She let go of his hand and ran her fingers through his hair. Fuck, he would miss this. He would miss her touch. He would miss all of her.
“I think we just need to cool it for a bit, until things settle down.” She kept her chin up but the trembling in her shoulders gave her away. “This is temporary.”
But temporary had never felt so miserable.
All that joy, all that happiness, all that possibility unwound into a heap on the floor of the bar at New York-New York. He’d always known Elle was his Everest. He’d always suspected he’d never have her the way he had hoped. But he’d been wrong about why. He wasn’t losing her—whether temporarily or permanently—because of his bad choices. Instead it was due to the choices of others. Choices he couldn’t control. He had no notion what was next for them, or how long this separation would last. Maybe a day, maybe a year.
But there was one choice he could control. He brushed the back of his fingers against her cheek and gazed into her hazel eyes. In them he saw everything he’d ever wanted. Love, peace, acceptance, understanding, and so much passion.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” he began. “I told you I’d always be honest with you. And I don’t want you to think that will stop even if we can’t be together right now.”
“I don’t want you to stop being honest with me. What is it? Tell me.”
He drew a breath and then said the easiest words in the world. “I’m madly in love with you.”
The smile that he’d seen earlier, when she’d been listening to Sophie, reappeared for a moment. “I’m so in love with you, too,” she said, her voice bare. “That’s why this is so hard. I hate cooling things off when it feels like they’re just starting.”
Elle rarely used the word hate. He didn’t want to end this night on that note. He wanted her to feel hope, even if they were heading their separate ways. He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her as close as could be in the corner booth. “They’re going to arrest him. This is going to end. I don’t want you to be scared. I told you I’d find whoever was doing it. So just know as you go to sleep tonight that even though I’m not the guy in blue knocking on a door and putting someone under arrest, that I will take care of you.” He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, and a sweet, sad sigh fluttered from her lips. “And your son.”
Her throat hitched on those last three words, and she met his gaze. Her eyes said everything—those were the words that mattered most. “Thank you,” she whispered.
There were a million more things he could say, and yet there was nothing more to talk about. He had to tell her good night. He ran his thumb over her bottom lip then pressed his mouth to hers. Brushing his lips over hers. Tasting her. Savoring everything about the way they came together.
Wanting to linger tonight in their last kiss.
And he did, for a too-brief moment.
Until it ended, and he walked her to the lobby, hailed a cab, and sent her home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Michael eyed his brother and in a nanosecond guessed what Colin had been up to. “You look like you just booked a room for a quick lay.”
“Whoa.” Colin held up his hands.
“Am I right or am I right?” Michael asked as he knocked back a beer at the blackjack table. Ryan had taken off with his bride-to-be, Shannon had hopped on the back of Brent’s bike and headed home with her husband, and the detective had gone off to do whatever detectives did. Solve cases, hopefully. Arrest bad guys. Deal with the shit on the streets.
“You’re wrong. Wish you were right,” Colin said. Michael’s youngest brother—wait, make that second-to-youngest-brother—settled in next to him for another round of cards as the clock ticked closer to midnight.
“What’s the story?”
Colin sighed. “It’s a long one.”
“Looks like you got all night, buddy,” Michael said, then pushed some chips into the center of the green felt. “Hit me,” he said to the dealer, who doled out another card.
“There was a girl. There was a guy. There was some trouble,” Colin said, summing it up.
Michael raised his beer and quirked up his lips. “Tell me about it.”
“What about you?”
He waved a hand dismissively. “You know me,” he said, keeping it vague because his romantic life was…well, it was just fine and fantastic, except for that little problem of Annalise.
“You’re still hung up on her, aren’t you?”
Michael scoffed, dismissing the idea that he was mooning over a girl. “Who?”
Colin cracked up and pointed at him. “That’s a good one. That’s the best. How long did you practice to make that ‘who’ sound convincing?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Michael said as the dealer laid down an eight of hearts. His hand busted. The house scooped up all the chips.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. You should just look her up. Find her.”
“Yeah? That’s your advice? This from the guy who’s having his own woman trouble?”
Colin nodded vigorously. “You’ll always wonder ‘what if.’ Better to try than to keep asking. Better to find your what-if woman than to wonder if she’s asking the same questions.”
It must be obvious she’d been on his mind, even though he hadn’t seen her in years. Not since he’d bumped into her at the airport in France, and they’d had an hour together on a layover. He didn’t think he’d hear from her again, and then she’d reached out to him last week.
He pushed her out of his mind as his brother-in-law’s friend Mindy walked toward them—he’d invited the cute blonde to join him for cards. He wanted to talk to her about something he’d heard the other day when he’d visited his dad’s old friends. Something about trouble at his dad’s company from way back when, and some details he recalled his father sharing with him at the time. He wanted to see if it added up to anything. Plus, he liked spending time with Mindy. She was a straight shooter, and he liked that in a woman. Liked the way she looked, too, in that little skirt she wore. She waved when she spotted him, and he tipped his chin and patted the stool next to him.
“What about you? How are we going to get you out of the girl trouble you’re in?” he asked his brother before Mindy arrived.
Colin sighed heavily. “That is the million-dollar question, and I don’t know that I have the answer. About the only one who might is John Winston.”
Then Mindy joined them, giving him a quick hug, and doing the same for Colin. Time to set thoughts of other women aside.
* * *
When Colin woke up at dawn, the sun streaming through the open window in his house, he didn’t embark on his usual Saturday morning routine. The mountains called to him, but he ignored them. The lake wanted his company, but it would survive without him today. No gym, no workout, and no quiet contemplation.
There was one thing he had to do, so he lobbed a call to his youngest sibling and suggested a road trip.
Marcus was game. “I’ll be ready in twenty minutes.”
Colin suspected this was why Marcus had wanted to get to know his siblings. Not necessarily for a trip like this, but to be invited. To be included.
Two hours and one hundred miles later, they were drinking Slushees and arguing over whether rock music was better than hip-hop. Marcus kept trying to take control of the radio, tuning in to stations Colin didn’t want to listen to. Colin gave Marcus a hard time because that was in the how-to-be-a-brother handbook, and the hazing made the kid laugh.
At the next gas station, they added Doritos to the haul. Colin ripped open the bag. “I think this might make my system go into shock. It’s the first true junk food I’ve had in ages.”
Marcus scoffed. “Dude. You drink soda all the time. Your body’s not a temple twenty-four-seven.”
“Touché. I just can’t give up the hard stuff, I guess. Me and Diet Coke—we’re like this,” he said, twisting his index and middle finger together. “Diet Coke has gotten me through many moments of temptation.”