Betrayed (16 page)

There was still one more thing that needed to be done that night. I rolled Ethan’s present between my hands a few times before finally committing to opening it. I ripped it open and threw the wrapping to the side. Inside was a tiny box that had little weight to it. Nothing jingled or rattled around inside. I pulled the box open and was surprised to see that there was only a tiny piece of red paper inside. Red construction paper, cut and folded over into the shape of a heart, unfolded to reveal a handwritten message.

Kayla,

I care for you more than you know. I only hope that one day you’ll let me share that love with you. Until that day comes, know that you have my heart.

Forever,

Ethan

For the second time that night, my eyes filled with tears. I reread it so many times that before long I memorized every word. His words were wrong on so many levels, but they were genuine. Ethan wasn’t afraid to bare his soul to me, and I hated that I wasn’t able to return the favor. No other man before had made me feel the way he did, and I was too afraid to act on it.

I laid down in bed, exhausted from the emotion-filled day. I felt bad that I hadn’t gotten gifts for anyone but had received so much. My parents and Ethan didn’t spend a load of money on what they gave me, but their gifts had been more impactful than anything else I could imagine.

It was a long while before I fell asleep. I laid there thinking about Ethan and how much it meant to me that he had spent Christmas with me and my parents. I’d never dated a man who would have been willing to subject himself to the interrogation my mother had laid out; but Ethan had taken it in stride.

My heart fluttered at the thought of seeing him in the morning. And it was probably for that same reason that I finally drifted off into a peaceful sleep.

Once again, Ethan beat me to his office the next morning. I felt a bit nervous as I entered, even though I knew there was nothing to be nervous about. The words of his letter to me still lingered in my head; I hadn’t been able to stop re-living them the entire morning.

Ethan smiled up at me as I set my things in the corner.

“Have a good time with your parents?” he asked.

I smiled back at him. “The best. It was sad when they left last night.”

“Gone already? That’s quite a bit of driving for one day, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “They didn’t want to stop me from working on my application, or something like that,” I said. “Besides, they don’t like being away from the house for too long.”

He nodded, and I arranged my things at the tiny desk.

“Thanks for the gift,” I said, sitting down. “I’m sorry I didn’t get you anything. I’ll make it up to you, somehow.”

He waved his hand. “There’s no need. You’re already doing more than enough.”

“Still, I feel bad.”

There was a moment of silence. He looked like he had something on his mind, and he didn’t wait long to let me know what it was.

“What did you think of it?” he asked. I stared at him for a long second, unsure of how to answer. Ethan quickly waived his hand. “Never mind, don’t answer that. I’m just glad you still showed up this morning.”

A smile spread across my face. “Why wouldn’t I show up?”

Our eyes met for a long time and he returned my smile. He shrugged, but didn’t answer. There was another long moment of silence before he scooped up a stack of papers and slid them to the side of his desk.

“Well, I hope you got a good night’s rest because we have a lot to get done over the next week.”

“I’m ready,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

He grinned. “First things first…,” he said.

Ethan cleared all of the papers from my desk. He placed them neatly in the corner of the office, and didn’t stop until the desk was entirely empty. I frowned at him, puzzled by what he was doing.

“The first thing you’re going to do, is finish your business school application,” he said.

I waived my hand. “I can do that in the evenings, I know we have a lot of things to get through for you.”

“Nope, I need you to be able to fully focus on my work, and I know that won’t happen while you’ve got such a huge distraction hanging over you.” He smiled at me. “Besides, I looked over your business plan last night, and it’s good.” He pulled the USB drive out of his computer and handed it to me. “I made a few suggestions on it, but it’s probably one of the best business plans I’ve seen; considering it’s only your first.”

I blushed. “I just followed some of the templates that you told me to download,” I said. “Using those, it was nothing.”

“Trust me, as a venture capitalist I read a
ton
of business plans. You’d be surprised what kind of crap people are capable of producing.” He chuckled. “And those were people asking me for money, not just trying to get into a school.”

