Elara II
1462 Words
I changed in the office bathroom, touching up my makeup in the tiny mirror above the sink. Applied a fresh coat of lipstick and stared at myself.
I looked like a woman going on a date which I haven’t looked like that in seven years.
Adrian was waiting in the lobby when I came off the elevator. He wasn’t checking his phone, or talking to someone, he was just standing there with his hands in his pockets looking out through the glass doors on the street. He was wearing a dark suit with no tie, his collar was open at the throat in a way that managed to look both relaxed and devastatingly put together.
He turned when he heard the elevator doors and his expression shifted into something warm when he saw me.
“You look beautiful,” he said simply.
Not gorgeous or stunning or any of those words men said when they were trying too hard. Just beautiful. Like it was a simple fact he was stating, and I couldn’t be more impressed.
“Thank you,” I said. “You look nice too.”
He smiled. “Ready?”
“Terrified, but ready.”
That made him laugh, a real laugh, warm and genuine. “At least you’re honest.”
His car was waiting outside. A sleek black thing that probably had a name I couldn’t pronounce. The driver opened the door for me without a word, and I carefully hopped in.
“Where are we going?” I asked as we slid into the backseat.
“Restaurant called Elara. It’s in the West Village. Do you know it?”
I shook my head. I’ve never heard of it.
“It’s quiet,” he said, like he knew that was what I needed. “The food is good too. We can actually talk.”
The West Village in the evening was beautiful. It was a tree lined streets glowing with warm light, with people spilling out of wine bars, the whole neighborhood feeling like it existed in a slightly softer version of New York than the rest of the city.
Elara was tucked between two brownstones, easy to miss if you didn’t know it was there. It was small and intimate, maybe fifteen tables total with dark wood walls, candlelight and the kind of hush that came from really good acoustic design. A place where conversations stayed private.
The host greeted Adrian by name and led us to a corner table away from the other diners. Of course.
“Do you come here often?” I asked once we were seated, immediately cringing at how that sounded.
Adrian just smiled. “A few times a year. It’s the kind of place I come to when I want to think.”
“Or when you want to impress a date?”
“That too.” Sounding whimsical.
A waiter appeared and Adrian ordered wine without looking at the menu, something French that meant nothing to me but clearly meant something to the waiter because he nodded with genuine appreciation.
“Do you always order without asking?” I said.
“Do you want to choose?”
“No, I wouldn’t know what to pick. But most men ask.”
“I’ll ask next time,” he said easily. Like next time was already a given.
The wine arrived short minutes after, it was deep red and smooth, tasting like something that cost more than my weekly grocery budget. I took a longer sip than I probably should have. Adrian noticed and he asked.
“Nervous?”
“A little.” I replied.
“Don’t be. I don’t bite...” pause. “…Usually.”
Something warm moved through me at that moment. I looked down at my menu to hide whatever was showing on my face, cause what does he mean by not usually.
The food was extraordinary. We ordered several small plates between us, each one more incredible than the last. Some kind of mushroom thing with truffle oil that I could have eaten an entire bowl of. Sea bass so perfectly cooked it fell apart at the touch of a fork. Bread that was still warm from the oven.
We talked through all of it the conversation flowing easily and naturally without the awkward pauses I’d been dreading.
He asked about my work, genuinely curious about my ideas for the campaigns I’d been assigned. I found myself talking with real enthusiasm, forgetting to be nervous, or to perform. He listened the way very few people do, not waiting for his turn to speak but actually absorbing what I was saying, asking follow-up questions that showed he’d been paying attention.
“You’re good at this,” he said. “Marketing. You talk about it like it excites you.”
“It does. Or it used to. I spent six years at a company where I was just going through the motions.” I stopped myself. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up work stuff.”
“Don’t apologize. Tell me.”
So I told him. But not everything, of course not the full nightmare, but enough to give him insight. That I’d worked at my family’s company and lost the job when my personal life fell apart, and that I was starting over. That Rhode Enterprises felt like the first real opportunity I’d had to actually grow.
He listened without interrupting, turning his wine glass slowly in his fingers.
“And the personal life?” he asked carefully. “The falling apart part.”
Oh no! I took a breath.
“I’m not ready to talk about all of it.” I brought myself to say.
“That’s okay.”
“I will eventually. Just not tonight.”
“Then we’ll wait.” I like the way he didn’t pressure me, because people often do that using fake concern as the excuse. Something about that undid me slightly. I was so used to people pushing, demanding explanations, needing the full story immediately. But Adrian just waited.
“Tell me about you,” I said, redirecting.
He didn’t say much about his personal life either, he just talked about his company, how he built it from nothing after his father left him with nothing but debt and a name that meant less than he’d expected. How he’d spent his twenties working eighteen hours a day and his early thirties wondering what any of it was actually for.
“And now?” I asked.
“Now I have more money than I know what to do with and fewer people I trust than I can count on one hand.”
“That sounds lonely.”
He looked at me across the candlelight. “It is.”
We sat with that for a moment, the honesty of it hanging between us.
By the time dessert arrived, a chocolate thing that was more art than food, the candles had burned lower and the restaurant had thinned out around us. I hadn’t noticed time passing.
“Thank you for tonight,” I said, genuinely meaning it. “I didn’t realize how much I needed this.”
“Needed what?”
“Someone to talk to who doesn’t know everything. Who doesn’t look at me like I’m broken.”
“You’re not broken,” he said quietly. “Bent maybe. But not broken.”
I looked at him across the table. This man had no reason to care about me and but he seemed to anyway, I felt something shift inside my chest. Something that had been locked up tight since my birthday loosened slightly.
Not love. It was way too soon for that. But something. The beginning of something.
His hand moved across the table and covered mine.
“Can I see you again?” he asked.
“You see me every day. We work in the same building.”
“You know what I mean.”
I turned my hand over under his, our fingers lacing together naturally like they’d done it before.
“Yeah,” I said. “You can see me again.”
He smiled, and for the first time in weeks, so did I.
The car dropped me home just after midnight. I stood outside my building in the cool night air, heels in my hand, replaying the evening in my head.
Just then, my phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number.
I opened it and instantly felt the blood drain from my face.
It was a photo of me and Adrian. Taken tonight, through the restaurant window. The candlelight catching both our faces, his hand over mine on the table.
The caption underneath read: *Didn’t waste any time did you? whore.*
Someone had been watching us.
- Writer
