Billionaire Romance Boxed Set (9 Book Bundle) (46 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“Thought is only a flash
between two long nights, but this flash is everything.” - Poincare

I had gone back to visit my
mother every weekend with the small amount of free time I had. I talked with
her, told her about the work I was doing. Inevitably I would tell her about
Eliot. If he had come to lecture, I would tell her about what he had said, how
he had looked at me. If not, I told her about how much I missed him. In this
new country, I did not want to find my heart stolen away, but my attraction to
Eliot was harmless. He would never love me, so he was safe to love. I told my
mother that I would find romance when I returned home in a few weeks.

The sunny morning I visited her,
I again left half of my bouquet at Clare’s grave, as I had each week, replacing
the wilted flowers from the time before. Here I simply left the bouquet—I
had nothing to say to Eliot’s dead wife. When I returned from visiting with my
mother, however, I saw someone kneeling inside of the Herceg family plot. I
stepped forward, curious despite myself, and Eliot turned to see me standing
there. His eyes were red with tears, but his face looked somehow happier, less
anguished. He looked like he was glad to see me.

“Hello, Eliot,” I said.

He smiled and stepped forward. I
inhaled as he bent to kiss me warmly on the cheek. His chin, unshaven,
scratched my cheek slightly, and when his hot lips pressed against my cheek I
wanted to throw my arms around him. I thought that I was safe, but his touch
set my body aflame in just seconds. He kissed me again on the other cheek, and
then pulled back.

“Will you let me buy you a
coffee?” Eliot said. “I believe I owe you one.”

He owed me nothing, but I said
yes and walked with him to the cafe a few blocks away. We ordered our coffees
and took them down to the river to sit on a bench beside the Danube. The ice
had cracked apart, and only small chunks of frost still clung to the
riverbanks. All the rest had been swept out to sea by the currents of the
river.

“How have you been, Brynn?”
Eliot spoke kindly, and I felt myself drawn close to his kindness.

“Fine,” I said, meaning a
hundred other things. “We figured out another piece of the algorithm yesterday.
You told us to try and simplify the projective matrix, but I think that it’s
easier to simplify the result after it’s been applied—”

“I didn’t mean the work,” Eliot
said. Unspoken words hung in the air between us. My heart wrenched as I watched
his eyes track the eddies in the river, and I felt a mixture of anger and
longing race through my body.

“Are you and that boy…”

“No.” I spoke too quickly, and
Eliot turned toward me with the question still lingering in his eyes. “There’s
nothing between us.”

Eliot put his hand on mine. I
wanted to cry out with joy, but I also wanted to tear my hand away.
Do you
know what you’re doing to me?
I screamed inside.
Don’t make me love you
again.
My mind raced ahead with images of Eliot kissing me, embracing me,
peeling off my clothes slowly.

“Brynn. I would not stand
between you and happiness.” His fingers curled over mine, and I choked on my
words.

“It wouldn’t be happiness. I
don’t want that with him. I want…”

Eliot paused, waiting. I
couldn’t say it. I couldn’t. I never wanted anything. Or, at least, I never
admitted to wanting anything. That was just how I grew up. If I didn’t want
anything, I couldn’t be poor. This was the first time in a long time that my
desires had become so apparent.

“What is it, Brynn?”

“You.” My voice was barely
a whisper. “I want you.”

Eliot withdrew his hand, and I
immediately knew that I had made an error. My eyes blurred with tears and I
bent my head down, staring at my hands. Pretending that I hadn’t said anything,
and willing back the urge to sob.

“I’m going to go back to
America, Brynn.”

My head snapped up.

“You can’t! What about the
internship?” The problem. We couldn’t solve the problem if Eliot left. And I
couldn’t stand to live here with just Mark and the other interns. I didn’t want
to be here without Eliot.

“I supervised it remotely
before.” Eliot’s voice was calm, too calm. I felt the tension hiding underneath
the stillness of his surface. “I can do it again.”

“But we’re so close to the end.”

“There are still a few weeks
left.” Eliot’s words were patient, but I could not be consoled.

“I mean the problem. We’re so
close, and you’re leaving?”

“I appreciate your optimism,
Brynn, but even with the work you’ve accomplished, we’re not close to a general
solution.”

“How can we get it if you
leave?” I turned squarely to him and took his hands in mine, squeezing tightly.
The only person I cared for, and he was leaving me. Suddenly I found a newfound
determination. I couldn’t lose him. “Don’t.”

“Brynn…”

“Don’t. Don’t leave. Eliot.” He
rose from the bench and I rose with him, still grasping his hand. I couldn’t
let him fall away from me so easily.

“Brynn, I can’t—”

“You can’t leave. Please.” I
tilted my head up to look him straight in the eyes, and something in his
expression softened. “Please?”

I could not have guessed what he
would do next. Standing there on the bank of the Danube, he pulled me to his
chest and bent his head down. His lips were hot on mine, and I could feel
dampness on his cheeks. A flash of heat struck through my nerves, and I
clutched at his arms, pushing back into his kiss with a wild insistence. Eliot
met my passion with his own, pressing kiss after kiss onto my lips until I was
breathless with want.

