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“Sounds like you guys had a good date.”
“That’s my problem with it.”
“A good date is a problem?”
“The place we went to has a way about it- puts you in a mood.”
“And did this mood lead anywhere besides the dining room?”
“She went back to her office. I went back to my suite.”
There was a round of groans from two of the three men on the phone line.
“Don’t panic,” Fray urged his cousins. “She already told me she’d give us her proxy.”
“Fray man,” War called once brief silence had rested between them, “did you think we thought you were down there because of these signatures we need?”
“I am down here because of these signatures we need.”
“But not where she’s concerned, Fray,” War persisted, “You think we, of all people, don’t get that?”
Fray stopped pacing the living room where he’d meant to have breakfast, but instead made the call to his cousins.
“I laid all my cards on the table with her last night.”
“You think she believed you?” Zyon asked.
“I didn’t tell her so she’d believe me. I only wanted her to know my intentions. I don’t want her to believe in me yet. I haven’t done anything to earn her trust.”
“That might not be possible, you know?” War chimed in. “For her to forgive you.”
“I know that,” Fray stood in the middle of the room, massaging the bridge of his nose. “I was alright with it too, until I saw her. I want her back.”
“Hell man,” Zy chuckled. “You think we don’t know that either? Did you tell her that?”
“Pretty much. I can’t...not try to make that happen.”
“You um...you’re gonna have to be...careful with her,” War chimed in with more words of caution. “How do you plan to pull that off given how you feel?”
“No clue,” it was Fray’s turn to laugh. “Being close enough to touch her and not really being able to is like hell. It won’t work for me much longer but if I screw up this chance...fuck...” he sat on the arm of a chair and let his dismay rule for a time. “It’d be no more than what I deserve.”
“At least you’d know what she’d feel like to hold again,” Zy’s tone carried a solemn hopefulness.
Fray grinned. “Please don’t remind me. It won’t help to keep me honorable.”
There was more laughter and then Fray was hanging up from his cousins once they wished him luck. He tried to resume his pacing, but only managed a few steps before he took a seat in front of the coffee table and held his head in his hands.
~~~
“What do you think?” Warwick was asking his cousin when they disconnected from Frayzer.
“Which part?” Zy feigned confusion.
“The part we’re most interested in,” War managed a grin.
“The proxies?”
War’s grin vanished when he glared.
Zy shrugged, realizing the teasing had worn thin. “Part of me- part of me- hopes he’ll go down there and fall on his face with El so I’ll know it’s useless to try with Moy.”
War gave a sad smile that obscured the glare he’d fixed on Zyon. “I don’t need Fray to be the sacrificial lamb to tell me it’s hopeless with See-See.”
“Don’t you want her back?” Zy grinned when War’s expression resoundingly confirmed his desire for that very thing.
“What we want and what is, are two different things though,” War observed his hands, rubbing one inside the other lest he clench them into fists. “No way they’ll ever come back to us.”
“Neither of them are married nor even seeing anybody exclusively or regularly,” Zy noted.
While nothing was certain, they had done their best to confirm that hope as fact. After working to secure their places within Guthrie’s diverse corporate structure, Zyon and Warwick went to work tracking down the girls- now women-that they’d loved, betrayed and lost. Fray had been the only one to spare himself the torment.
Zy and War often wished they had exercised the same caution. Moira Croix and Seela Desmond were unattached and had carved out accomplished lives. They were fulfilled and moving forward which pleased their exes to no end. Knowing what the women had to overcome in order to make that happen, merely compounded Zy’s and War’s shame for their part in it.
Shame however, had not curbed desire. While Zy, War and Fray all had robust personal lives, nothing had swayed their love-desire-to reclaim what they had so foolishly destroyed.
“We aren’t getting them back. Ever.” War found the reiteration necessary.
“Hell man, I believed that before Fray went down there,” Zy drew both hands through his unruly curls with several vicious strokes. “But then he tells us about having dinner with her last night,” he raised his hands and let them fall to the sides of his trousers.
“She sat down at the same table with him, War. After what happened that night, what are the odds of that ever happening?”
War considered the words only briefly, before offering a nod in acceptance of their relevancy. “So which one of us will be next to jump into the fire?”
Zy grinned. “Let’s wait and see where Fray’s fire-trial gets him and I’ll let you know.”
War reciprocated with a grin as well. “I’m good with that,” he said.
***
Ellia muttered a curse and worked the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. She then cast a skeptical look toward the portfolio carrying the lone sheet-protected page that listed the day’s prepared menu. She’d been reviewing the page for the last 40 minutes and doubted it’d be possible to recite one thing from it were someone to ask her to try.
There were only a few things she could, in that moment, recite with any clarity and they all had to do with Frayzer Guthrie.
The number of gray flecks in the onyx dark of his eyes? Yeah...she could report on that detail with perfect accuracy. Pinpoint the exact octave of his rough voice? Not only could she report on that detail, she could still feel the shivers the raspy chord sent across her skin when he spoke.
