Chapter 205: Chapter 205: Time to End It
Chapter 205: Time to End It
For a second after Elias landed in Victoria Frost’s lap, he went still.
Then instinct caught up.
He braced one hand against the arm of the lounge chair and tried to rise, but an arm slid across his waist before he could get his feet under him. Victoria did not yank him back. She did not need to. Her hold settled over him with calm, practiced strength, and Elias found himself pinned neatly against her without a single ugly movement.
He tested it once.
No use.
So he stopped.
There was no point in wasting effort when the answer had already been given. He let himself sit there, held in Victoria’s lap, his expression settling back into something almost calm.
The photo. The timing. The car waiting downstairs. The private combat studio. The tie in her hand.
Now this.
If he still could not read the room, he deserved to be fired from the Trash Trope Intervention Division.
Elias tried to turn his head, but the angle made it impossible to look at her directly. His body was flexible, not made of rubber. After a brief pause, he shifted on purpose, leaning into the bend of Victoria’s arm as though he had chosen the position himself. Only then did he manage to look up at her.
Their faces were too close.
Not close enough for their breath to touch skin, but close enough for it to gather in the air between them. Close enough that the faintest move forward would make the space feel deliberate.
Elias met her eyes.
Victoria’s gaze carried the same elegance she wore everywhere, but underneath it sat something stronger. Not hunger, not exactly. Control. A woman used to deciding how long a thing lasted, how deeply it cut, and when it ended.
Elias exhaled softly.
"Mrs. Frost," he said, voice light, "what is this? Did your hand slip, or are you actually trying to sleep with me?"
The words came out too blunt for the obedient boy he usually played around her.
It was too sudden. The lap. The tie. The photograph. For a moment, he let one layer of the performance peel back.
His mouth was shameless. His eyes stayed clean.
That contradiction was deliberate, and it was ugly in the most useful way. A filthy line from a face that still looked pure enough to trust could make plenty of women lose their minds.
Victoria did not.
She smiled, still graceful, still faintly amused, the perfect picture of an elder who had only said something teasing to a child.
"Why?" Her red lips curved. "Am I not allowed?"
Elias thought, You know damn well you are not allowed.
Old menace. Stealing your daughter’s man? Have some shame.
The obedient softness he had worn around Victoria faded another inch. His face cooled.
"No."
Victoria showed no anger at being refused. She leaned back slightly, making herself more comfortable while keeping him exactly where she wanted him. "Why? Age? Position? Personality?"
Elias said nothing.
"If it is position, I can be less formal with you later. I wouldn’t want you to feel so restrained." Her tone was gentle enough to sound reasonable. "If it is personality, I think coaxing little boys is simple enough."
She paused there, as if turning over the final excuse in her mind.
"And age," she continued, "that doctor from tonight. When I was still at Westbridge, I crossed paths with her on campus."
Elias’s eyes widened a fraction.
There it was.
Yvonne Quinn could touch him, so why not Victoria Frost?
The logic was rude, bold, and annoyingly hard to dismiss on the surface. Victoria was older than Yvonne, but not enough to be removed from the same world. If anything, Victoria held a different kind of appeal. More mature. More composed. More dangerous in the patient way only older power could be dangerous.
There was a maternal quality to her that none of the other women had.
That did not mean Elias was tempted.
His expression turned complicated for a breath, then flattened again.
"It has nothing to do with any of that." He was quiet for a while before adding, "I sleep with people based on feeling."
He had already been polite.
If Victoria kept pushing, he was going to start saying things that were much less polite.
Victoria seemed to know exactly where his thoughts had gone.
The arm around his waist tightened once, then lifted him as easily as if he weighed nothing. She placed him on the cushion beside her and released him.
"What a shame," she said. "No feeling means no forcing it."
Elias finally let out the breath he had been holding.
He nodded with great sincerity. "Exactly. You can’t force chemistry."
The second the words left his mouth, he regretted them.
Victoria’s smile sharpened by the smallest amount. She looked as if she might say chemistry did not need to be sweet to be useful.
Thankfully, she had her own pride.
