Chapter 89: Playing Hard to Get
Yvonne paused for a fraction of a second at Elias’s question.
It had been a long ti since anyone had spoken to her that directly.
The tycoons and power brokers who ca to her for treatnt were all old predators in one form or another. They never needed to say things plainly. A look was enough. A pause was enough. Half a sentence, carefully angled, and both sides already understood what the other ant. Their conversations were all polished surfaces and subrged hooks.
Elias was different.
Even if she truly had no intention of having dinner with him, he still wanted the answer spelled out. He would not let it pass. He had to ask, had to press, had to know why.
There was sothing almost innocent about that kind of persistence.
It suited him. It fit the role of a college student too neatly, pure and earnest enough to keep chasing a door after it had already started to close.
A trace of apology entered Yvonne’s voice. "I’m sorry. My assistant probably didn’t see it. What did you send?"
The bla slid onto Mira Perry so naturally it barely even sounded like bla.
"Oh, it wasn’t anything big." The smile in Elias’s eyes deepened at once. "I just wanted to ask you out to dinner, Yvonne."
"Oh?" Yvonne smiled back, though the smile never reached the sound of her voice. "That’s a sha."
If anyone had listened carefully, they would have heard it. Every sentence from her ca out at the sa calm pitch, smooth and still as water sealed behind glass. Nothing in her tone actually rippled. Nothing truly ward.
It was a polite regret, nothing more.
Anyone with the least bit of life experience would have caught that imdiately. She was saying it was a sha because manners required her to, not because she genuinely felt disappointed.
Elias, unfortunately, lit up like a dog spotting food.
If he had possessed a tail, it would have been wagging hard enough to throw off his balance.
"It’s not too late," he said at once. "We can go right now."
The elevator doors had already started sliding shut, but Elias reached out and blocked them with one hand before they could close. Then he stepped inside as if he belonged there, as if this were the most natural thing in the world.
"Well?" He looked at her expectantly, openly, so hopeful it bordered on painful. He was waiting for the answer he wanted, not the one she was going to give.
He was always going to be disappointed.
Yvonne’s voice remained level, and that sa faint note of apology returned as if it cost her nothing to produce it. "I’m sorry. I still have so things to take care of."
His dejection was imdiate and obvious. It passed over his face with almost comical transparency. Then, just as quickly, he found another foothold and brightened again.
"Then what about tomorrow?"
"I have a major surgery."
It was the most ordinary excuse imaginable.
For other doctors, anyway.
For Yvonne, it was almost archaic. She had not needed to use a line like that in years. Usually one glance from her was enough. People understood. They backed off. They did not stand there and keep trying, the way Elias was trying now.
He still was not giving up.
"Then when are you free?" he asked. "Could you tell ahead of ti? Just let know whenever you have an opening, okay?"
Relentless.
Yvonne lowered her eyes slightly, hiding the brief flicker of darkness that passed through them.
Then she looked back up and gave him a small, perfect smile. "Of course. If I have ti, I’ll let you know in advance."
Another person had reached toward the edge of the mire.
Another person she had pushed back from it.
Yvonne did not know how long Elias’s enthusiasm would last. She could only hope it burned itself out sooner rather than later.
The elevator doors slid shut between them.
Elias stared at the polished tal after they closed, bafflent written all over his face.
"What the hell is wrong with her?"
He had gone that far, and she still turned him down?
There was no way he had missed the truth of it. Yvonne Quinn simply did not want to eat with him. It was not about work. It was not about being busy. She just did not want to go.
But if that was true, then what had that earlier favorability increase been about?
He had assud she was too occupied to reply and had simply forgotten. Now it looked much more deliberate. She had seen the invitation in one form or another and chosen not to engage.
Elias frowned.
Playing hard to get?
[Possible.]
He sighed.
Imagine that. One day, he had actually run into a woman whose ga he could not imdiately read.
"If that’s what she’s doing," he muttered, already walking away from the elevator bank, "then her level’s pretty high."
It was not even that the tactic itself was sophisticated. Playing hard to get was ancient. Borderline stale, really. The problem was that Yvonne Quinn had the kind of hardware that made old tricks work like new.
That voice alone was lethal.
If she hid her face and did nothing but stream audio, she would still flatten a city’s worth of people with voice kinks in under a week. She was practically engineered to ruin that particular demographic. And that was before anyone brought up her looks. Or the fact that she was a doctor. Or the way she carried herself like she had never once needed to beg for attention in her life.