I laughed. “It all sounds so fascinating,” I said, and meant it. “OK, I’ll work on my application all morning and try to finish it up. Then the rest of the day will be spent on your stuff.”

He nodded once. “Deal,” he said.

I pulled my laptop out of my bag and got to work. I started by going through his notes. He had included specific things I should adjust, along with a new way of approaching certain sections of the business plan. There were a few sections I hadn’t considered including, and things that needed to get taken out. But, all in all, I knew it wouldn’t take very long to finish it.

There was another file on the USB drive that he had added. I opened it and saw that it was a letter of recommendation to the business college. I puzzled over it, and was amazed by what he said. Ethan used powerful language to describe the work that I had helped him on. Reading through it, I was a bit surprised that he was talking about me.

“You really shouldn’t have gone through this much trouble,” I said, looking up at him. “This is too much.”

He shook his head. “My own personal feelings aside, you deserve every word of that.”

I smiled at him. “Thanks,” I said.

I set out to finish the business plan and the application. I was surprised by how fast the morning slipped away, and earl afternoon crept up on us. Ethan’s notes were straight forward, and I thought they were going to be easy changes, but I was amazed by how long some of them took to write out. By the time I made it through all of his suggestions, it was late afternoon, and very nearly time to go home. We had worked straight through lunch, again, and I had loved spending every minute of it with him.

At the end of the day, we left at the same time.

“Thanks again for all of those notes,” I said. “They’re taking a bit longer than I’d expected, but I’m going to finish everything up tonight.”

He smiled and turned to me. “How would you feel about getting dinner first?”

I looked up at him, suddenly very anxious. The heat and depth of his voice washed over me and sent my heart into a racing panic.

“I… I don’t know,” I managed. It was now the second time he’d asked me to dinner, but this time I wasn’t ready to turn him down so quickly.

He held his hands up. “No pressure, I know we still have rules. “But you should know that I’m going to keep pursuing you until I’m certain that you don’t want to be with me.”

The corners of my mouth twitched into a smile, but only briefly. “I told you we can’t be together.”

The memory of him kissing me outside of Dana’s apartment crashed into my mind. We still hadn’t really talked about what had happened, or what it meant. And, as far as anything official was concerned, nothing had changed.

The smile on his face was unwavering. “Like I just said, I’m going to keep pursuing you until I’m
certain
you don’t want to be with me.” He paused for a moment and let his words sink in. “I know we’ve had our struggles, and I messed things up. But I also know that what we had was good, and that we can work through it if we want to. I know that you’re worried about what people might think, or what Dana might think, but none of that matters. We’re good together, and I think
we
deserve a chance.” His eyes sparkled as he said it. I was amazed by how simple he made everything sound. “So, Kayla, would you like to get dinner with me tonight?” he asked, again.

I bit my lip and tried to control my racing heart. My head warned me to say no; it warned me to climb into my car and head home as fast as possible. But in that moment there was no way that I could listen to it. My body ached for him, and ached to be close to him again. And, more importantly, my heart told my head to take a hike.

I nodded my head. “That sounds nice.”

A triumphant smile spread across his face as he unlocked his car and held the door open for me.

* * * * *

Ethan drove us across town to one of our favorite, out of the way, restaurants. I knew where he was going as soon as he turned north on Oracle, and I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of excitement. Our time together before we split was brief in the grand scheme of things, but sitting next to him in his car brought back a flood of memories. The smell of fresh leather in the sports car mixed with the soft musk of Ethan’s own scent had my body on edge for
all
of the things we used to do together. I tried to keep my hormones in check, but my body had gone too long without his touch - and it was ready to have him right there.

“We haven’t been here in a while,” I said as Ethan pulled into the parking lot of Wildflower.

“I didn’t think I would ever get to eat here again,” he said as he turned off the car.

“What do you mean?”

