“Can I call you back later, Ma?” I said.

“Sure. I’m glad to catch up with you. I’ll talk to you later, baby,” she said.

“Bye,” I said, though I was distracted.

I hung up the phone, made sure it was locked and the screen darkened, then slipped my feet into my cheetah print fuzzy slippers on the floor.

All the while trying to ignore him, though I knew such a thing was impossible.

I couldn’t.

Had only heard him, hadn’t even looked at him, but I still felt the charge, a connection.

Desire that both shamed me and took my breath away.

I hated that feeling.

I loved that feeling.

Everything else was more intense, more alive—more dangerous, all because he had entered the room.

And maybe that was the problem.

Not Todd, not his father, maybe not even him.

The problem was me, and the way I wanted Elias.

If I had any hopes of getting out of this, I would have to learn to fix that, or figure out how to ignore it.

That wouldn’t happen now, but maybe someday.

Until then…

I took a deep breath, stood, and then finally faced him.

“What do you want, Elias?”

Six

SIX

Elias

“I’m not in the habit of repeating myself,” I said to Kayla as I entered.

The air had a faint scent of cleaner, and her floors were shiny.

She’d been stress cleaning again. Understandable, I supposed.

She glared at me, and it took everything inside me not to kiss her breathless. I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t end up doing just that.

“I’m not going to comment on the fact that you came in without my permission,” Kayla said.

“Good. Why waste the breath?” I said as I walked deeper inside the tiny apartment.

How had I missed how small it was, how she deserved so much more?

I supposed I hadn’t, not really, but had probably told myself it was better she was here than thinking she could live somewhere I didn’t control.

As if there were such a thing.

“You haven’t answered my question. What do you want?” she said after a moment, clearly doing her best not to look into my eyes.

“I told you I wasn’t in the habit of repeating myself, but it seems you’ve forgotten what I said when you asked me that question before,” I said.

Kayla scoffed, but she didn’t have any comebacks.

Because she knew exactly what I was talking about.

She had asked me that question before, and my answer then was the same one I would give her now.

Everything.

That was what I wanted from her.

Was what I suspected I would never have.

But she was stuck with me now.

I looked around her place, deciding to give her some reprieve.

“Is it always this clean?” I asked, pretending I didn’t know the answer already.