Page 12 of Monsters, Vows, and Growls
Carol leaned back, her voice quieter. “You want the truth?”
“Always.”
She hesitated for a moment. “I thought one of you would come to your senses. But neither of you did. And I get it—life moved on. You built something incredible. So did he. But ten years, Ella? That’s long enough.”
I shook my head and felt the damn tears returning with vengeance. “I’m not ready to open that door.”
“You don’t have to,” she said. “But you might want to ask yourself why it’s still unlocked.”
Damn Carol and her stupid writer's metaphors and her sharp mind. She managed once again to shut me up.
She gave a dry laugh. “Besides, it’s not like I’m the one to talk.”
I glanced at her, narrowing my eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She gave a shrug that tried to look casual and failed. “Let’s just say... there will never be another man for me, either.”
“Oh no.” I blinked. “You’re not still hung up on Gabe?”
“Guilty,” she muttered, and reached for the box of tissues. “But unlike you and Patrick,he hates me.So, I’m officially doomed to live the rest of my life alone, bitter, and writing romance novels, because that’s the only way I can get off.”
“Carol!”
She grinned through her own tears. “I’m serious. If you and Patrick don’t fix this, I swear to God, I’m turning your story into my next series. I’ll change the names, but not enough that anyone who knows you won’t recognize the emotional carnage.”
I groaned. “Don’t youdareuse my breakdown as book fodder.”
“Too late.” She smirked. “Working title:The Dish That Got Away.”
I rolled my eyes, but a smile pulled at my lips anyway.
And just like that, we were friends again.
How torturous can a day be?
A question I'd obviously asked myself before, but never had the answer been so painfully obvious as it was with every hour I spent in Ella’s presence. For the past three days, we’d been together at least four hours at a stretch. Four hours of breathing in her sweet scent, listening to her melodic voice, watching strands of her unruly blonde hair escape her haphazardly put up bun and brush against her long neck or the swell of her breasts; four hours of fighting a rising yearning in me and my cock that turned walking into a challenge.
Every passing minute with her made it clearer to me that I not only wanted her, I needed her. A physical need, like breathing air. I had willfully cut her from my mind ten years ago. The first year had been the hardest; the pain in my heart had rivaled thephysical pain from surgeries and rehabilitation, but as that hurt had helped distract me, I’d almost welcomed it. After that, I simply hadn’t allowed myself to think about her, or when I did, I’d told myself that she was happily married with a soccer team of kids running around.
But now?
Now that I knew none of the fairy tale scenarios my mind had concocted for her were true, I couldn't lie to myself any longer. I didn't care that Thorne still stubbornly refused to accept that she was our mate. I knew it, as sure as I knew the sun would come up in the morning.
"So what'cha gonna do about it?" Carol asked over the phone.
I’d called her, because… I needed a distraction. Ella was inside the restaurant, putting paint samples on the walls. She didn't know I was talking to Carol; I told her I had a business call to make. I just had to get out of there, away from her tempting company. If I had to watch her breasts strain against the tight material of her blouse one more time while she stretched to put color on the beams, I would have screamed. Or grabbed her. Neither option was appropriate.
"I don't know." I brushed my free hand through my hair, staring through the window at Ella as she adoringly scrunched up her face to take in the different shades of beige—they all looked the same to me—she had decorated the walls with. Angling her head this way and that, stepping back and forward, leaning to the side. Damn it, my cock was hard as a rock. She bent over to pick up a tile sample, and her ass stretched the material of her skirt… shit. Those hips. I remembered how they felt underneath my palms. They were a little wider now, more enticing then when she had been a teen, and oh, so fucking alluring.
"Just ask her out," Carol said, oblivious to where my mind was.
"Just?" My sarcastic chuckle sounded choked.
"Patrick," Carol sighed loudly, "you are a grown man. Ask. Her. Out."
"Fine. You're in a mood today."
"Yes. Yes, I am, and you want to know why?"