He took a long hard look up at the colorful sign hanging high outside of the restaurant. “I don’t think I could come here without you. It would be too hard.”

I smiled at him. “Well, we’re here now.”

Our eyes met, and he grinned. We went in together and were seated by a young hostess. The large, single room, dining area was sub-divided by artfully painted shelving, and plant life. Our table was nestled up against a book case that had a few interesting-looking books arranged on it. Ethan pulled my chair out for me, and only sat down after I was situated.

“I love the smell of this place,” I said as I took everything in.

The restaurant was the slowest I’d ever seen it; I guessed it was the result of it being the day after Christmas, when most people were probably still spending time with their families at home.

Ethan situated himself across from me, and the waiter took our drink order. I kept it simple with a glass of water, but Ethan ordered a single Scotch, clean. I didn’t want to make things more difficult by confusing how I felt with alcohol. I knew there was only one place that would lead - and while my body wanted it, I wasn’t sure if my heart was ready.

We made small talk through most of the dinner. I tried my best to stay away from any heavy topics. The food, as always, was delicious and I found myself a bit envious of the Scotch Ethan was nursing. The first few times he made me try it, the taste had been overpowering. But I found that, over time, I was beginning to crave the warmth it made me feel. When the waiter had taken our plates and dropped off the bill, I leaned back in my chair and found myself smiling at Ethan.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

He smiled. “I’m thinking about how beautiful you are right now.”

I blushed. “I look like a college student who’s just spent the whole day cooped up in an office,” I said, smiling.

“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

The heat spread from my cheeks down to other parts, but I didn’t respond immediately. He was going to make it hard to keep the dinner strictly professional. But I had known that by giving in to having dinner with him - especially so soon after he had spent time with my family - that I was signaling my interest.

“What are
you
thinking about,” he asked.

“You,” I said, softly.

His eyes raised and his face took on an innocent expression. “Oh? What about me?”

I blew out a sigh. “What are we doing here?”

“Having dinner; blowing off some steam from a hard day’s work. It’s what people do.”

“We’re not just people, though.”

He leaned in closer. “What are we?”

I pushed him away, playfully. “You know what I mean,” I said.

“What’s the harm in having dinner?”

“There’s harm in everything we do.”

“There doesn’t have to be,” he said, his voice strong. I was silent for a bit. “What are you so scared of?” he pressed.

I winced. I knew I needed to talk to him, maybe even clear some air, but it was going to be a difficult conversation. What made it so difficult was the fact that I wasn’t sure what I wanted.

You know what you want, you’re just not ready to admit it.

The thought was unforgiving, but that didn’t make it any less true. What
was
I so afraid of? Why couldn’t I just tell him what was bothering me?

“It’s Dana,” I said finally. “I just can’t betray her.”

His eyebrows curled downward. “What do you mean by that? How have you betrayed her?”

“You two used to date,” I said. “If I had known that before, I never would have let anything happen between us.”

He winced. “That was a long time ago,” he said. “And besides, it can barely even be called dating.”

I groaned. “I
really
don’t want to know the details,” I said. “And, it doesn’t matter how long ago it was. You two were an item.”

“Calling us an item is a bit liberal,” he said. “More like a passing interest.”

I frowned. “Dana sounded a lot more than just slightly interested.”

He shook his head. “She was only interested because I turned her down.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. My confusion was apparent.

He smiled. “Dana was barely interested at all until I refused to sleep with her.”

My jaw nearly hit the table.

“
Refused
?” I asked. “I thought you two…” I couldn’t bring myself to say it. I didn’t enjoy thinking about them being together, and I
really
didn’t want to talk about it - especially not with Ethan.

He nodded. “It was on our third date, and I had already decided that she wasn’t for me.” He shrugged. “I thought I’d take her out just in case I was wrong, and then I would call it off if I wasn’t.” He quirked his mouth to the side as he thought about it. “Afterward, I told her that I didn’t see us going anywhere. That was when she decided to try and seduce me.”