, palm flexing on my back, “there’s no denying that CEOs need accountability and oversight from people with relevant experience.”

“Kline is Florence’s company. She knows what’s best for it. People like Eric Sommers know nothing about science.”