Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

Elaine

Ishould have been getting used to the feelings of abject fear that hit me when I was waiting for Lucian to return to me, but still they floored me. I paced, worried, thinking, staring at my new cell phone and hoping for something, anything from him.

I had no idea about the people he was meeting up with. I had no idea what they would want from him, or what the meeting would lead to, or if they’d already sold him out to his father back home. I could only hope and pray.

I flicked on the TV and British news was quite different to the US. The stories were about politics and football and their National Health Service. My kidnapping was just a short snippet, people talking about how investigations were ongoing. Drama, but in no way the drama I was used to. It felt so much quieter here.

Just a shame my heart was anything but quiet as it raced and thumped, desperate for Lucian to walk back through the door.

I guess that’s why I did the unthinkable and dialed Tristan’s number at 5 p.m. I knew it by heart, like a mantra. He’d been my best friend since I’d met him in his own world of abuse when I ran away from home in my teens, and that kind of bond gets etched into your heart forever…along with their telephone number, it seems. I was justifying it to myself as I heard his line ringing.

“Hello?”

His voice was such a relief I had to let out a breath.

“Tristan!”

“Elaine?! Just…my God! Elaine!”

Hearing the relief in his voice matching my own was absolutely divine. I felt like a kid again as he kept on gushing.

“Oh my fucking God, Elaine! I thought you were dead! Where are you?! Just what the fuck are you doing?!”

And that’s when I told him.

That’s when I began a whole fresh round of pacing, gave a massive sigh and told him everything, friend to friend.

I told him about how the Power Brothers had been coming for me, and I was counting down the days until they wiped me out. I told him how crazy things had been with Lucian Morelli and how I’d hoped he’d wipe me out before the Power Brothers did, since he hated me so damn much.

Only he hadn’t hated me. He couldn’t. Just as I couldn’t hate him.

I told Tristan how I was in the process of ending my own life when Lucian turned up at my apartment and blackmailed me into going along with him, only it hadn’t turned out like that. It had turned out anything but blackmail to get me to stay in Bishop’s Landing.

Tristan listened as I told him the whole crazy story.

I finally poked him for a response when I was done with the bulk of it, needing to hear his voice again.

“Well, does that make sense? Do you get it?”

It was his turn to let out a massive sigh. “Seriously, Lainey, I’m just so glad you’re still alive that I couldn’t give a fuck who you’re with anymore.”

“You mean that?” I asked him. “You really don’t give a fuck that I’m on the run with Lucian Morelli?”

“No,” he said. “Just stay alive, will you? Things are insane over here. People asking questions. People looking for you. People wanting to know why the fuck Lucian Morelli was hunting you across NYC.” He paused. “They are saying he did it now, you know? They think he kidnapped and killed you and went on the run for it.”

I couldn’t hold back a smile. “Yeah, well, he didn’t.”

He sighed again. “Yeah, and I can hear just how gooey you are about the piece of shit. I damn well knew you’d fall for him. From the very moment you told me about him grabbing you at Tinsley’s ball, I knew you’d go crazy over the bastard.”

He wasn’t wrong on that score.

I nearly leapt out of my skin when my cell phone bleeped with a call waiting to come in. My fingers were shaking in an instant as I knew it was him. Lucian. It couldn’t be anyone else.

“Got to go,” I said to Tristan. “I’ll be in touch though.”

“Just don’t come back here!” he told me. “The Constantines and the Morellis are about to start a war, and they’ll take you out. Both families will take you out. I’ve had people from both sides asking me questions.”

I blustered out a fresh chunk of goodbyes and picked up the call from Lucian with a gasp.

“All good,” he said. “On my way back. Pack our things, get ready to go. Quickly.”

“Ready to go?” I asked. “Ready to go where?!”

“Wait and see,” he replied, and his voice had a dark tease about it.

It gave me shivers of a whole other kind than fear.

With that, he hung up, leaving me hanging.

Hearing he was on his way back was enough of a relief that I dropped down onto the bed, still staring at the screen in shock. I let myself have a minute to collect myself.

All good.

He was alive. Alive and well. Alive and safe.