Victoria Frost was not Serena Blackwood. She could pressure, test, corner, and imply. She could sit with her bare feet crossed after a fight and make a room feel like it belonged to her. But she did not have Serena’s appetite for direct seizure.
Giselle had inherited more from her than Elias had first thought.
Victoria changed which leg was crossed. Her long fingers came to rest against her thigh, tapping once, twice, quiet against the fabric.
"I called you here this late," she began.
Elias’s gaze sharpened.
Finally.
"Because wanting to sleep with you was one reason."
Elias looked at her with open exhaustion.
Victoria laughed at his face, a low, elegant sound, and shook her head as if she had only been teasing. "You have done well recently."
Elias lowered his eyes modestly. "I only followed your instructions."
And tossed the blame right back where it belonged.
Your daughter was given to me by you, Mrs. Frost. I did not break into the house and ask to ruin her.
Victoria accepted the sentence without blinking. "You did more than follow instructions. You achieved what I wanted. I have seen Giselle’s growth. Compared with before, she is steadier. More willing to lower her head when lowering it is necessary. She even knows how to come home now."
Elias smiled. "That is the power of love."
"Yes." Victoria’s lips lifted. "Love."
For a moment, her gaze shifted away from him, landing somewhere across the empty lounge. The smile disappeared from her face as cleanly as a light turning off.
"Has she fallen in love with you?"
The change came too quickly.
Elias did not answer right away. He measured the air, weighed the question, then chose honesty because a lie would be too easy to catch.
"Not yet," he said. "Love takes time. Even love at first sight is usually just attraction dressed up nicely. At most, it is liking someone. It is nowhere near love." He looked back at Victoria. "Do you want her to love me? If you give me more time, I can make that happen."
"That’s enough."
Victoria lifted the hand that had been tapping against her leg.
The interruption was light, almost lazy, but it cut through the room.
Then she smiled again, eyes curved with a mature, almost devastating charm. "This level is enough."
Elias seemed to understand something. He tested it anyway. "But Giselle and I are only friends right now."
"Then separate as friends," Victoria said. "You have already done enough."
There it was.
The room went still around him.
Elias understood everything.
The photo had not been sent only to frighten him. The lap had not been only a tease. The tie had not been only a warning. Victoria had laid the whole thing out piece by piece, and now she had finally said the last line aloud.
It was time to end it.
Elias’s first judgment of Victoria had been correct.
She loved Giselle.
Not gently. Not simply. Not in a way that made her soft. But she loved her.
Otherwise, she would never have spent this much thought shaping her daughter. Giselle was the Frost heir, yes, and that alone would be enough reason for harsh training. But Victoria was not only protecting a legacy. She was protecting her child.
At first, Victoria had wanted Elias to make Giselle grow. If nothing went wrong, she would likely have let the play continue until Giselle truly loved him. Only then would the final test arrive. Only then would Elias be required to leave her, forcing Giselle to survive loss, humiliation, and desire without collapsing.
That had probably been the original plan.
But somewhere along the way, Victoria had seen through him.
She had looked at the boy who smiled too sweetly, cried too easily, and claimed to want nothing. She had seen the appetite underneath.
Elias did not want money from Giselle. He did not want the Frost name. He did not want gifts, status, protection, or a clean little campus romance.
He wanted the one thing Victoria could not allow him to take.
Giselle’s heart.
Not part of it. Not a crush. Not the harmless warmth of a first attachment.
All of it.
He wanted to strip Giselle of the ability to love anyone else cleanly. He wanted her dizzy, displaced, and loyal to the wound he left behind. He wanted her to remember him until no other light could reach the same place.
Victoria had seen that.
So she stopped him now.
Before like became love.
Before friendship became claim.
Before the lesson turned into permanent damage.
Troublesome woman.
Elias lowered his eyes and looked at his hands resting over his knees.
For a while, he said nothing.
Then he laughed softly.
When he raised his head again, his eyes were bright and clear, his voice gentle enough to sound almost affectionate.
"You’re going to spoil Giselle rotten, Mrs. Frost."
