Chapter 119: Go Back or Stay
Fortunately, Elias knew how to deal with won like Giselle.
If she insisted on being that blunt, then he could be just as blunt right back and wait to see which of them figured it out first.
That strategy only worked on disasters like this, of course. Try it on a normal person, and the ga might drag on until soone else quietly stole the whole situation out from under you.
He lowered his head, unbuckled his seat belt in silence, and got out of the car without another word.
He still did not speak as he turned away from the hotel entrance and started to leave, shoulders slightly hunched, steps quiet, looking every bit like a pitiful stray who had finally accepted being turned out.
Then Giselle called after him.
"Where are you going?"
Elias turned back with a helpless look that would have convinced half the city. "I’m going ho," he said softly.
Was that not what she had told him to do? Walk back on his own?
Giselle’s eyes chilled at once.
He was impossible. There were monts when he felt less like a person and more like a wire stripped bare, sparking at every point except the one you actually needed. Even now, he was acting as though he could not hear what she had really ant.
And the word ho did not help.
That place counted as ho to him?
The thought made sothing hard and restless stir in her chest.
Ho was not what waited for him there. There were cleaner words for it if one wanted to be polite, but in her mind the truth was simpler and uglier than that. A pit. A trap. A place that kept swallowing him and then returning him half broken.
"Co back," she said.
The coldness in her voice would have made most people think twice. Elias only blinked, then drifted back toward her with that sa dazed, innocent expression.
"What is it?"
Giselle did not answer.
She reached out, closed her hand around his wrist, and pulled him toward the hotel before he could finish pretending not to understand.
He gave a startled little sound, but she did not slow down.
She had offered him her hand more than once already. Every ti, he had ignored it. Every ti, he had slipped around it, argued with it, or dressed his refusal up in so pathetic excuse that was really just another form of running.
Fine.
If he would not take her hand, then she would stop waiting for him to choose.
She would grab hold herself.
Elias let himself be dragged a few steps before lowering his eyes to where her fingers circled his wrist.
A faint smile touched his face.
All right, then. He would take it back. She was not hopeless after all. She had finally started to get it.
Or maybe this was simply what happened once soone’s favorability rose past a certain point.
No one really knew what soone like Giselle kept buried under all that ice, but Elias thought he was finally catching a glimpse of it. There was heat there after all, fierce and clean and almost reckless in its own way. Most of it stayed sealed beneath the surface, packed under discipline and distance, but even the small amount that slipped out was enough to feel almost scorching.
He could feel it now in the warmth of her hand around his wrist.
The hotel doors slid open, and they walked inside.
"Good evening," the receptionist said at once, polite and attentive.
Giselle did not stop until she reached the front desk. "One presidential suite."
Elias nearly whistled.
Now this was more like it.
She really had grown up. Knew how to take care of people now. If she was springing for a presidential suite, then maybe he could afford to let her get a little closer tonight. Not too much, obviously. He still had standards. But a little indulgence in recognition of her efforts did not seem entirely unreasonable.
The receptionist hesitated. "I’m sorry, ma’am, but our presidential suites require advance reservation..."
He never finished the sentence.
Giselle pulled a black card from her pocket and held it between two fingers before setting it on the counter.
The receptionist’s whole manner changed.
Suites like that might require reservations for ordinary guests, but rules had a way of becoming suggestions in the presence of real money. Flexible policy was one of the oldest luxury traditions in the world.
He accepted the card with both hands, then imdiately produced the registration form. "Of course. Please sign here."
Giselle looked at Elias.
She had been holding him with her right hand, so she shifted and caught his wrist with her left instead, keeping him there while freeing her right hand to sign.
Elias watched the motion with quiet interest.
Efficient. Possessive. Not bad.
When she finished, she put the pen down and started to lead him toward the elevator the sa way she had led him through the lobby.
That was when Elias planted himself.
He did it without warning, locking his knees and refusing to move another inch.
The marble floor beneath his shoes was polished enough to reflect light, which ant it was also polished enough to betray him. However hard he resisted, he still slid forward bit by bit under the steady pull of Giselle’s arm.
His voice softened into sothing pleading, familiar, the sa tone he had used before when cornered. "Giselle, don’t. Let go of ."
Out of context, anyone hearing it might have thought she was dragging him off to commit so unspeakable act in public.
Giselle ignored him.