Thank holy fuck for that.

Pack our things, get ready to go. Quickly.

A simple enough instruction.

I jumped to attention, scouting around the room to pile everything back into the suitcases. Toiletries, a few crappy clothes that needed washing…barely anything worth keeping. I looked around for his things at the same time, but his suitcases were already organized a damn sight better than mine were. He was a whole lot neater by nature.

He walked in the door twenty minutes later and I nearly bowled him over, I launched myself so hard at him.

It was another wail from me, an exclamation that boomed around the room.

“Lucian!”

I had my arms around him in a flash, like a limpet to his chest, pulling back just far enough to check out his expression. Stern. Disapproving. He was well and truly Lucian Morelli again.

He dropped me to the floor. “Are we all packed and ready to go?”

I nodded and pointed to the suitcases on the floor by the bed, feeling like a nervous little doll under the dark gaze of her monster. “Yeah, we’re ready to go.”

“Good, because we have a limo waiting outside.”

“A limo?”

He nodded and gestured to the window. I raced over and looked out at the street below and there it was. A sleek black limo parked and waiting.

I asked the obvious question. “Where are we going?”

He was already picking up the suitcases, still smiling when he met my eyes. “To Henley on Thames. A town on the outskirts of London.”

Henley on Thames sure sounded grand. I could feel the tingle of excitement at the idea of going anywhere with Lucian Morelli, but this was intense, because I could feel it in him, that excitement to match.

I wanted to ask him a million questions, but he didn’t give me the chance. He was too busy getting ready, checking the suitcases were fastened up securely before positioning them ready to go.

“Come on,” he said. “The less time we have to spend in this shithole, the better. I’m well and truly done with it.” His voice was laced with himself. With the Lucian Morelli I’d grown to adore.

I picked up the cruddy suitcase of my own and joined him at the door.

“Ready?” he asked again and I nodded.

“Yeah, I’m ready.”

“Good,” he said, holding the door open as I stepped through to the hotel landing.

I trotted along at his side, heading downstairs. He didn’t bother checking out. Didn’t even look at the reception desk as we walked by to the main entrance, just paced along as him, proud, tall and on a mission to get to where he was going.

Yep, there it was right outside the front doors. The limousine. It felt like a passport into the kind of world I truly thought I’d left behind.

“Farewell, fake fucking IDs,” Lucian growled and I followed him, stepping out into the evening chill.

The driver was suited and gave a little bow as he opened the limo doors for us. I slipped inside and Lucian followed me, pressing up close in the back seat and wrapping his arm around my shoulder as the driver loaded our suitcases into the trunk.

“Here we fucking go,” he said. “Say hello to the start of our whole new life.”

I felt starstruck as we pulled away, still trying to soak in the speed of the change around me. I stared back at the hotel as long as I could until it disappeared from view, feeling a strange attachment to it as we left it behind.

“Talk to me, then,” I said to him. “Where the hell are we going, in a limo, out of the blue? Where is this whole new life?”

He leaned back in his seat, still smirking. “We’re going where we belong, Elaine. To a glorious damn manor house in Henley on Thames.”

Even the thought of being in a manor house was weird. I laughed out loud as I raised my foot from the floorboard, showing him a battered sneaker. “Not sure I belong in a manor house looking like this.”

“Not yet,” he said. “But you will. I assure you, Miss Constantine, you will. You’ll be fitting in there just fine when we get you the wardrobe you belong in.”

He took my hand and pulled it onto his thigh, holding it firm as he kept on talking.

“My initial meeting with Quentin and Ellis went exceptionally well. We have many opportunities to discuss. Many.”

“That’s great,” I said. “So, we’re going to be safe here? We’re really going to be Lucian and Elaine living abroad? Do you think it will be far enough away?”

“Yes, we’re really going to be Lucian and Elaine living abroad. For right now we’re going to be Lucian and Elaine living at the Quentin Estate, on the outskirts of Henley on Thames, staying with our very prestigious associates, Devon and his lovely wife, Francesca.”

He made it sound like these people were supposed to be our very best friends or something, even though I knew he barely had any friends at all. He read my mind.