Again, she cursed, drawing a fist that she could very well imagine using on herself. Why couldn’t she evict him from her thoughts? Sure she could tell herself that she was only reacting to the sudden return of someone who had once played a major role in her life. What good would that do to keep him out of her mind, was the question.
A major role. She closed the portfolio, sick of pretending her morning perusal of the menu still had her interest. Yes, Frayzer Guthrie had played a major role in her life. That was a detail she’d do well not to forget, a cautionary voice chimed beneath all the mushy thoughts swarming her memory.
Frayzer Guthrie had played a major role in her life that should’ve had her doing anything besides swooning over his eye color or voice depth. She should’ve hated him. She did hate him. She did hate him. Jesus, what was wrong with her?
She left the pallet she’d set to the dewy thatch of land she’d claimed at the cliffs that morning. Sternly, she glared out over The Atlantic. Her light hazel gaze beckoned to the waves as though she meant to summon some understanding from its frothy depths. How could she be questioning her hatred for him? After what he did, how could she be there that morning daydreaming over their dinner the night before?
How could she be thinking about wanting him? The question had humor curving her mouth despite the situation. How could she not be thinking about wanting him? Whether or not hating him was the appropriate reaction, wanting him was without question, an appropriate reaction.
LaRue’s supernatural effect on the mind and body had her suspended in an afternoon 16 years ago. It was an afternoon she had spent being awakened from girlhood into womanhood. Seated across from Frayzer the night before, had her remembering the places his mouth and hands had brought to life inside her. She’d all but run to her office when they’d parted ways in the lobby.
That was an appropriate reaction too, wasn’t it? It was much more appropriate than taking what she wanted from him, right?
The snap of twig under foot, caught her ear then and she found the object of her thoughts crossing the clearing behind the museum. She watched Fray enter her self-proclaimed sanctuary and waited for the appropriate rush of fear. It didn’t stir-neither did her need to make a grab for the knife she’d left on the pallet.
“No one told me you’d be here today,” he said.
“And yet here you are.” There was no accusation in her voice, only curiosity and the softest strains of amusement.
Wincing, Fray skimmed his dark eyes across the horizon. “Guess I should come clean even if it does make me look bad.”
Impossible, El thought, taking a quick yet indulgent sweep of him casually sexy in sneakers, dark sweats and the lightweight sweatshirt carrying the name of his favorite pro-football team. It would be difficult to find an instance where looking bad and Frayzer Guthrie went together in the same sentence.
El spread her arms and the morning breeze had its way with the sleeves of the blue linen smock dress that managed comfort and stylishness at once. “Let’s hear it,” she watched him move closer to the cliffs.
He stared out over the sea for a moment or three. “I was here on the island for three days before I came to see you.”
“Why’d you wait three days?” She took a moment to process the admission before responding.
Fray lowered his head. “Surely you can think of at least one reason?”
She could-of course she could. “Somehow I don’t think that’s all of it.”
Fray turned then, offering a lazy shrug while smoothing a hand across the silken whiskers of his goatee. “First three days I got here ‘round lunchtime and they told me you were taking your daily walk. Yerby Owens with that basket weaving shop?” He waited for her to nod in recognition of the name.
“He told me I had a better chance of finding you around breakfast- said I’d find you here. Next day you were right where he said you’d be. Same went for the day after that. I tried...I couldn’t make myself...come here.”
Ellia took a renewed interest in her surroundings. “This is why? This place?” Her voice was hushed with wonder.
Again, Fray shrugged, the effort weak. He’d turned back to the cliffs, venturing closer to glance over the edge toward the groupings of jagged rocks below. “This is where my father died.”
Confusion edged in alongside her wonder. “I thought it was further down? Past the gates of the community?”
Fray was already nodding. “They think he was pushed from there, but the current carried him here. He was found there by the rocks.”
“Fray?” Her voice had turned whisper soft then. “Your father he-he fell. I thought?”
“You don’t still believe that, do you Elli?”
“Fray?”
“I never saw my dad meet a person he couldn’t drink under a table, Elli. He could finish a bottle of Jack and then go ten for ten in a target practice with bottles out a hundred yards. I’ve seen it,” Fray made the boast across his shoulder, but didn’t make eye contact with Ellia.
“The only thing I ever had in common with my father was a love for guns. I was almost as good a shot as he was. Almost. No way the bastard fell over drunk and he sure as hell didn’t jump. The jackass never felt remorse for one rotten thing he ever did. Ever. He wouldn’t have killed himself over anything.”
“Fray...you’re talking murder here.”
“Can you think of anyone who deserved it more?”
“But who would’ve...?”
Fray turned to face Ellia then. His features, guarded against the flawless ebony of his skin, gave him a look as unreadable as it was provocative. “You mean ‘who’ besides everyone who lives beyond the gates on the other side of this island?”
“How long have you thought this?”
“Since the day he went missing.” Fray’s reply came without hesitation.
Stunned amazement had El shaking her head. “And you never said anything?”
“Why would I?”
“He was your father.”
“He was. And I would’ve thrown a parade for the person who killed him.”