The first time Eliot kissed me
he felt soft, gentle. Not now. Now he pressed his lips hard against mine, his
arms crushing me into his chest. It was as though his body echoed my
frustrations, my desires, my needs. Eyes closed, I saw nothing but flashes of
white light, like snowflakes dancing on the lids of my eyes in the darkness.
When he pulled away he cradled my face in his hands, his long fingers pressed
to my skin and his eyes searched mine, for what I did not know.

“Brynn. Believe me, I would not
leave if I didn’t have to. But I can’t stay here.”

My heart broke then, simply
broke. I felt the crack go through the center and split me in two. The pure
happiness that I had felt abandoned me as quickly as it had come.

“Is it because of her?”

Eliot’s dark eyelashes
fluttered, downcast.

“It’s too hard to explain,
Brynn.”

Too hard to explain?
For hours on end Eliot would shove equations and algorithms into my brain, but
one step into emotional territory and he fled, abandoning ship.
Too hard to
explain?
I did not know how to respond. My mouth was dry.

“What about Lucky?” I thought
about the kitten still at Eliot’s house. Already my desires were hidden from
me. I would shut them up, lock them away, keep them secret and hidden until I
forgot about them. Still I cared about the orphan kitten—if not me, then
who else? If I could not achieve happiness for myself, I could at least protect
the one helpless animal that had come to depend on me. “What will happen to
him?”

“Marta has found a good place
for him. With some friends in another city. They’re coming by in a few days.
I’ll take care of him until then, and after that I’ll be leaving.”

“Can I say goodbye?” I looked up
at Eliot, a deeper meaning in my words. He averted his eyes.

“Of course,” he said, having the
decency to flush red at his collar. “Of course you can say goodbye.”

Eliot
paced in the entryway of his house, waiting for Brynn. Foolishly, he had agreed
to let her come to see the cat one last time before Marta
’s
friends took it away. He could not but think that he should be gone from the
house to avoid any mishaps, but of course Brynn wasn’t just coming to see
Lucky.

The knock echoed through the
emptiness of the house. Eliot set his mouth into a thin smile and opened the
door.

Brynn stood outside in a red
wool coat, her hands clasped in front of her in gloves, her hair tied up neatly
in a bun. The cab pulled off down the driveway, and Eliot watched as the tires
made fresh dark tracks in the morning snowfall. Although technically it had
been spring for weeks already, Nature had other ideas in mind for that day. A
cold front had plummeted the temperatures in Budapest close to freezing, and
the clouds which would normally have rained spring showers had instead turned
the ground white with a fresh blanket of snow. Brynn wiped the slush off of her
boots before stepping in carefully. Her expression was wary as he leaned
forward and kissed her on one cheek in greeting, then the other. Her lips did
not so much as brush his skin, and he felt her harden under his touch.

He took her coat from her to
hang up, and could not help but stare at what she was wearing
underneath—a bright red dress with cap sleeves, low-cut. She looked
gorgeous, and immediately he was ashamed of his own state of dress—he was
barefoot, in a stained shirt and the wrinkled dress pants he had worn the night
before. He looked a mess.

“The girls are going out dancing
tonight,” Brynn said, in response to his glance. “I thought I’d get dressed
before coming over.”

“Is that one of the dresses
Marta picked for you?”

Brynn nodded.

“It suits you well,” Eliot said.
Well
was an understatement. The dress was stunning, a perfect fit to
show off Brynn’s curves. The bright red color contrasted with her alabaster
skin and her reddened cheeks, made bright by the cold outside, only added to
the effect. He yanked his gaze away from her figure.

“It’s cold out here,” she said.
“Even colder than in the city.”

“We’re up higher in the
mountains,” Eliot said. “The snow is actually staying on the ground.”

“I wish it wouldn’t melt down
where we are,” Brynn said. “I’d like to have one walk through the garden
again.” Her words stopped abruptly, as though she had just reminded herself of
the memory with her and Eliot.

“Marta will be coming by later,”
Eliot said, and the topic was mercifully changed back to Lucky’s fate in the
hand of Marta’s friends.

They walked back into the
kitchen, where Lucky sat contentedly on the counter top. Eliot had given up
trying to keep the damn thing off of the tables, but it was beyond him to admit
that he enjoyed sharing the last of his milk with the small kitten.

“He’s grown bigger,” Brynn said
with a touch of pride, as she petted the kitten’s newly silken coat. “Thanks
for taking care of him.”

“He’ll be happy at his new
home, I’m sure,” Eliot said.

“I’m sure he will,” Brynn said,
her eyes sorrowful. She turned back to Eliot. “And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Will you be happy back in
America?”

Eliot stared at Brynn. She had
struck to the heart of the matter. Eliot didn’t know if he could be happy
anywhere. The few glimpses of happiness he had seen in the last few years had
been with Brynn.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “I’ll
have my work.”

“Your work is here with your
students,” Brynn said, slightly admonishing.

“Of course,” he said, moving
over to the kitten to stroke its head. Lucky purred. “But there is something to
be said for solitude in making progress on these things.”