“It’s amazing how attractive friendship can become to people who want to do business with you,” he said. “Believe me, sweetheart, Devon Quentin most certainly wants to be our friend. He’s dedicated a whole wing to our stay.”

I had never heard of Devon Quentin or his wife, Francesca, but I could tell from Lucian’s tone that they were very important people. I felt weirdly self-conscious at the thought of meeting them with crappy clothes on and not a single scrap of makeup on my face.

“You’ve come up with a deal with him, then?” I pushed. “He wants to form an alliance?”

“Yes, indeed he wants to form an alliance. There are plenty of my assets and associations that he finds very attractive. They should partner up very well with his.” He paused. “And very well with some of his other connections’ assets too. As I said, we have many things to discuss.”

I asked an obvious question. “They should partner up better with yours than with your father’s assets and associations, then?”

“This is the beautiful thing, Elaine,” he told me. “My father hasn’t been running the Morelli empire for years, not truly. People have been dealing with me, singing to my tune, dancing whatever dance I want them to dance. Stepping onto British soil and taking control of a new empire isn’t all that difficult a task. I should have realized that the very moment we stepped off the plane.”

My head was still spinning, not quite sure what the hell to make of it, other than that Lucian Morelli was truly stamping his foot on London, and people were listening. We were headed to a British country manor, with some posh-sounding VIPs, sitting in the back of a limo I only assumed could be theirs.

I sat back in my seat, letting my mind slow down, because there was something strangely comforting about doing that—letting the world twirl around me with Lucian taking the lead. I was tired from all the traveling. Still exhausted at the chaos.

I snuggled up closer to him and he didn’t say much else, just kept holding my hand as I rested my head on his shoulder. I enjoyed the rumble of the open highway as the city eased off around us, the night slowly darkening to twilight. We were traveling for over an hour before the limo pulled off the main road onto a huge sprawling driveway.

Wow, yes, it was impressive.

There were perfectly sculptured trees lining each side of the driveway, and the backdrop waiting for us up ahead was a perfect rich glow of gold from the blaze of window lights.

The people who lived here were most definitely, definitely wealthy.

The limo swung around a fountain and pulled up directly outside the main manor entrance. Lucian helped me out of the back seat once the driver opened the door for us and I stared around admiring the sheer size of the place. It certainly had wings.

A man arrived at the top of the front steps and welcomed us inside. The hallway was cream and huge, with stairs twisting up on either side. Whoa, I felt more self-conscious than ever being so underdressed here. The estate housekeeping staff would be dressed more stylishly than I would in this outfit.

“Mr. Quentin will be with you soon,” the butler said, and Lucian tipped his head in acknowledgement.

My fingers were twiddling but I couldn’t stop them. I felt anything like Elaine Constantine as I waited for our host to arrive to greet us.

We didn’t have to wait very long.

“Lucian!” the guy exclaimed, in an uber posh British accent, and he had a rich boy smile on his face as he paced down through the hallway to meet us, shaking Lucian’s hand in a business-style grasp. “I’m so pleased to have you stay with us.”

I felt shy. Like a silly little girl, out of place.

The guy was tall and broad, in his late forties, minimum. His hair was dark, and his beard was well-trimmed, and he was dressed in tweed.

“This is Elaine,” Lucian said to the guy, introducing me. “Elaine, baby, this is Devon.”

“Hello, Devon,” I said, making sure my own voice was as posh as it should be. “Thank you for having us.”

That’s when another set of footsteps arrived and the guy called Devon gestured our attention behind him, looking proud. “Lucian, Elaine, this is my wife, Francesca. Francesca, this is Lucian and Elaine.”

Holy hell, Francesca was a picture. She was stunning. Absolutely damn stunning. Red hair curled just fine. Scarlet lips and a scarlet dress to match, her smile perfect in a way that lit up her whole perfect face.

“Pleased to meet you,” she said, and took my hand.

I was grinning bright, unbelievably relieved in that moment to see another woman with a smile. “Pleased to meet you, too,” I said, and let them welcome us into their home.

At least for now, we were safe.