Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Three

Elaine

Waking up with a sore pussy was something I could happily get used to. I don’t know what time we eventually fell asleep, but it was late. Lucian had played with me for hours, only giving me his cum when I was so used up I couldn’t come for him anymore.

I reached out for my lover by my side, eager to snuggle in, but he wasn’t there. I jolted, looking around the room for him, but he was nowhere to be seen.

There was only a note on the bedside table.

See you later, princess.

Of course he’d gone. He was Lucian Morelli. He’d probably been signing deals for his new empire since six in the morning, regardless of what time we went to bed. It made me smile to myself. He was truly back to him again. Only I wasn’t back to me. I wasn’t the old Elaine Constantine hiding behind drinks and parties and feeling ashamed of herself behind a sheen of glamor. I was someone else. A new Elaine with all the positives of my old self with a whole host of new ones.

And that was all thanks to the man I once believed to be a monster.

I reached for my cell from the bedside table and there was a message waiting for me. Tristan. The only one besides Lucian with my number.

His words were simple.

Call me when you get this. URGENT!!

I checked out the time. It was 10 a.m. It would be 5 a.m. back home. I weighed it up, but the instruction was clear. There was that little instinctive feeling of worry that couldn’t be shaken off. My finger pressed the call button and I waited for it to connect, telling myself I’d give him just a few seconds to pick up, in case he was sleeping, but he wasn’t. He answered in a beat.

“Lainey, thank fuck you called. You’re all over the news here in a whole other way.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “What other way?”

“They’ve figured out who it is. They figured out it’s Lucian Morelli. The gossip blogs are saying he’s with you, and you are a fucking couple.”

For once the gossip channels were surprisingly accurate. Made a change. Still, the thought that people were talking about it, realizing it, gossiping about it…our families would be realizing it, too. Shit!

“They’ll be coming after you,” Tristan said, stating the obvious. “You know that. They’ll be coming after you damn quick.”

“Yeah, I do know that,” I said. “We both do. Me and Lucian.”

“You gonna run again, then?” he asked me. “Get the hell out of London whatever you do. That’s where the rumors say you are.”

I bit my lip before I answered, registering just how brazen our plans were to step out together over here and let the world know we belonged together.

“You are going to run, right?” Tristan asked.

“No,” I told him. “We’re not. We’re going to a West End show together this weekend.”

He took a breath. He actually sucked in a breath. “Are you both out of your fucking minds? You know they’ll come for you!”

Yes, I knew that, but I also had faith in Lucian, and how strong he was in forging our new life here and making it secure. I didn’t even try telling Tristan that, because his faith in the monster who knocked him unconscious wasn’t likely to be all that high.

“We’ll be alright,” I said. “We have plans.”

“Don’t do this, Lainey. Please, don’t do this. They’ll try to kill you. Run away!”

I sounded weirdly self-assured when I answered, with a strength in my tone I didn’t expect to hear. “I don’t want to run away,” I told him. “I want to stand by Lucian. They can come for us if they like, but I’m going to be alongside him, in the spotlight for everyone to see.”

“Then you’re fucking insane. Call me when you come to your damn senses,” he said, and hung up.

Tristan had never once hung up on me in all the years I’d known him. I’d lost my damn senses plenty of damn times throughout our friendship, but never enough to wind him up enough to end a call.

Maybe I really was insane. Maybe both Lucian and I were. Maybe we were so blinded by our love for each other that we wanted nothing more than to show that off to the world rather than accept that it might get us killed. I just hoped the gossips wouldn’t find out where we were headed to on the weekend. The last thing I wanted was to be shot dead on the first red carpet we stepped onto.

I headed down to see Francesca after I’d showered and dressed, loving life in a decent pair of jeans that actually fit me. She was all smiles as we sat down to breakfast together, telling me all over again just how good my outfit choices were yesterday.

I saw genuine friendship in her eyes and craved more of that, trusting fate enough to have put a genuine friend in my path in this new world.

She clearly wasn’t expecting me to share my truth with her, not over her breakfast cereal. She nearly spilled the milk she was pouring onto her cornflakes when I looked her right in the eyes and said the words.

“Our families are probably going to try to kill us when they find out we’re here together. I just hope it’s not in the West End on Saturday night.”

She stared over at me for a few seconds before she responded. “Well, yes, I, um…I have heard plenty of stories about the rivalry between the Morellis and the Constantines.”

“Rivalry enough that they would want to wipe us out rather than see us together.”

“But surely they won’t be able to?” she asked me. “Not when you’re publicly declared as together and the whole world knows about it. Wouldn’t that point all the fingers directly at them?”

“I don’t know. I just know they’re going to try. Once we’re established in public and everyone is getting used to it, then maybe they won’t risk it, not without people speculating it was them with a grudge, but straight up that won’t mean anything to them. They’ll be too damn angry at being betrayed.”

“That’s what Devon said. He said the first round of revelations in public will be intense. Likely on both sides of the Atlantic. He said that’s why it’s been so important to get Lucian’s signature on so many deals and partnerships and so much set in stone.”

“Did he say he thinks we’ll get ourselves killed?” I dared to ask.

She poised her spoon on the way to her mouth, clearly taken aback. “He, um…he said there might be some…difficulties.”

I held her stare. “He thinks we’ll get ourselves killed, right?”

“He thinks it might be dangerous for a while, but he doesn’t think the West End will be the venue to wipe you out. He thinks the whole world is going to be cheering and flashing cameras and screaming it all over the globe.”

The idea of that still gave me excited tingles. I so much wanted to be in front of flashing cameras along with Lucian. I wanted people to be screaming it all over the globe.

I poured milk over my own cereal, managing a much easier smile as I shifted our chat onto much easier ground.

“So, tell me some more about Songbirds in the Wind,” I said.

She bought into the change of conversation, giving me a much easier smile herself. “It’s most certainly going to be a good one,” she said.

By the time she finished talking, I had no doubt about that.

I only hoped we’d survive it.