Page 26 of All The Wrong Notes

His eyes fluttered closed in gratitude and exhaustion.

“Come with me.” She got to her feet and pulled him with her, then led him by the hand to her bedroom. “Just sleep. Let me just hold you tonight.”

Every bit of energy had long since drained out of him, and Will followed her, letting her unbutton his shirt and his belt, without making the slightest overture. He was thankful. She knew what he needed, and that was comfort and tenderness. If she made a more amorous move, he wouldn’t be able to resist her, not tonight, not after what had happened. He knew Elise would never hurt him, but his own demons weren’t so easy to lay to rest, and he wanted to wait. Some people were happy with sex for its own sake, and that was all fine for them. But Will wanted to make love, and for that, his whole soul needed to be engaged. Right now, with trust still a shaky concept, and with the fresh influx of horrible memories, his soul was a wreck. And Elise felt it, and gave him what he needed. Comfort and tenderness, nothing else.

He slid between the sheets, clad only in his underwear, and let her curl up against his back, revelling in her warmth, until sleep overtook him.

* * *

Elise’s eyes stayed open long into the night.

Kevin! He had lied. He had blamed Will for what he, himself, had done. And now he was working with the arts centre’s books. He could not come back. Even if he was on the up-and-up now, she couldn’t take the chance. There was too much at risk.

Tomorrow she would have to call him and tell him not to come in anymore. That placed all the weight of the fundraiser performance on her shoulders, as well as taking care of the details of the big land donation, but she would manage. She’d have to.

But all concerns about the centre’s books paled when she thought about Will’s other accusation, the one he couldn’t discuss.

What had Kevin done? What was so horrible that it reduced a grown man to this quivering heap of anger and insecurity? Sleep seemed a very long way off.

CHAPTER 11

GROWING AFFECTION

The next couple of weeks were busy for Elise.

Her first task, the morning after the concert, was to contact Kevin and explain that she no longer needed his help at the Queen City Arts Centre. It was a difficult conversation, since all she really had to go on was a case of one man’s word against another’s. Both swore the other had been the perpetrator, and as much as Elise was falling in love with Will, she was level-headed enough to keep at least part of an open mind about the matter.

Everything Will had told her rang true. He wouldn’t have manufactured such emotional distress just to play on her sympathies. Would he? He had almost broken down entirely. But without proof, Elise couldn’t just flip her opinion like changing a pair of socks and put all the blame on Kevin.

Still, he had to go. Even if he was blameless, the animosity between him and Will made it impossible to keep working with him.

She tried to keep the phone call as professional and unemotional as possible. She explained her dilemma and thanked Kevin for all the time and energy he had donated to the centre, and apologised for her seemingly arbitrary decision.

For his part, he was gracious about it. “I understand your position,” he explained in measured syllables. “I stand by what I saw all those years ago, but if you believe Will Pemberton to have changed, I can only accept that and hope it’s true. And I agree that it would be awkward for me to stay on at the centre. I’ll come by tomorrow morning and drop off everything I’ve got, so someone else can take over. It’s a great project you’ve got going, and I don’t want bad feelings between me and Pemberton to mess things up for the kids.”

Elise put the phone down with a huge sigh of relief.

Monday evening was the next meeting of the Board of Directors for the arts centre, and Elise had arranged for Gwen to come along to present her proposal for the mural. She arrived exactly on time in all her multi-hued glory, and greeted the board with a radiant smile, before starting her pitch. Despite her youth—she couldn’t be more than twenty-five—and her protestations that she had no business skills whatsoever, she had put together a remarkable presentation. She linked her laptop to a projector and treated the board to a slideshow, including full-colour images of her proposed idea, detailed accounts of how she hoped to engage interested kids in the project, the financial breakdown of the supplies and how she would donate them to the centre, and finally, a short series of pictures of her own art so the board members would know what she did.

She answered their questions succinctly and intelligently, and after a short discussion, her proposal was accepted. To this, she let out a whoop of joy and kissed several faces, leaving bright red lipstick on more than one cheek. The project was approved to start as soon as the weather was warm enough, but Gwen arranged to be in the centre on a regular basis before that, both to do some preliminary work and to get to know the kids in the visual art program and see who would be suitable to work on the mural with her.

Elise was thrilled. The more time she spent with Gwen, the more she liked her. The young woman’s vibrant style and infectious enthusiasm brightened every space she entered.

With Kevin’s departure, Elise had to take on more of the tasks for the fundraiser. Kevin had set up the ticket sales and had started on a special donations’ initiative, both of which were off to a good start, but liaising with in-kind donors for silent auction prizes and talking to the media took up a lot of time. The generous donor who had promised a parcel of land outside of the city had developed a bit of a relationship with Kevin, and he required a lot of time and attention when he discovered that his contact was no longer at the centre.

Christmas itself, however, was quiet. Will and Gwen were both out of town to spend the holidays with their parents at a villa in Tortola, and Janet and Carlos were cuddled up at some ski resort somewhere. Elise spent some time with her own parents and sisters, but all being in the same city, these events were just a matter of a few hours here and a couple of hours there. She read a lot, took a lot of hot baths, sang in the shower, and ate too much chocolate.

She missed Will. Despite the short time they had been together, whatever this thing between them was, he had established himself in her heart. She missed his serious consideration, his sense of humour that seemed to come out of nowhere, his amazing musicality, and his sensitive soul. She missed his food, not for the meals themselves, but for the joy he took in creating things for others, and she missed the passion he concealed so well under his reserved exterior.

She missed him, and had to stop herself from spending all day sending him emails and texts to tell him how much.

They had known each other for half a year, had been on friendly terms for half of that, and had been a couple for two weeks, and she couldn’t imagine her life without him.

Who would have imagined Elise Benzion would be in love with F. William Pemberton?

* * *

January shivered its way towards February with the usual reluctant bustle that a new year brought.

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