Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (16 page)

But obviously Jayson
didn’t know how to fight—or he didn’t know compared to Elijah.

Part of her was glad
that Elijah had hurt Jayson, made him feel fear and pain, just like Jayson had
done to her.
 
Was she supposed to
hate Elijah for doing something violent on her behalf, even though she’d never
asked it of him?

Well, she didn’t hate
him.
 
Far from it.

He’s bad news
.

Caelyn squeezed her
eyes tightly shut.
 
Her own thoughts
and opinions were fighting amongst themselves, and she didn’t know what the
right thing to do or think even was.

Could Elijah be a
truly bad person just because he had a dark history?
 
The policeman who’d told her of Elijah’s
record had made him out to be a criminal on par with Tony Soprano.
  

Yet, she didn’t think
he was bad at all.
 
Her instincts
told her that Elijah had a good heart.

Your instincts also told you that Jayson was a good
guy, and remember how that ended up?

Caelyn sat up in
bed.
 
Her phone was ringing.
 
Probably her mother or father, calling
to tell her about her flight for the next day.
  

She went and grabbed
her purse, found her phone and quickly answered it without even looking at the
caller ID.

“Hello?” she said,
already preparing for her mother’s grim voice and the possible questions to
follow.

But it wasn’t her
mother’s voice on the other end of the line.
 
Instead, there was a pre-recorded
announcement.
 
“You have received a
call from an inmate at Sarasota County Jail.
 
Will you accept the charges?"

“Yes,” she replied,
without even thinking.
 

There were a few
clicks and a quick beeping sound, and then she heard some static on the
line.
 
“Hello?” she said, her voice cracking with nervousness.
 
Her heart was beating so fast that she
pulled her shirt away from her chest so that she wouldn’t see it moving.

“I’m probably the
last person you were expecting to call you,” he said.
 
His voice sounded low and a little
muffled, but it was still Elijah.

“How did you get this
number?” she said.

“I have my ways.”

“I’m serious,
Elijah.
 
We never exchanged
numbers.”
 
She was still trying to
accept the fact that it was really him.
 
She’d wanted to hear his voice again so badly that it was as if she’d
manifested the call out of thin air.
 

Her body was numb,
her head spinning.

“Okay,” he said.
 
“The truth is, the other day when we
were at the hotel and you used the bathroom, I took your cell phone and used it
to call mine.
 
That way, I knew I’d
have your number in my caller ID.”

“That’s messed up,”
she said, trying to muster some anger, but not quite able to do it.
 
She was glad he had her number, even if
he’d done something a little shady to get it.

“I know that’s
probably strike number three or four at least,” Elijah said, but I was hoping
to get a pass under the circumstances.”

Caelyn went back to
the bed and sat on it, smiling a little, gathering his old green blanket in one
hand while she talked.
 
“It’s
okay--I’m really glad you called,” she said.

“Where are you?” he
asked.

“Back at the motel.”

“Are you okay?”

She thought about
it.
 
“Better, now that I’m talking
to you.”

He chuckled.
 
“Come on now, you’re just saying that to
make me feel good.”

“It’s the
truth.”
 
She bit her lip.
 
“What about you, Elijah?”

“What about me,
Caelyn?”
 

The way he said her
name made her stomach dance with butterflies.
 
He said it playfully, but also with a
kind of challenging tone, as if to say that he wouldn’t let her just get away
with anything.

“I want to know if
you’re okay,” she told him.

“As okay as I can be,
considering I’ve been sitting in a six by eight foot cell for the last few
hours.”

“Is there any chance
you can get out?”

“Get out how?
 
The whole prison break thing doesn’t
work that well in real life.”

“But can’t someone
bail you out?”

He chuckled again,
but this time it sounded kind of hopeless.
 
“Not anytime soon, kid.”

“It doesn’t seem fair
that you’re stuck in Jail and Jayson’s walking free.
 
I told the police about Jayson and what
he did to me.”

Elijah went silent
for a bit.
 
When he spoke again, she
heard emotion in his voice.
 
“You
told the cops about that?
 
You said
you never wanted to tell the police.”

“I know, but I kind
of needed to tell them.
 
Otherwise
they wouldn’t have understood why you did what you did—that you were
defending me.”

“You told them about
you and Jayson because of me?”

“Yes.”

She heard the sound
of his breath exhaling into the phone.
 
“Caelyn, you shouldn’t have done that for me.
 
I never would have asked you to do it.”

“It was the right
thing to do.”

“I’m going to jail no
matter what, because I violated my parole when I left the state.
 
Once your friend Jayson brings charges
against me, it’ll only make my sentence a little longer.”

“You don’t know that
for sure,” she said, but her heart was sinking.

“Pretty much.
 
It’s not my first time at this rodeo.”

“You almost sound
like you’re in the room with me,” she said, wanting suddenly to change the
subject.

“I wish I was in the
room,” he replied, his voice getting husky.
 
“You have no idea what I would give to
be there, just for five minutes.”

There was a long
pause as she closed her eyes, imagining it too.
 
