Sinful Longing (Sinful Nights, #3)(33)
Camille’s expression turned serious and she stepped away from the row of skates. She parked her hands on Elle’s shoulders. “You can’t solve every problem. If this is something you can’t do anything about, you need to try not to let it eat away at you. You worry too much, and you take on the weight of everything. And I get it. You’ve had some tough shit to deal with yourself.”
“But do I keep seeing him while knowing this secret and not being able to say it?”
“Do you want to see him?”
Elle nodded. Easiest question of the night.
“If your hands are tied, your hands are tied. You can’t untie them, just like you couldn’t make Sam a better dad,” she said, reminding Elle of how hard she’d tried to fix the things beyond fixing. “Lord knows, if you’re having a nice time with this new guy, you deserve it. Let go of the things you can’t control.” Camille snapped her fingers. “That reminds me of a song. Lace up!”
Elle grabbed a pair of skates, tied them quickly, and rolled over to the rink, eagerly anticipating her sister’s musical choice for her life.
Camille returned to her perch at the mic. “Boys and girls, men and women of all ages. I need to take a break from Vanilla Ice because every now and then we must heed the advice of the one and only Ice Queen, Elsa.”
Elle cracked up over her sister’s choice. Only Camille could find inspiration in the insanely popular Disney song that blared through the rink. Maybe the verses of “Let It Go” weren’t entirely on point where Elle’s problem was concerned, but the chorus and the final few lines gave her something else she needed.
A reminder that this battle wasn’t hers to pick and choose. It wasn’t hers to fight or not fight. All she could do was stand on the sidelines.
Let the storm rage on.
Whatever was brewing in Colin’s life wasn’t Elle’s storm. It would rage on of its own power, whether or not she saw the man again.
*
Later that night, Alex grabbed an extra composition notebook from the school supplies aisle at Target and showed it to Elle. “For planning.”
“Always good to plan for school.”
He shook his head. “Nope. This one is for State of Decay. I came up with a new strategy today, and I want to write it down and test it out, step by step.”
She shook her head, bemused. “Look, sweetie. I’m glad you like the game, but your freshman year of high school starts in about a week, and you do need to start focusing on schoolwork. Maybe we should get you a history review book, and you can work on how World War I began instead of your zombie attack plan.”
“Don’t worry. It was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and I’ll still bring home straight As,” he said, flashing her a toothy smile. He wasn’t exactly a straight-A student, but he earned enough of them that she didn’t stress much about his grades.
She snagged the notebook from him and dangled it like an offering. “Tell you what, mister. I won’t worry about your strategy plans, if you agree to review history facts like that one every day for the next week—before you spend any time on your new project.”
He held out his hand to shake. “Deal.”
She dropped the notebook into the cart. “And now, we are off to find a history review book.”
He shot her a look like she was crazy.
“What? You just said you’d study up on history facts?”
“I will. But seriously, Mom. A book? Maybe an app with history quizzes or something instead?”
She held up a hand, but gave in. “Fine. But track it down by tomorrow, and show it to me.”
He pumped a fist in victory. “Awesome. And listen, I came up with a whole new approach to State of Decay,” he said, his voice rising in excitement as she rolled the cart to the highlighters. “That guy at the center, Colin, told me to.”
She stopped immediately and tilted her head. “He did?” she asked, unsure what to make of Colin’s chat with her son. True, the two had talked before. But still, she was damn curious what they had chatted about.
“He said you just devise a strategy and follow it,” he said, sweeping one hand across the other and pointing forward, like a general launching into battle. “But don’t be afraid to change if it’s not working.”
As he dropped a yellow highlighter onto their pile of supplies, she had her answer. Funny that it came from Colin through her son.
Time for her to change her approach.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
From the twenty-ninth floor of his office building, the icons of the Strip looked like Monopoly hotels. Up here, they became little Lego structures with playful shapes and Lilliputian charm—the pyramid of the Luxor, the miniature Eiffel Tower, the rollercoaster that wrapped around the New York-New York hotel…
The view from miles away was akin to how an idea took shape for Colin. It started small, but as he zoomed in closer it had the potential to become a glittering star on the skyline. That was what he was looking for today from his team of venture capitalists as they presented the startups they were considering funding.
When Larsen, one of the youngest and brightest staffers at Redwood Mountain Ventures, finished his presentation, Colin leaned forward in his chair, ready with questions.
“What is your risk analysis? Is it worth it?” Colin asked, wishing he could apply a simple mathematical formula to understanding Elle and her radio silence like he did with scrappy little startups. But as Larsen shared both the potential of the advertising tech firm under consideration as well as the risk, Colin was reminded once again that even black-and-white business decisions weren’t rubber stamped through mathematical equations. There was no formula to tell if a company was the next PayPal, Google, or Uber.