“Really?”

Eliot did not know what to say.
She was right, of course. The best part of his work had been done here.

“I can’t stay, Brynn.”

To his surprise, she began to
cry. He put his hands on her arms, trying to comfort her.

“I only wanted to come here to
see my mother,” Brynn said. “I didn’t care about the prize, I didn’t care about
this stupid problem. I didn’t care about you!” She stared up into his face, her
eyes flashing darkly in anger.

“Brynn, I’m so sorry,” Eliot
said. “But you’ve made so much progress on this problem.”

“I didn’t want any of it,” Brynn
said, her words catching on her sobs. Eliot pulled her towards him and she
balled her fists against his chest.

“I’m so proud of you. You’ve
done so much—”

“It’s not enough!” Brynn’s head
tilted back, her eyes wet with tears. “Why did you kiss me?”

Eliot’s heart sank. He couldn’t
explain what had drawn him toward her the last time they had met. Pure desire
and lack of willpower. Her beautiful face had turned up to his, just like it
was now. He felt himself falling back under her spell even now as they stood so
close to each other.

“It was a mistake,” he said
lamely.

“That’s what you said before!”
Brynn pulled away angrily. “That it was just a mistake!”

“I shouldn’t have—”

“Everything isn’t a mistake!”
She was furious, her brows slanted angrily above her stormy eyes, and he
thought she had never looked so beautiful. “Some things happen for a reason.”

“I was weak,” Eliot said.
“You’re a very lovely girl…”

“That’s it, then? You’re so weak
you have to run away from me, leave the country, leave everything here?”
Brynn’s voice filled with rage. “I can’t believe it.”

“You’re right,” Eliot said. “I
should never have come back.”

“No. You should have come back
years ago. You should never have left.” Brynn wiped her tears from her face,
crying through her words. “You’re not weak, you’re stupid.”

Eliot was speechless, and Brynn
continued to lash out, turning toward the window.

“Look at this. All of this. It’s
so beautiful. And you gave it up—why? So that you wouldn’t have to face
her death?”

“Brynn—”

“I waited for years to be able
to come here,” Brynn said. Her lip quivered as she looked out at the grounds of
the estate. The lawn was still covered in a frosting of snow. “I didn’t want
anything but to see my mom.”

“It wasn’t your fault—”

“It wasn’t your fault either,”
Brynn said. “Marta told me what happened.”

Eliot froze, stricken.

“She had no right to tell you.”

“You weren’t going to tell me,”
Brynn said, spinning around toward Eliot accusingly. “You didn’t even tell me
you had a wife!”

“She should not have told you.”
Eliot’s mind had gone blank, his thoughts spinning around in circles
incomprehensibly.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I couldn’t.”

“You didn’t care about me enough
to tell me the truth.”

“Brynn—” Eliot reached out
to touch her arm, but she pulled away, backing toward the kitchen door.

“You treat me like a child! Like
I don’t deserve to know anything!”

“That’s not true—”

“I can’t just stop caring about
you, Eliot!” Brynn’s voice trembled, and Eliot could see the streaks that the
tears had left on her cheeks, two damp tracks stained slightly with makeup.
“Not when you keep doing this. Not when you leave me and then chase me. Not
when you tell me you’re going back to America and then kiss me like you might
stay. Please…”

They stood apart from each
other. Eliot wanted with all his heart to go to her, to cross the space between
them and embrace her body with his. It wouldn’t be right, after all of his
efforts to keep her distant, and she deserved more than he could ever give. He
forced himself to stay put.

“I’ll call for a cab,” Eliot
said quietly. Brynn turned her face away from him and for a moment he thought
she might break down into tears again, but when she lifted her face it had
hardened into a neutral expression.

“I’ll wait outside,” she said.
“I’d like to walk through the snow here one more time. If that’s alright with
you.”

Eliot nodded. “Let me get you
your coat.”

He went to the entryway to get
Brynn’s wool overcoat, each step heavier than the last. Losing Brynn tore at
his heart, but he thought that it must be the right thing to do. She could
never be happy with such a man as Eliot, distracted and heartsick as he was.
His own happiness could not be further from his mind.

When he came back, her red coat
draped over his arm, he saw that she had already gone out back. His gaze swept
the immediate gardens, but he could not see her. Then he found her trail.
Brynn’s footsteps dotted the pathway out toward the forest, dark but already
filling back up with snowflakes.

“She must be mad,” Eliot
muttered under his breath. He threw the coat down onto the chair and stared out
of the window. He might have run after her immediately but for the fact that he
was barefoot. He turned to go find his shoes, but then paused.

No. I shouldn’t run after
her.

He stood there in indecision.
The woods were filled with poachers at this time of the year, and he knew it
was dangerous. Still, if she stayed on the trails clearly, her dress should be
enough for her to be seen even far off. But it was so cold out there, and she
had no coat…

“Enough, Eliot,” he said to
himself firmly. She would be fine, and the cab would be only a few minutes
anyway. He had made up his mind not to worry, when from the woods and over the
frosted lawn came a high-pitched cry.