Chapter 0005

Elodie's POV

"Where are you going?" I questioned, turning down the radio he'd amped in the hopes of drowning out the uncomfortable silence.

"Work...As you demanded."

"I can't show up wearing your clothes!" He looked out of the corner of his eye for a mere second before reclaiming his focus on the road. Shaking his head as he readjusted in his seat before letting out an aggravated breath.

"Everyone is going to think the only reason I got this job is because we're sleeping together!" The expression now cast across his face was anything but ease with the majority of it being worn in his eyes. It was a look he'd only given me once before. When he was healing me in his garage and we became lost in the foreign sensation of each other. At least it had been that way for me.

"I can have one of the girls loan you something..."

"I cannot show up on my first day asking for clothes. Do you have any idea how women work? You are judged within the first second of meeting them. I already feel like I don't belong there, I don't need help..."

"Five minutes. I'm already late." I began to deliver directions he took in silence before we pulled to my apartment. Set on the shady side of the town, every pair of eyes that caught his luxurious car park where it had were nearly raised to their hairlines. For its owner, he seemed unphased by the attention as he began to walk me in the direction of the front door.

"There's no lock?"

"Something with budgets I think."

"That isn't safe."

"Says the guy who got me shot by an arrow." With a dramatic flare of my hair thrown in his face with a turn, I pushed up the two sets of stairs, and to my apartment.

"My keys! I left them at-" Removing a ring from his pocket, he held it to view.

"I was going to return them to you."

"Mmhmm." I teased, pushing the door with force as it had a habit of sticking. He took a step to follow as I turned in just enough time for my hand to become pressed between us both.

"You can wait out here."

"You embarrassed of something Miss Carson?" It would be easier to explain the parts I wasn't. The erotic romance book left marked by a coupon unread on my coffee table. The excess of mail I'd 'ignored' in the hopes it would eventually disappear on its own. Even the laundry I had in piles throughout the space, picking pieces of importance throughout the week. Not to mention the foods weeks past their expiration date or the fact my taste for art was what a girl down the hall drew for me that hung proudly on my fridge.

"Well I can't be polite and be out in five minutes...so..." He peeked over my shoulder which was easy to do given our difference in height, but I closed the door before he could make any theories on my living situation.

"Five minutes." I spoke again, closing the door with a cruel shove, and knocking him back into the hallway.

While beneath the spray of my shower, I tried to think of what the day would entail. Grey Alluna was a man of a cement mindset who treated his clients in the only compassion he could seem to exercise, and yet I was now pledging myself to him for the fact I was infatuated with the idea of this new life I'd uncovered. Something that should have been impossible was suddenly engrained in my memory as truth.

I dried quickly, running a brush through my hair, before committing it to a high bun with tendrils pulled loose for some sense of an attempt to style. Using a light layer of foundation, mascara, and blush, I then scurried to my room. Pushing away the pajamas on the top of the laundry mound in this room, I searched for undergarments that would make me feel confident before continuing onward. I was bent over, at least four different outfits hanging out of my arms, before the banging began on the door.

I hurried again, dressing in a blouse and then the skirt, leaving it open as I threw the door ajar. He pushed his hand against the frame, nearly sliding me backward, as he made his way inside.

"You live here?"

"Sorry it isn't up to par but even people here know to knock..." His eyes darted to my physique long enough to redden my cheeks by how I was in disarray. The sight of my undergarments was visible in the unzipped side of my skirt and the way I pulled my shirt closed as I didn't have time to button it properly.

"And most people have a sense of time. Mine you seem to enjoy wasting. In case you were wondering, it isn't in the job description." I turned away, dressing in quick succession, before returning to him. Tucking my blouse into my skirt and finalizing with a belt, I saw him standing in silence.

"You're wearing this?" He wasn't asking about my current ensemble but about what I had yet to wear. A pair of silk stockings that were a gift from my roommate who was currently traveling abroad for her job in photography. I think she was in Thailand the last time we talked and three months behind on her portion of the rent.

"Is it against the dress code or something?" Again, I was ignored as he made himself at home throughout my apartment. Silently critiquing my sense of style made up of novelty decorations lining my kitchen to the books I hoped he wouldn't know the summaries of at first look, he ended up standing at the edge of my hall in view of my room. Surely having something embarrassing on display, I slipped past him and closed it with a quick slam.

"This is hardly habitable."

"I manage." He scoffed, flicking a loose blind.

"It's falling apart. There's a broken window jimmied closed with a bungee chord, your closet is sections of your floor, and I would wager my entire net worth that there are at least two different kinds of mold here, aside from what's in your fridge. It isn't safe."

"Let me worry about where I sleep. Now let's go." I was cold, tugging a jacket over my arms as his words weren't untrue, but that's what made them so annoying. The fact he cared about my living situation in a way nobody else had since I moved. Maybe ever.

"You'll shadow Lydia today. She'll show you the ropes of what's expected. Consider this probation. But make no mistake, Miss Carson, you aren't here because you earned this job. You're here because you aren't safe at another one." His words were kind enough to elicit something other than rage as a reaction, but it still wasn't enough to become anything more than acquaintances at best. Not that I wanted that. We might actually end up killing each other if we were anything else. So why was it even a thought?

"And not that I have to tell you, but if anyone finds out about what you saw you'll be labeled insane but it will be enough to cast a light on me that I don't want. Do you understand?" I nodded.

"Good. Now come to my office at the end of the day. We'll see if you're welcome back tomorrow." My head was reeling with the hot-and-cold that was Grey Alluna. One moment he was calculating and tense, always keeping himself at a distance in everything from emotion to physical proximity. The next, he was compassionate and careful in a way that was almost subtle if you didn't know his usual crass behavior. But it wasn't the way he was at a distance that made me uneasy, but the fact that every interaction we had managed to have an effect between my thighs...