Chapter 255: A Little Vain
Chapter 255: A Little Vain
Giselle looked at the hand Melinda had offered and felt her own expression cool by degrees.
She had not wanted trouble. Elias was beside her, they were overseas, and this trip was supposed to be quiet. A stranger’s persistence was not worth turning a hotel lobby into a scene.
But Melinda had ignored them once, then twice, then deliberately blocked their path. Worse, she had done it while Elias was standing there. Giselle could tolerate someone trying to speak to her. She had spent years being stared at, approached, and treated like an invitation by people who had never learned the difference between interest and entitlement.
She would not let someone keep disrupting Elias’s evening.
Giselle drew breath to answer.
Then a calm voice spoke at her side in flawless English.
"What exactly do you want?"
She turned.
At some point, Elias had removed his glasses.
Without them, his face seemed to sharpen into something entirely different. The frames normally softened him, hiding the vivid green of his eyes and making him look like an ordinary college student who happened to be a little too pretty. Now nothing concealed him. His features were clean and almost painfully striking, every line balanced with the sort of precision that made people stop before they knew why.
Melinda had ignored him until now.
She had decided that the dark-haired boy next to Giselle was nothing special. Maybe he was a friend. Maybe a tagalong. Maybe he had simply gotten lucky and ended up traveling with a woman like Giselle Frost.
The thought had amused her.
Then Elias looked directly at her.
Melinda forgot how to breathe for a beat.
The boy she had dismissed had not become handsome. He had become impossible to dismiss. His face looked sculpted, too refined to be real, with a brightness that did not fit the tired, expensive lobby around him. Melinda’s original purpose, getting Giselle’s contact information, was abruptly replaced by a much more urgent question.
Elias repeated himself, still serious.
"What do you want?"
Melinda stared.
Then, before she could stop herself, she blurted, "Honey, how are you this beautiful?"
Elias blinked.
That was not the response he had prepared for.
He had taken off his glasses because he intended to end the interruption. In his head, the sequence had been simple. Let Melinda see that the person beside Giselle was more attractive. Let her lose confidence. Let her leave.
Instead, Melinda was staring at him.
Because Giselle stood nearby, Elias did what his role required. A little color touched his cheeks. His gaze slipped away, and he pressed his lips together like he did not know how to respond to a compliment that direct.
Melinda became even more excited.
"Your skin," she said. "It looks unreal. What do you use? Please, you have to tell me. Is it a facial? A doctor? Something from Korea? I need to know."
Elias’s eyes widened slightly.
Melinda leaned closer, all attention on him now. "Can I touch your hand?"
Her arm came toward him.
Giselle moved before the question had fully settled.
One arm wrapped around Elias’s shoulders, pulling him against her. She stepped back with him, putting a clean distance between Elias and Melinda’s reaching fingers. Her gaze was icy.
If Melinda had only approached her, Giselle could have ignored it. A stranger’s interest did not matter. But reaching toward Elias, after he had clearly shown no interest in speaking, crossed a line she had no patience for.
Giselle looked down at him first.
"Are you okay?"
Elias looked genuinely at a loss. He had not expected the stranger to become interested in him, and the sudden attention had left his planned answer stranded somewhere behind his teeth.
Melinda noticed too.
Her mouth opened in alarm. "I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just curious." She looked at Elias with open admiration. "You really are beautiful. Please tell me how you take care of your skin."
"Natural," Giselle said.
The word was sharp.
Then she faced Melinda directly. "Move."
For the first time, Melinda looked at Giselle with something less than warmth.
The silver-haired woman had become inconvenient. At first, she had seemed like the obvious person to approach. Now the situation had reversed. Melinda wanted to ask the pretty boy questions, perhaps invite him for a drink, perhaps find out whether he was staying nearby. Giselle’s hand around his shoulders made it obvious that none of those options would be easy.
"Fine," Melinda said.
She stepped aside.
Giselle kept Elias close as they passed her, as though the lobby had become dangerous simply because Melinda was still standing in it.
"Wait," Melinda called after them.
Neither stopped.
"Sweetheart, what room are you staying in?"
Giselle bent toward Elias’s ear and said something too low for Melinda to catch.
Elias did not answer.
