Elly in Love (The Elly Series) (42 page)

He knelt beside her and gently reached out, tucking a curl behind her ear. “You are so stunning in this light.”

Elly raised her eyebrows cynically.

“Ah, yes. I’ll get to it. Well, this won’t be fun.” Keith settled across from her. The wind tossed the now pale-blue grass around her feet as she stared at him, waiting. “I want you to know, first, that I never lied to you. Not once. I would never, ever lie to you. But I’ve come to realize that by not sharing certain things about my life with you, I’m just as guilty as if I was lying. I have hidden a large part of my life from you, because I was so terrified of … these ridiculous fears that I’ve carried with me for years. And I can’t believe that I let them take me here, to the point where I’ve almost lost you forever.” He took a deep breath. “You don’t know this, but three years ago, just before you arrived here, I was engaged.”

Elly’s heart pounded in her chest. “Oh God, was her name Lucia?”

Keith chuckled lightly. “No, thankfully. But she was cut from the same cloth. Her name was Paige.” Elly hated her immediately. “I met Paige about seven years out of college. I was at a social function with my father, and she approached me. I was smitten immediately. She was beautiful and even more than that, she was exactly everything my family wanted me to marry: Italian. Tall. The daughter of someone important back in the old country. She was Catholic. I let myself fall madly in love with her, and at her insistence, we proceeded with our quick engagement. Our families were thrilled, especially hers.” He shook his head. “I should have seen the warning signs. I was so deeply stupid, so deeply infatuated with her that I ignored every obvious clue to what was going on.”

Elly was intrigued, but she also ached for the pain in Keith’s eyes as he recounted his story. “Once we were engaged, I let her have access to my life in every way. She was always borrowing money from me and then never giving it back, but I thought that was a part of being engaged, being married. I mean, we were about to become one, right? She always had a valid excuse, and I never even thought twice about it. She was going to be my wife, so did it even matter? She quit her job—she worked in a small boutique shop—and stayed home all day, doing God knows what while I was at work. It sounds terrible now when I say it, but I was on cloud nine—I didn’t even notice. I loved the idea of taking care of my fiancée, my wife, and I never questioned her intentions. I never suspected a thing until collectors began calling my work. I was baffled—I didn’t even have credit cards. You know I’m a cash-only man.” He was. It was mildly annoying. “Paige had taken out dozens of credit cards in my name, and racked up about two hundred thousand dollars in debt. She had taken vacations with her friends that I assumed she paid for, she had bought herself two cars, tons of jewelry, and ten-thousand-dollar dresses, and ugh, I couldn’t even understand how a person could spend that much money in six months.” He rubbed his face, obviously disturbed to recount the story. “Like an idiot, I forgave her. She cried and threw herself on my mercy and confessed that she had a shopping problem and would seek counseling immediately. She blamed it on her childhood. I wanted to believe her because I loved her. I wanted to be married to her so desperately. Now I realize that I loved the idea of marriage more than I loved her
.”

Elly knew exactly what that looked like
. Without thinking, she pressed her hand up against Keith’s cheek and he closed his eyes at her touch, his story continuing. “So I took Paige back, and I never told my family about the credit cards. I paid off her debt quietly and for about six months, it was wonderful again, like it never happened. We swept it under the rug together.” Keith rubbed his hands together nervously. “One night, I heard Paige whispering on the phone to someone. She kept saying, ‘He can’t know. He can’t know. Wait until next month.’ I stood outside the door, and when she hung up the phone, I was sure of two things: that she was cheating on me and that she was hiding things from me again. I immediately went to her purse and found a new credit card opened in my name. In the morning, I called the card for a record of transaction and had them fax it to me at the deli.” He took a deep breath. “I thought nothing could be worse than more cars, jewelry, and spa weekends, but I was wrong. She had been paying
rent
. For a loft downtown. I was in a rage. I drove to the apartment, and surprise, her car was there! I knocked on the door and a young man opened it. I prayed that it was her brother, but of course, it wasn’t. Paige broke down and confessed everything, and it was so much worse than I imagined. Her family had seen my picture in the paper. They had researched my family. She had purposefully struck up a friendship with my mother at the spa she frequents. She had targeted me for my money while still living with the man she really loved, who was a student. I asked her if she ever truly loved me, and she kept saying that she ‘had tried very, very hard.’ I walked out of her apartment that day, and I have never seen or talked to her again. That was also when I stopped talking to my parents. And in that year when I wasn’t speaking to them, my father died of a heart attack.”

