The Fortunate Ones
Page 56

“The dance floor is that way,” he says with a cold, distant tone.
I whip my gaze to his face and for one wild moment, I contemplate leaving him right then and there. I spy an exit a few yards away; I could be outside in a minute, two tops. He sees where I’m looking and shakes his head with a quiet reprimand. “Don’t.”
I lift my chin and walk purposefully toward the dance floor, stopping at the very edge. James’ hand hits the small of my back and he continues forward, sweeping me into his arms. One of my hands rests delicately on his shoulder while he grips the other one tightly. His touch is exciting, and strangely familiar after so much time. The band is playing Nat King Cole’s “L-O-V-E” and the upbeat jazz song is no trouble for James, who’s clearly spent time learning how to lead a woman around a dance floor. He’s not making it easy for me though. I’m sure he’d love for me to stumble in front of everyone—and I do mean everyone—but too bad for him, Martha enrolled Ellie and me in a few months of ballroom dance lessons when we were teenagers. I hated every second of it, but now I can foxtrot with the best of them—that is, until James picks up the pace, spinning me out and back in with a hard tug. I collide with his chest and manage to step on his foot. He smirks and I resolve to stomp harder next time.
There’s no time to try to plan ahead for another opportunity to maim him. With James at the helm, towering over me in his midnight black tuxedo, we breeze across the dance floor so quickly that all my focus goes to trying to keep up with his long strides. The song hits a crescendo, and the trumpet player takes a solo. James uses the opportunity to toss me out and roll my body back into him before he dips me sharply toward the ground. I squeeze my eyes closed, bracing for impact, but then he pulls me back up and swings us back into the rhythm of the song with confident ease. There are whistles and claps from the crowd of onlookers. Thanks to James’ moves, I doubt there’s a guest in attendance who isn’t watching us. I hope Ellie is happy. In fact, I know she is.
Together we move to the beat, our feet in perfect sync. I’m actually enjoying the pace of the dance. It’s thrilling to be led by someone like him, right up until he opens his mouth.
“If you wanted to talk to me so badly, you could have just asked. You didn’t have to use your sister.”
His smugness rubs me the wrong way. I tilt my head back to meet his gaze and reply coldly, “I didn’t put her up to it. She’s convinced we have some unfinished business.”
He grunts as if he was expecting nothing less. “Do we?”
I ignore his question. “Y’know, you admitted yourself that I’ve done nothing wrong. Why are you treating me like this?”
He turns away, granting me a reprieve from his intense gaze, though his profile isn’t much better. His smooth jaw and sharp features are just as tantalizing as I remember, maybe more so now that I’ve had so many long nights to fantasize about them.
When he finally glances back to me, he’s removed the emotion in his eyes. He’s a cold, unfeeling blank slate as he tips his head and studies me. “What did you call it once? Self-preservation?”
I flinch. His honesty catches me off guard. I was prepared to deflect another harsh comment from his barbed tongue.
“James.” My shaky voice only further angers him. Clearly, he doesn’t want my sympathy. “You don’t have to be like this. Soon enough, I’ll be gone again.”
He furrows his brows angrily. “How would you like me to be? Polite? Talkative?”
“It’d be a good start.”
“Ellie tells me you’re popular in Barcelona,” he says acerbically.
I flush, aware of what he’s insinuating. “Ellie was exaggerating.”
“Rest assured, Brooke, I realized you’d moved on the day you boarded that flight to Spain. You didn’t need to have your sister rub salt in my wound.”
I stiffen, finally aware of the barely concealed pain emanating from him. The song fades and he tries to step away, but I tighten my hand on his shoulder. “James.”
A soft piano starts to play, introducing the next song, and I pray he won’t leave me out here alone, not when I have so much I need to tell him. My fingers dig into his tuxedo jacket and I plead with him to turn and look at me.
“You have it all wrong.”
“How?” he asks harshly. “Please, enlighten me.”
I can’t stand this version of him, the unyielding jerk who makes my legs shake and my lip quiver. I look away and try to inhale deeply so when I speak again, my voice doesn’t sound so small. “I didn’t ask her to give you updates about my time in Spain. That was her…sisterly way of trying to make you jealous.”
“Why?”
I nearly laugh. “You expect me to know what motivates Ellie?” I shake my head as we move slowly around the dance floor, and I can’t meet his eyes when I offer him the whole truth. Instead, I focus on a point just over his shoulder.
“She thinks you’re in love with me, and I suppose she thought it might spur you into action or something.”
I expect him to flinch or sigh or give me some kind of sign to prove or disprove Ellie’s hypothesis, but James is first and foremost a savvy businessman. His poker face betrays nothing. If I want to know the answer to that burning question, I’ll have to ask him outright. At the moment, I’m scared his reply will be colored by misconception and hurt. I wonder just how hyperbolic Ellie’s tales of my time in Barcelona actually were. Sure, I got asked out a time or two, and I had a pretty good setup with those free croissants for a while, but there weren’t men sweeping me off my feet right and left. In fact, there was no sweeping, whatsoever. For the last year and a half, I’ve been singularly focused on the man I left behind, the man currently doing his best to slice me in half with his gaze. Still, I trudge on, offering him a bit of honesty in the hopes that it will melt his hard exterior just a little bit.
“I would never play games with you after how we left things,” I say earnestly. “If I’d known Ellie was doing that, I would have insisted she stop, believe me. I couldn’t even handle her giving me updates about you. For the last year, she never once mentioned your name because she knew how I felt…how much it would upset me.”
His dark brown eyes widen and then quickly narrow, as if he’s trying to pick apart my words and find the deceit in between the syllables. His hand tightens around my waist and the animosity between us starts to fade, slowly, faintly, but I feel it in the way he holds me. There’s no longer malice in his grip. He presses me against him, not so he can try to outmaneuver me on the dance floor but because maybe, hopefully, that’s how close he wants me.
For a few minutes, he leads me in silence as I try to come up with some way to convince him of the truth. I could drag Ellie out here and force her to redact her wild stories, but even if he does believe my time in Spain was spent largely thinking of him, wondering whether or not he’d moved on, would it even matter? As the second song fades, so does my hope of reconciliation. He leads me to the side of the dance floor and I grasp for something to say, some way to keep him here with me.
“James—”
He shakes his head and speaks with a dejected tone. “I thought about what it would be like when you came back,” he admits with sad eyes. “And not once did I think you’d show up like this.”
“Well I’m here now,” I say, my voice brimming over with hope.
“Temporarily,” he points out bitterly.
Of course. That’s when reality hits me like a ton of bricks. This isn’t some grand gesture. I didn’t fly back from Spain with the hopes of reconnecting with James. I came here for a quick visit to see my family. I’m at the event because of Martha, not in the hopes of running into him, and he knows it. It was the very first thing I said to him. Oh, I didn’t know you’d be here—how’s that for love? Any attempt I make to explain myself here will seem half-assed and coincidental. Oh yes, sorry about all the trouble I put you through all those months ago. See you around!
He turns to walk away and my hand shoots out to stop him. “If you wanted me to come back, you could have reached out, or…”