Chapter 13
Bing!
Really?
Eli had been trying to review and make notes on the report Reese had sent him for the last hour, but his inbox chime had been working overtime. Not just today—he’d been flooded for the last four days.
Isabella was no longer sitting at his dining room table intercepting his messages for him. And the reason she wasn’t here intercepting his messages for him was because he’d been nothing but impossible to deal with since they’d met.
Friday had been a turning point for her. He didn’t blame her for bailing. He didn’t know if he would’ve respected her if she’d continued to take his shit without pushing back. He knew what he wanted from her but couldn’t get over the idea that it was completely unfair to keep her close when he was so…unhealed.
You don’t deserve her.
Didn’t he know it.
His desk phone rang and he lifted it to his ear. “Reese, I’m working on it. I will have it to you as soon as possible.”
“You sound chipper,” came his brother’s droll response.
“Yeah, well, my assistant hasn’t showed up for four days, so I’m buried.” Reese couldn’t see him, but Eli gestured to the pile that had collected on his desk anyway.
“Four days? I wondered why I kept getting e-mails from you instead of Isabella. I also know you’re busy with the charity, too. Do you how I know that?”
Smartass. Eli didn’t speak.
“Because your girlfriend told me.”
“I was there.” Eli huffed like a perturbed lion.
“You have my full support, Eli. You should have told me about the charity sooner.”
Guilt stabbed his diaphragm. This kind of guilt, he wasn’t as familiar with. His brothers and father had been relying on him and he’d proven himself borderline disloyal by keeping secrets. And yet they accepted him.
Eli never should have expected less. Crane men had always been all for one and one for all.
“I appreciate it,” he said, his voice low. “Before Isa left, she’d put feelers out for a manager to take over Refurbs.” She’d found two qualified candidates, but that was the last he’d heard. He assumed she would let him know if there were further developments, but now…maybe not. Maybe she was legitimately pissed at him and would gladly let him flounder.
That’s what he’d been doing without her here: floundering. Not only because he was swamped with work, but also because he’d grown used to sharing lunch with her, and having conversations with her, and listening to her heels click along his floors.
And because you miss the way her laugh echoed down the hall. The smell of her hair when she leaned over you for a kiss hello or goodbye. The way she sighed into your ear when you touched her just right.
Yeah. All of that. And now she wasn’t here. Which was his fault, no big surprise there.
“…would appreciate your presence at tonight’s board meeting,” Reese was saying.
“I suck at dealing with people, Reese,” Eli bellowed. “Isn’t it obvious? Why do you keep insisting I come back to Crane to be around them?” Silence lingered on the line and Eli knew it wasn’t because Reese didn’t know how to respond. No, his brother knew what to say. He was debating how to say it.
Finally, he did.
“Because you belong here, Eli.” His tone was hard and warm at the same time. “I want you there. Dad wants you there. Tag told me when we left your place Friday that the more he pictures Crane Hotels without you, the more wrong it feels.”
Dammit.
“I don’t need a guilt trip.” But his comment held no venom. It was more of a chagrined mumble. He was behaving petulantly and his family, as always, had his back.
“No, you don’t. You seem to have mastered piling it on your shoulders without anyone else’s help.” Reese waited a few seconds before adding, “Why hasn’t Isa been back in four days?”
“Because I pushed her away.” Eli sat back in his chair and tossed his pen onto the desk, feeling the weight of that admission. It was the first time he’d said it aloud. “She came to console me and I acted like an ass.”