Melinda watched them disappear toward the elevators. She lifted her chin with a quiet huff.
Fine.
She had misjudged the situation. It was not that the silver-haired woman had somehow found a plain little companion. The girl had found someone breathtaking and then become absurdly possessive about him.
Still, it was a hotel. A very expensive one, yes, but not endless. If she wanted to see him again, she would.
That thought restored the smallest smile to her face.
Giselle had not meant the embrace to look possessive. In her mind, she had simply moved Elias out of reach. Protecting a friend from an intrusive stranger was ordinary. Keeping her hand at his shoulder while they crossed the lobby was ordinary too. She had already decided that Elias belonged high in the private order she kept for people around her, and those at the top received a level of care most people never saw.
The trouble was that nothing about it looked ordinary from the outside.
Elias did not point that out. He only let himself be guided toward the elevator, his fingers lightly gathering at the fabric of her sleeve. The small gesture felt trusting rather than deliberate, and Giselle’s hold eased instead of falling away.
"Don’t pay attention to her," Giselle murmured.
Her breath brushed Elias’s ear.
Heat raced across his skin so quickly that the tips of his ears went pink.
"Okay," he said, too softly.
Giselle seemed to notice the reaction, but she did not comment. She only kept her arm around him until the elevator doors opened and the lobby vanished behind them.
The suite waiting upstairs was exactly what Elias expected from a Frost booking.
A private foyer opened into a broad living space with pale stone floors, low modern furniture, and windows that framed the ocean without letting the heat in. Beyond it lay a bedroom larger than the old house Elias had returned to after the garage. A private terrace wrapped along the water-facing side. Somewhere farther in, there was likely a plunge pool, a second sitting room, and enough closets to make Marlene reconsider every choice in her life.
The concierge who had escorted them in began politely, "Allow me to show you both around the suite, including the—"
"That will not be necessary," Giselle said.
The concierge nodded at once.
"Of course, Ms. Frost. If you need anything, use the in-room service line. I’ll make sure your request is handled immediately."
She gave a discreet bow, backed out, and closed the door.
Only then did Giselle release Elias.
Their body heat had built up during the walk through the lobby. Even with the suite cooled, warmth lingered where her arm had held him. A fine sheen of sweat had formed along Elias’s forehead, and his cheeks were flushed, making the pale skin beneath them look almost pink.
He looked up at her.
"Giselle," he said. "What did you want to say earlier?"
Giselle’s expression shifted.
"Why did you speak to her?"
Elias’s mind moved quickly.
He could hardly admit that Melinda had interrupted his plans and therefore endangered his retirement schedule. That would not sound good, even by his standards. The truth had to be rearranged into something Giselle would accept.
He wet his dry lips, looked at her once, then dropped his gaze. The movement made him look younger, almost sheepish.
"She was trying to flirt with you," he said. "I thought I could help make her go away."
Giselle waited.
"Then why did you take off your glasses?"
Elias had expected the familiar flash of jealousy from Giselle when someone approached him. He had expected her to become cool, perhaps decisive, and help him remove an inconvenience. He had not expected the stranger to ignore Giselle almost completely after seeing him. The plan had succeeded in the most inconvenient possible direction.
Still, Giselle had pulled him out of reach without hesitation.
That part had gone exactly as he liked.
Elias looked down at the glasses still resting in his hand.
Giselle had noticed something long ago. With the glasses, Elias looked softer. More ordinary. Without them, the difference was dramatic enough that people sometimes needed a second look. She assumed it was his eyes. They were too bright, his lashes too dark, and the shape of his gaze made every expression seem more vivid when nothing stood between it and the world.
Elias was quiet for a moment.
Then he said, "I thought that if she saw my face properly, she would stop trying to talk to you."
The statement took Giselle a second to understand.
He meant he believed he was prettier than Melinda.
He believed that Melinda would see him, lose interest in Giselle, and turn away.
Giselle stared at him.
It was not the usual version of Elias she knew. He was often sweet, sometimes calculating, and far too willing to turn himself into a victim when the moment called for it. This was something else. A small private vanity. A selfish little confidence he did not usually show.
It should not have made him more endearing.
It did.
Giselle reached out and curled one finger against the bridge of his nose, giving it a light, fond tap.
"You’re vain," she said.