Since simple resistance was clearly not enough, Elias escalated without sha. He dropped into a squat right there in the middle of the lobby like an overgrown child throwing a tantrum, making himself dead weight.
The sudden increase in resistance finally brought Giselle to a stop.
She turned and looked down at him.
They had not gone beyond the reception desk’s line of sight yet, and the receptionist, who had already taken a professional interest in the situation despite himself, stared a little more openly now. His eyes widened as if he were trying to work out whether this counted as a dostic dispute, a lovers’ quarrel, or sothing even stranger.
Elias looked up at Giselle with reddened eyes and the most pitiful expression he could manage. "I really have to go back," he said. "If I don’t..."
Giselle’s brows drew together. "As long as I’m here, Serena won’t do anything to you."
Elias kept his face intact with admirable discipline.
Internally, he almost laughed.
That was a brave thing to say, but it would have sounded a lot more convincing coming from Victoria Frost. Giselle was not at that level yet. Not against Serena. Not in a real clash.
Still, there was no reason to say that out loud.
He leaned harder into the performance instead. The redness around his eyes deepened again, the tears gathering just enough to suggest they might fall at any second. "Please," he said.
Giselle’s expression did not change.
He could cry all he wanted here. That was nothing compared to what would happen if she let him go back.
She drew a breath to answer him, but the words never left her mouth.
The doors at the entrance slid open again.
A line of people in dark suits entered the lobby.
One of the attendants instinctively started forward, ready to greet or intercept them depending on what this turned out to be, but the floor manager caught his arm at once and stopped him.
"Don’t," the manager muttered.
He had already recognized the woman at the front.
Liora Voss, the Blackwood family’s second daughter.
A group arriving like that at this hour was enough to pull every eye in the room toward them. Guests slowed. Staff paused. Conversations thinned into murmurs. For a second, the whole hotel seed to hold still around the sight of those suits cutting across the polished floor.
It looked almost like a raid, except no one robbed five-star hotels like this.
Elias turned too.
The second he saw Liora, he nearly smiled.
She looked composed, of course. Liora always looked composed. Her clothes were immaculate, her hair perfect, every inch of her arranged with the sa precision she carried into everything else.
And yet sothing was off.
Maybe it was the speed of her steps. Maybe it was the tension pinching the space between her brows just a little too tight. Maybe it was only that her usual neatness had been disturbed by urgency, which on soone like her looked almost as noticeable as disarray would on anyone else.
It gave her a trace of sothing close to ssiness.
That was delightful.
From where Giselle stood, she could not see his face clearly, so Elias let the smile co this ti, open and unguarded, full of teasing amusent as he looked at Liora and enjoyed the sight of her arriving rattled.
Liora’s gaze skimd across the lobby only once before settling on Giselle.
"It’s late," she said. "Shouldn’t you be heading ho, Miss Frost? Or do you enjoy making your mother worry?"
Elias almost admired it.
One sentence, and she had managed to turn Giselle from a woman making her own choice into a disobedient child who had stayed out too long.
Sharp.
Very sharp.
Giselle treated the words as though they had been spoken by the furniture. She did not even glance at Liora. Instead, she kept her eyes on Elias and said, in the sa flat tone as before, "Have you finished throwing your fit? If you’re done, get up. You’re going to sleep."
Liora, having been ignored outright, did not show the slightest anger.
If anything, the dismissal seed to help her. The frantic edge she had co in with settled into sothing colder and more controlled. A faint smile appeared on her lips as she shifted her attention to Elias.
"She refuses to listen," she said mildly. "Are you going to be difficult too?"
Her eyes held no warmth at all.
That only made Elias want to laugh more.
Still, everything had limits. Letting Liora panic a little was useful. Pushing her past the point of restraint would be much less fun, especially in public.
So he took the opening she offered him.
He got to his feet at once, as though punishnt might fall if he moved even a second too slowly, and kept his head lowered the whole ti. "I’ll listen," he said quietly. "I’ll be good."
Giselle’s face stayed still, but her grip on his wrist tightened.
Just slightly.
Liora stepped forward.
She took Elias’s other hand as though it already belonged there, then brushed lightly at his clothes where he had crouched on the lobby floor, dusting off wrinkles and imagined dirt with the easy intimacy of soone correcting a younger man who had embarrassed himself in public.
"So reckless," she said softly. "Running around this late like this."
Her hand lingered for a mont, smoothing his sleeve.
"Co back," she added, her voice almost gentle. "Your sister is going to discipline you properly for this."
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