“It feels like you’re really here, if I
close my eyes and just listen to your voice.”

“What are you doing
right now?” he asked.

“I’m sitting on the
bed in the motel room.”
 
She decided
not include the fact that she was holding onto the green blanket he’d used the
night before, because then he might decide she was too crazy to deal with after
all.

“You should lay
down,” he said, softly.
 
“Try and
relax.”

“You’re telling
me
to relax?” she said, shaking her
head.
 
“I feel like I should be the
one trying to calm you down.”

“I’m fine.
 
This is nothing new for me.”

The thought made her
achingly sad.
 
Elijah had been
through this so many times that being in jail didn’t seem to bother him all
that much.
 
She wondered how many
days and nights he’d spent alone in a cell with nobody to talk to, nobody who
cared one way or another.

But then, she
thought, I’m assuming things.
 
He
probably had plenty of girlfriends in the past who were worried about him and
thought about him, sent him letters and emails.
 

You really don’t know Elijah at all.
 
You still haven’t learned your lesson,
have you Caelyn?

She couldn’t decide
if the voice in her head was her mother’s voice, or something else—her own
inner warning system, perhaps.

“Just lay down
Caelyn,” Elijah said.
 
His voice was
stern but still kind, like an older brother trying to get his younger sister in
line.

“I could just pretend
to lay down,” she told him.
 
“You
wouldn’t know either way.”

“Yeah, I would.”
 
The statement was simple fact, as if
Elijah believed he could read her mind.

“Do you really think
you’re so much smarter than me?”

“It’s not that I’m
smarter.
 
I just know you.”

Part of her was
annoyed, but another part of her was strangely this.
 
It was a little game, and it made
everything feel less serious somehow.

“Okay.”
 
She decided that she would lie down in
the bed after all.
 
It was
comforting, somehow, to hear Elijah’s voice in her ear and do what he told her
to do.

“Are you lying down
now?” he asked.

“Yes.”
 
For some reason, she felt very
vulnerable.
 
Her breathing was
faster, and her pulse had picked up speed.

“If I was there with
you, I’d hold you in my arms.”

She sighed into the
phone.
 
“I’ve thought a lot about
that night in the hotel room,” she said.
 
“You know, that night when I freaked out and you stayed with me?”

“Yeah,” he said.
 
“I remember it.
 
I think about it too.”

“You do?”

“All the time.
 
Holding you in my arms all night was one
of the best things that’s ever happened in my life.”

She laughed a
little.
 
“Don’t make fun, Elijah.”

“I’m not making
fun.
 
I’m serious.”

“You can’t go away,”
she said, suddenly frightened.
 
“Not
when we’ve just met—we haven’t even had a chance…”

“Don’t think about
it.
 
I’ve learned the hard way that
it’s best to just take it day by day.”

“How much longer can
you stay on the phone?”

“A few minutes.
 
Not long.”

She felt her eyes
start to burn as she realized that very soon she would be alone in this room,
with nothing but the silence for company.
 
“I don’t want you to go,” she whispered.

“Don’t think about
that,” he told her.
 
His voice was
totally calm and completely self-assured, as if he had no doubts or
worries.
 
For all she knew, maybe he
wasn’t in jail right now at all, but just lounging on a beach somewhere.

The thought made her
smile, until she remembered the pre-recorded message that had told her the call
was coming from jail.
 
Her smile
faded.

Don’t think about it,
she told herself.
 
Just enjoy the
moment.
 

“Okay, I’m just going
to listen to you,” she said.

“Right now, we’re
together.
 
You and me, at the
Seaside Motel. Close your eyes, Caelyn.”

She did as he
said.
 
She closed her eyes and held
the cell phone close to her ear, wrapping the blanket around her body.
 
“You sound…warm,” she told him.

“That’s because I’m
with you, holding you close and keeping you warm,” he said.
 
“I’ve got my arms around you, and I’m
running my fingers through your hair.
 
Can you feel that?”

She nodded.
 
“Yeah.”
 
And strangely enough, she could feel
it.
 
Maybe it was a weird kind of
hypnosis, but Caelyn could swear that she actually sensed his fingers slowly
gliding through her hair, tickling her scalp.
  

“I put my lips up
against the back of your neck and whisper, and you can feel my breath on your
skin.”

She shuddered with
the deliciousness of what he was telling her.
 
“If only—“

“No ‘if only’s’.
 
It’s real if you let it be real.”

“I’m trying my
best.”
 
She settled down again,
trying to relax and picture what he was telling her.

“You know that I’ll
protect you,” he said.
 
“You can
trust that.”

“How can I trust
it?
 
I hardly even know you,
Elijah.”

“But you can tell,
can’t you?
 
You know what I’m saying
is true.”

“I think I do, even
though it makes no sense how I can trust you when I know almost nothing about
your life, where you came from, anything.”
 
But then again, she had seen Elijah risk his own life to protect her
from Jayson.
 
He was only in jail
right now because he’d put his head on the chopping block for her.