Elly wasn’t sure how long her mouth had been hanging open.

“I never got to tell him goodbye. Or that I loved him. Or was proud of him. All because of Paige and my own anger.”

Elly’s heart broke for him. “Oh Keith, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

Keith used her hand, still lingering on his cheek, to wipe a single tear away from his eye. “Well, go ahead. Ask the question you’re dying to ask. The one part of this equation that doesn’t make sense.”

Elly frowned. “Well, why would she use you for your money? There must have been better people out there like, I don’t know, a banker?”

He reached out and touched her hair lightly. “Elly, did you know that my last name isn’t really Carcelo? I mean, it is, it’s our family name from the old country. When my parents came over here from Italy, they wanted a name that sounded more American. So they changed Carcelo to Cary.”

Elly squinted. “Cary, as in … Cary’s Meats?”

Keith nodded. “Yes, as in Cary’s Meats.”

Elly still didn’t really understand. She couldn’t think when he was so close to her, the smell of his warm skin drifting her direction as the sun set just for them. She had to stay focused. “Keith, I’m glad to know this about you, but I’m still not entirely sure what this has to do with us.”

Keith slowly trailed his fingers up and down her fingertips. “I know, I’m getting there.” He took a deep breath. “Elly, the secret that I’ve kept from you, which grew into an obsession with keeping you from leaving me was that … I’m sort of, uh, well-off.”

“What?”

“I’m rich, Elly. I’m very, very wealthy.”

She almost burst out laughing. “Keith, you drive a Subaru.”

“That’s because I don’t want to park my Mercedes downtown.”

Her smile faded. “What?”

“Elly, my family has a legacy. I’m one of four heirs to Cary’s Meats. It’s worth about forty million dollars.”

Elly sat back, her brain whirling. “But … you drive a Subaru.”

Keith busted out laughing. “This is why I can’t live without you. Because I want my life to be real, to matter. You should see my cousins, and my sister for that matter. They lead ridiculous lives in these huge, terrible houses. They don’t talk to their spouses. Two of them have never even worked in a deli. Or really worked, period. They know how to write checks, how to hire ad agencies, how to puff up the stock prices. And that’s fine; we need them to do those things. But I didn’t want that life. I saw what it did to my father. I saw what getting into that life meant for me, with Paige. So I left New York and moved here. I wanted to run a deli. My grandfather’s blood runs in these veins. I love running the deli, making sandwiches, creating flavors.
Elly
,
I want to carve.
I’m not a businessman, and I don’t have any desire to be. I have broken away from my family, with the exception of my sister. I still hold my share in the company, and my bank account seems to always be growing, but all I ever wanted was just to make my own way in the world. I don’t want to lean on my family’s good fortune. I want it to be preserved and taken care of; I will not be the man who drains it. I have seen what money does to people. What it did to Paige. And what she did to me.”

Elly frowned. “But I’m not Paige. Also, I’m pretty sure that ‘I’m too rich’ isn’t a turn-off for most women. I would probably be the first woman in history who dumped a man for being too wealthy. And I wouldn’t have! Not because of your money, but because I like being with you. It was unfair of you to assume anything other than that.”

“I know. I just wanted to give us some time. Time to get to know each other without this money hanging over our head. It changes the way people treat you, you’ll see. I didn’t want anything to stand in the way of our relationship, and I thought that knowing about the Cary fortune might be a distraction.”

Elly shook her head, a curl brushing her chin, her blue eyes filling with tears. “Do you really think so little of me? That I would ever use you for your money?” She was angry now. “You see me working every single day to make Posies a success. You know I didn’t grow up in a house with very much money, how could you think that I was anything like Paige?”

Keith rubbed his head. “I didn’t. I don’t. At first, I just didn’t tell you because I wanted to let things play out naturally. But then it was one month … two months … and then it was too long. It became something I was keeping from you, and we were so far into things together that I didn’t know how to tell you that I’d been keeping this part of my life a complete secret. I became paralyzed with fear that you would leave me once you knew. It was stupid, I know that now.”

