Well Built
Page 42

She swallowed hard, as if knowing where this conversation was headed, though she didn’t say a word. But the wariness in her gaze, mixed in with a dose of fear, spoke for itself.
“I can’t keep doing this, Ella. We can’t keep doing this,” he said, getting right to the point.
“This?” she asked, her voice strained, even as she hedged with her reply to avoid the inevitable.
“Being a secret from everyone, and especially from your father. Only seeing you a few hours every weekend here in your bedroom.” That familiar frustration rose up again, and he pushed his fingers through his hair, forcing himself to keep calm. “I’ve spent three months accepting whatever you were willing to give to this thing between us . . . but it’s not enough.”
Her fingers fluttered anxiously up to her throat, her eyes big and filled with dismay. “It has to be enough for now.”
“For now?” he repeated, his tone rising incredulously as he jammed his hands on his hips. “And when does that end, Ella? When does for now become something more than me crawling through your window for a quick fuck?” His words were crude, but he was starting to feel desperate, like the best thing that had ever happened to him was slipping through his fingers for the second time in his life. “When will I be able to take you out on a date like normal couples do? When can we start building toward some kind of future together?”
“What if we can’t have a future together?” she demanded, her voice suddenly thick with tears. “Are you forgetting that I live here in Woodmont, and you live in the city, which I hate? But that’s where your job is. That’s where your life is and has been for the past ten years. And this is where my life will always be.”
Despite his anger at the situation, he understood her concerns. “We’ll figure it out, but we can’t even do that because our relationship hasn’t extended outside of the fucking bedroom.”
“That’s because there isn’t anything to figure out,” she nearly yelled at him.
“I love you, Ella.” The words came tumbling out, and it nearly gutted him when he saw the pain in her eyes, when he didn’t hear the same response from her lips even though he knew she had to feel the same. “For ten long years, I’ve felt so empty inside, waiting to feel something again for another woman, and it never happened and you want to know why? Because you are the one, Ella. You will always be the one. Doesn’t that count for something? Anything?”
“I don’t know,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, her voice conflicted and confused. “I don’t know.”
“I want you in my life.” He couldn’t be more open and honest and straight-forward about that.
“This is my life,” she said, waving a hand in the air around her to indicate where she was and who she was with and where she would stay.
“No, this is the life you think you need to lead,” he said more firmly. “Out of a sense of obligation to your father. Because your sister isn’t around to help and you feel like it’s all on you to shoulder everything at the expense of your own happiness. What about you, Ella? What about what you want? What about your life and your future? When does any of that matter?”
She never had the opportunity to answer, because the rattling of the doorknob, then a loud knock on the door made them both freeze in place at the sudden interruption.
“Ella?” her father said from the other side, his voice gruff. “Who’s in your room with you and why is your door jammed shut?”
The panic that passed across Ella’s features was instantaneous. “No one’s here, Dad,” she said, holding Kyle’s gaze with a plea in her own for him to remain quiet.
“Ella, I heard loud voices. One distinctly male,” her father insisted, giving the door another push, but the stopper beneath the bottom made it impossible for him to get inside. “What’s going on in there?”
Ella never broke eye contact with Kyle. “Nothing,” she replied, forcing an airy quality to her voice that didn’t ring true, no matter how hard she was trying. “I’m just getting ready for bed.”
Kyle actually found irony in this moment. Three months of sneaking into this house to spend time with Ella, and tonight of all nights her father discovered them together. He hated Ella’s denial, that she was driven by fear, and he realized he had two choices. He could give in to the silent request in her eyes and slip back out the window like he’d never been here so she could open the door and prove to father that she was alone, or Kyle could confront the past that stood between them.
It didn’t take him long to make his decision. He started for the bedroom door.
“Kyle,” she hissed in a frantic voice, but he didn’t stop his approach.
Reaching the only thing separating himself from Ella’s father, Kyle kicked the rubber wedge out from under the door, then pulled it open. Charles gasped and took a step back as he stared at Kyle in shock.
“What are you doing here?” Charles demanded.
“I’m here for your daughter,” Kyle said calmly, even as he felt Ella right behind him, her anxiety nearly palpable. “I’m here because I love her,” he went on, despite the flush of rage spreading across the other man’s face. “I’m here because I want her in my life.”
“You don’t deserve my daughter,” Charles said, his features twisting with bitterness and resentment. “Your family is responsible for everything this family has suffered!”
“Dad, please,” Ella said, trying to calm down her father. “Don’t do this.”
Charles started breathing hard, his chest rising and falling more rapidly. “It’s true, and I don’t want you anywhere near Ella. Ever.”
Kyle’s jaw clenched in anger. He was done with being condemned for his brother’s sins, for his father’s actions. For being accused of something he’d had no part of. “The only two people in my family who are to blame for anything, are my father and my brother. But mostly Todd, because what he did to Gwen was a really shitty thing and unforgiveable. But my mother has done nothing to deserve your contempt, and as for me, the only thing I’m guilty of is loving and caring for Ella. Back then and now.”
The older man pointed a stern finger at Kyle. “Stay . . . away . . . from my daughter,” Charles huffed, then grabbed at his chest as he stumbled backward.