He turned and glanced at the table he’d had set with the meal in the center between the plates and felt like a fucking teenager on his first date. This wasn’t even a date, wasn’t anything like that, and never could be. It wasn’t even that she was so much younger than he was. It was because of their history, and the fact he’d been married to Meghan, Freya’s former stepmother. Having anything that wasn’t platonic with Freya felt incredibly inappropriate.
He’d had a professional catering company come in and make the meal and create the place settings. The truth was, Elijah couldn’t cook an edible meal to save his life.
About ten minutes later, Freya was knocking on his front door, and he knew it didn’t take that long to come up from the garage. He could see her standing on the other side of his door and even lingering in the elevator for several minutes, contemplating why she was here, what she was doing, and how things were playing out. Hell, Elijah had thought those things since the moment he first saw her again after four years and especially over the past week.
She didn’t have to tell him she felt something or that the spark of awareness didn’t have anything to do with the fact they knew each other. He’d felt it when he saw her last week, saw it on her face, the way she looked so nervous, so unaware of the electricity that passed between them.
He couldn’t explain it or rationalize it. It just was. But just because Elijah found Freya gorgeous, so fucking gorgeous in fact, that didn’t mean he’d planned this dinner to try to get her in bed. He wouldn’t do that to her. She wouldn’t be just another notch in his bedpost.
She was special, really damn special, to him.
He’d gone so many years living a successful life even though it felt meaningless. Never again would he allow himself to get wrapped up in a pretty face and fall for a woman who didn’t see him as anything but a paycheck like Meghan. But that had been so many years ago, well before he’d made it big.
He just wished he hadn’t been so blind to the person Meghan had really been. He’d been stupid, blinded by superficial things, and he’d missed out on years of his life living with a woman who hadn’t wanted more than what was in his bank account.
No, Freya was different. He’d seen her back in the day as a young woman who didn’t know what she wanted in life or where she was going. She was trapped in a life she didn’t want because that was her only option. But then she’d moved out, moved on, and four years later, she’d made something of herself … found herself. Elijah could see that in her face and in the way she held herself.
He took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly.
Making his way toward the front door, he opened it. Freya was wearing this loose-fitting white blouse with tiny blue buttons going halfway down the front, and it was hard not to notice the way her breasts pressed again the material. She’d thickened out in these past four years, but it was in a good way. She wasn’t too thin, not like the women he’d surrounded himself with since his divorce.
She was perfect all the way around.
“Hi,” she said softly.
“Hi. Come in.” He held the door open and moved to the side, letting her enter. She was looking around at his place as she passed the threshold, and all Elijah could do was stand there. She smelled incredible, and the scent that came from her, all sweet and lemony, had his cock stirring. But he had strong willpower and knew how to control himself, so he stopped his arousal as best as he could. He wouldn’t ruin the relationship with his sexual thoughts, not when they hadn’t seen each other in so long, and that would definitely be going in the wrong direction.
But he’d be lying if he didn’t admit he’d thought about her in the dirtiest of ways, especially during this past week. And that made him feel like a fucking bastard.
She walked in, and he shut the door. For several minutes, he let her look around. He didn’t say anything, yet he couldn’t keep his eyes off her. She was small compared to him, probably at least a foot shorter than his height. The pants she wore did nothing to hide the fact she had a full ass, and he could see her very womanly hourglass figure. God, he felt like a pervert for thinking these things about her and seeing her as some kind of sexual object. But she wasn’t just a sexual object to him. She was Freya, a grown woman he’d felt protective of when he’d been married to that bitch Meghan.