She frowned. “It’s not the secret I thought you were keeping.”

“I know. I should have put that together that you would leap straight to cheating, because that’s what you know. We both have our scars, Elly. Your husband cheated on you and my fiancée used me for my money. And cheated on me. Sort of. She was married to the man she lived with. Which I guess makes me, what, the mistress?
Ugh
.” He buried his head in his hands. “I’ve made such a mess of everything. We were going along so perfectly, and then I just kept digging myself deeper and deeper by hiding things.”

“And this was why you never let me visit your house?”

Keith crawled behind her. Elly leaned against him, so easily, like falling into a warm bed. He traced his fingers down her sleeve. “Do you remember the first time I took you here? To this garden?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember that we went through a yard? We entered a side gate beside a house, on a brick pathway?”

Elly did remember. She had felt uncomfortable about being in a stranger’s yard. Her eyes followed his hand past the cherub to the other side of the garden, where a giant brown whimsical house with a red door and teak gables rested just beyond some small pine trees.

“That’s my house. I want to live a simpler life than the other heirs, but I have always had a certain weakness for beautiful things. Like that house.” His lips brushed her ear. “I live alone there. There has never been anyone but you, not since Paige, and I hope never again. You are everything I’ve ever wanted. I’ve kept secrets from you, and I don’t know that I deserve your forgiveness. But if you could just, maybe let me try to make it up to you—I’m willing to sacrifice everything that I am for who you are. Even if you do just want to use me for my money, I would take it, just so that I don’t have to be away from you for another day. Elly, you are the one….”

Elly spun around, wrapping her arms around his neck. The garden and everything around them faded into a blurry, watercolored background. There was only Keith, his eyes apologetic and honest, and Elly, her lips inches from him. “Keith….” She leaned her forehead against his, trying very hard to keep her breathing steady. She raised her eyes to meet his. “You can’t hide anything from me. Not ever again.”

Keith’s eyes met hers, wide and unflinching, and Elly knew in that moment that she would never have to worry about him again. “I won’t. I swear.”

Elly leaned forward. “Then hear me out: I want you. I want to be with you, more than I’ve ever wanted anything. I know that if I just gave myself over to you, everything would be perfect, but….”

“What? What is it?” Keith’s eyes were alarmed.

Elly felt his breath on her face. Keith, the thing she desired above all others. “I need you to know that I will never get a DNA test for Dennis. Never. And if that’s something that you can’t live with, then …,” a look of fierce determination came over her face, “then I can’t be with you, even if it would break my heart every day. Dennis is an essential part of my life now. He comes with the package. All of him.”

Keith Carcelo leaned forward and pulled Elly’s face against his. “I don’t care if Dennis is a Russian assassin. He is part of your family, and I can’t even breathe without you. I swear that I will never ask, or care, again.”

Elly felt relief sweep through her, a relief that burned like a forest out of control, lighting up every part of her. She opened her mouth to speak, to tell him how it felt to be his, but Keith beat her to the punch. They almost said it at the same time: “I love you.”

Then there was just kissing, and Keith, and Keith, and Keith. They fell solidly into each other, awash in new love in front of the house that Keith owned, as Cadbury barked his approval joyfully to the stars.

Six Months Later

“I need you to come. Now. The cooler is broken and everything is horrible.”

“What do you mean, the cooler is broken and everything is horrible? What is everything?”

“
I don’t know, just come right now!”
Snarky Teenager hung up the phone.

Elly groaned and crawled off the couch. It had been a long day, with a late-autumn wedding at the Coronado Ballroom, and her arms were achy and sore. Cadbury gave a groan. She slipped on her flip-flops and pulled her hair—getting so long!—into a loose bun on the top of her head. PJs were okay, right? They would have to be. It was after hours. Store B would be closed, so it’s not like she would have to see anyone. She shuffled over to the kitchen table, trying to find her keys in the dim light. Her purse knocked over a stack of Dennis’s community college brochures onto the floor and Elly decided she’d pick them up later. She grabbed her keys and wandered down the hall to knock on Dennis’s door.