Even if you knew she was baiting you, you still wanted to bite.
Elias let himself admire the strategy for a second, then turned and left the hospital.
He did not go far before he found Lila Morgan crouched near a hedge, looking so emotionally exhausted she might have preferred burial.
He glanced at her, smiled, and then visibly decided against whatever he had originally been about to say.
"Co on."
Lila looked up. "Where?"
He grinned. "King crab. I told you."
A while later, Lila found herself sitting in a high-end restaurant with Elias directly across from her, and there were few settings in the world that could have made her more uncomfortable.
It was not only the place itself, all polished glass and low amber light and servers who moved like they had been trained not to make a sound. It was not only the fact that Elias looked entirely too at ease there, as if he had wandered in from soplace even more expensive. It was also the sick certainty pressing against the back of her skull.
She was probably going to be the one paying for this.
Across the table, Elias was scanning the nu with perfect calm when he caught the pain on her face.
"Relax," he said without looking up. "It’s not coming out of your pocket."
Lila blinked.
Wait.
Was he actually treating her?
She did not believe that for even a full second.
"Obviously I’m not paying either." He lifted his eyes and gave her a look usually reserved for people who had just failed a very simple exam. "Liora’s reimbursing it."
Lila stopped breathing for a mont.
That sounded like a terrible professional decision.
Who did that? Who spent the client’s money like this and expected to survive the aftermath?
Her expression must have changed, because Elias glanced at her and smiled with open amusent.
"What, you think you’re going to lose your job?"
"...Maybe." The answer slipped out before she could stop it.
Her eyes widened right after, horror flashing across her face. He really had read her mind.
Elias propped his cheek against one hand and laughed. "I’m not as terrifying as you keep making out to be. You’re just so easy to read your thoughts might as well be written across your face."
Lila sat there, half relieved and half humiliated.
Then Elias added, as casually as if he were asking for more water, "If you’re still that worried, go buy a set of cat ears after this."
She stared at him. "Cat ears?"
He gave her a sidelong glance. For soone employed to watch people, her curiosity could get a little too bold. Fortunately for her, Elias was in a generous mood and did not mind the offense.
"It’s for the apology," he said. "A proper in-person apology for costing Liora so much money."
Lila’s brow furrowed. "I don’t think most won would like cat ears as a gift."
"Who said the cat ears are for her?"
She blinked. "Then for who?"
Elias’s lips curved slowly upward.
He leaned back just enough for the light to catch his face, and when he smiled, the small sharp points of his canine teeth showed. They looked almost playful. Almost.
"The gift," he said, "is ."
Cat ears.
Tiger teeth.
Gift.
The pieces locked together in Lila’s mind one by one, and the picture they ford made sothing twist painfully inside her chest.
He was the present.
He was the cat.
He was planning to walk into Liora’s ho dressed up as sothing soft and teasing and available, a living apology wrapped in fur and teeth and deliberate invitation.
Lila swallowed with difficulty.
Every minute she spent sitting here felt like so specific form of punishnt designed just for her.
Why did soone like him have to exist at all?
Close enough to touch, close enough to hear, close enough to be ordered around by, and still hopelessly beyond reach.
Elias, anwhile, had no interest in whatever existential suffering was taking place across from him. The food arrived, and the instant it did, he set to work with cheerful concentration.
By the ti he finished, he looked thoroughly satisfied. He leaned back in his chair and patted his slightly rounded stomach through his shirt, pleased enough to radiate it.
"That was good."
Then he picked up his phone and sent Liora a ssage.
Elias: Thanks for the king crab.
Liora’s reply ca back almost imdiately.
Liora: ?
She had barely had ti to process the phrase before the next ssage arrived.
Elias: Are you ho right now?
Liora stared at the screen for a mont before answering.
Liora: I am.
Another ssage.
Elias: Is your sister there too?
Liora: She is.
Then a final one popped up.
Elias: (=^^=)
The emoticon was one he had used before, familiar enough to feel deliberate.
Liora’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Sothing about this felt dangerous. She could sense it clearly, the way a room changed pressure before a storm, but she could not yet see where the danger was coming from.
Across from Lila, Elias rose from his chair and tossed the napkin onto the table.
"Go get the car."
He looked down at the fluffy cat ears in his hand, the corners of his mouth lifting with quiet satisfaction.
It was ti to make Liora truly fall for him.
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