Love and Other Wicked Games (A Wicked Game Novel) by Olivia Fuller Page A

with. And he didn’t want that for me. Neither did my mother. They wanted me to have a say in the way I lived.”
    “And so you do.” Cal’s eyes drifted to a far off place that Ellie could not quite understand. “It is a rare and precious thing to have full control of your life. So very few people have that opportunity…”
    “Are you alright?” Ellie asked though she was almost certain this was another one of those things he wouldn’t tell her.
    His eyes snapped in her direction and he inhaled deeply. “Perfectly fine. I was just thinking.”
    “About what?”
    “Don’t you want to be married?” he asked.
    Ellie could tell this was not what he had been thinking about, but before she could delve any further, Cal began to laugh.
    “How did I end up on this side of the discussion? Never thought I’d see the day…”
    “It is a bit of a twist on the conventional, isn’t it?” She smiled and shook her head, letting her other questions drift away for the time being. “And, yes, I do want to get married. Eventually. I’ve always just been too busy and had too many other important things in my life to give it much thought, but I suppose I want to do it one day. Yes.”
    “That’s it, is it? You’ve just been too busy doing other things?” Cal seemed to find this rather amusing, but not in the sense that he found it wrong or bad. Instead, something about the sound of his voice told her he approved. It made her feel wonderful and warm.
    And flustered.
    “Mostly. But that’s not all.” She clasped her fingers together again tightly and took a deep breath. “You see, my Aunt Mary—the one I’m named after, which is why I go by Ellie so as not to confuse things—she always says—well, her husband told her and now she says it... anyway—that if you’re going to spend your life with someone it might as well be someone you like...” She frowned. “Well, she’s not really my aunt. She’s my mother’s first cousin which I suppose would make her my first cousin once removed... And I don’t even call her Aunt Mary. I call her Mary… but that’s not the point either, anyway...” Ellie rubbed her eyes, and shrugged. “I haven’t found anyone I like yet.”
    “This whole wide world and you haven’t found anyone you like yet?” Cal’s eyes widened and he tilted his head to the side. “That sounds rather miserable.”
    “Oh, it’s not like that. I mean I suppose that I’ve liked some people. Maybe even liked some people more than others but…”
    “So, what was wrong with them? You didn’t like them enough?”
    “Precisely. I mean there’s a difference.” Ellie gestured her left hand in front of her chest from left to right as she made her next two points. “There’s a difference between liking a person… and liking a person, you know?”
    “Oh, I know that very well. But that’s not what I’m getting at. I’m having a rather hard time imagining that in your whole entire life you’ve never liked anyone that much.”
    Cal turned and put his feet on the floor looking at her straight on for a moment before finally getting up off the bed and approaching her. He was within arm’s reach of her when he finally stopped. He was too close for Ellie’s comfort. Their kiss flashed through her mind and she knew her cheeks would be red in an instant.
    He leaned towards her. “Never?”
    Ellie shook her head silently and turned away.
    She felt his breath brush across the back of her neck and tickle her ear. “Not even one person?”
    “Not even one.” Ellie quickly pivoted back in his direction where she found that he’d leaned down and they were now nearly face to face. “Are you trying to make me say that I like you? You’re trying to make me say that I like you, aren’t you?”
    “I would never do that.”
    “No?”
    “No.”
    “And why is that?”
    “It’s a waste of energy.”
    “How so?”
    “It’s pointless to force someone to do something they’re bound to do in their