Taking Shots (Assassins, #1)(80)
“Eleanor,” he said, kissing her cheeks. He smiled up at Shea, shaking his hand hard, “Shea, how are you? So glad you could come.”
“I’m good, thank you for having me,” Shea said as he pulled out the chair for Elli beside her dad, Elli smiled up at him as she sat. Michael sat down as Shea pulled out the puffy chair and sank down it. It had to be the most comfortable chair he had ever sat in. He looked at Elli and Michael to see if they thought the chairs were awesome, but they were settling in, not paying attention to him or basking in the awesomeness of the chair like he was. Nothing was said as a waitress came up, getting their drink orders.
“I’m surprised you’re not working, Eleanor,” Michael said after taking a drink of his water, Elli looked up from her nails that she was picking at. He was starting to notice that as a nervous habit of hers.
“I took the weekend off since Shea is leaving tomorrow night. Alice and Ryan are doing the weddings I had today, and Jack, Alice’s brother is doing the birthdays.”
Michael nodded his head, “Where’s Harper?”
“She took off this weekend, too. Her boyfriend is actually Jakob Titov, so she is spending the weekend with him,” Elli said with a grin, Michael smiled.
“Boyfriend, huh? Interesting.”
“To say the least.” They shared a laugh before Michael looked over at Shea.
“I really am glad to see you, Shea. When I called Eleanor this morning and she said she’d call you, I have to say I was surprised. I could have sworn after last night you would run for the hills,” Shea smiled as Michael laughed, and Elli looked nervous. “Sometimes I wonder about my family, me and Eleanor here are the only normal ones, I think, would you think so darling?”
“Yes, daddy,” Elli answered with grin as the waitress came back for the orders. He ordered different from them; he went for the classic bacon and eggs with pancakes, while Elli and her dad got sausage, eggs, and grits. Even though he lived in the south, he couldn’t do the damn grits, they were disgusting in his opinion. Elli smiled at him, knowing what he was thinking since they had had this discussion before.
“You know, Shea, Olivia is quick to point out Elli’s failures, but not her accomplishments.”
“I noticed that,” Shea said reaching for his glass of orange juice. “Why is that?”
“Oh, it’s simple, she’s jealous.” Shea found himself choking on his orange juice. That was probably the last thing he expected Michael to say.
“Excuse me?”
“It’s simple, really. She wanted to be on Broadway, and she wanted to marry into the Yates family. When Elli done both, Olivia was livid, but then Elli got real sick, and she wasn’t kicked off Broadway like Olivia tells everyone, she was asked to lose the weight but couldn’t so she never went back, and even when she did lose the weight, she was already in her new career and I guess she never wanted to go back.”
“It isn’t that I didn’t want to go back, daddy, it’s just I don’t know if I’m as good as I was. I mean I used to sing every day, now I only do it in the shower or when I’m driving.”
“But you’re happy?” he asked. Elli looked over at Shea. She beamed at him, before looking back at her dad.
“I am.”
“Then it is done with, but for some reason your mother can’t let it go,” He reached for Elli’s hand, squeezing it lightly as he looked at Shea, “and then the thing with that piece of shit Justin, thank God, she got rid of him. He told everyone he left her, but I know he would never leave her, he had it too good with her,” Michael leaned back, letting the waitress give him his food, Elli was looking down at her plate, a little red covering her cheeks. After the waitress placed their food down, Michael continued “You know, with the trust fund and the inherence from her grandparents and the inherence she will get from her uncle, then the part from me, she is a valuable thing to have, not only money wise, that’s not what I mean, darling.”
“I know, daddy,” Elli said with a smile just for him.
Michael looked back at Shea, and said, “But because she is the most amazing girl in world, right baby girl?”
“Daddy..,” Elli groaned with blush covering her cheeks.
Whoa, Shea was missing something. He looked over at Elli as Michael looked over at her, too.
“Now darlin’ I haven’t embarrassed you have I? I’m sorry.”
She shook her head, smiling weakly at him, “No, daddy, I just haven’t told Shea all that.”
They both looked at him as he placed his fork down, “So what? Are you loaded or something?”
Elli shook her head yes, “I didn’t think it mattered.”
“It doesn’t, but you know I’m loaded,” He didn’t want to argue with her in front of her dad, but damn it! She had kept so much from him. “Babe, you haven’t told me anything.”
“I have. I didn’t tell you about my past or my money, everything else is what’s important. Is this going to be an issue?”
He narrowed his eyes at her, she had a little sass to her voice, and it was pissing him off, “Should it? Because since you didn’t tell me, you must have thought I would make an issue of it.”
“No, I just didn’t tell you cause you see the way these people around here treat me. I don’t want you to treat me different.”